African leaders made plain their disappointment and concern over Sudan’s handling of the conflict in its western Darfur region by rejecting the central African country’s bid to lead the African Union during an annual summit this week that also saw a first effort at African mediation by new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Prosperous and stable Ghana instead assumed the mantle of the 53-member pan-African grouping at the meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, amid warnings from Sudanese rebels that they would attack an under-equipped AU peacekeeping force operating in Darfur should Sudan be tapped to succeed the Congo […]

A fierce ideological battle that appears to favor a radical Islamic constituency may hold the key to the future of a little-known but restive region in south Russia. The religious topography of the North Caucasus can no longer be reduced to a simple theological contest between Sufi traditionalists and Islamists. Increasingly, ideological schisms are emerging within the Islamist constituency itself, which Moscow rather ambiguously labels the “Wahhabi” community. The infighting revolves around differences in thinking between moderate reformers and radicals, a rivalry that, while long-prevalent in nearby Chechnya, has now become especially apparent in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, another patch […]

SIEM REP, Cambodia — Twelve-year-old Van Nak remembers like it was yesterday the force of the blast that took his right arm and his father. “It hit me here,” he says tapping his chest with his only hand, “and knocked me over.” Van was just 6 years old when he accidentally triggered a landmine near the Thai-Cambodian border while planting rice with his now deceased dad, one of the tens of thousands of victims of subterranean explosives that litter the countryside. According to the government-run Cambodian Mine Action Center, anywhere between four and six million mines and pieces of unexploded […]

What exactly is the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, doing in Iraq? Although the public has had occasion to be aware of the BND presence, up until now most will have been led to believe that the BND has been “quietly” cooperating with American and coalition authorities. Even more skeptical observers will have assumed that it is at least not cooperating with America’s enemies in the country. But a photograph published earlier this month in the German weekly Stern provides disturbing evidence that it is doing precisely that. (See here on the Stern website.) The photo depicts a middle-aged […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Six months of peace talks to end more than two decades of conflict in northern Uganda have been virtually for naught, and their progress is now being held up by a simple question of geography. Bellicose rhetoric from Sudan President Omar al-Bashir that the Lord’s Resistance Army would be expelled from the south of his own embattled nation “by the end of this month” has emboldened the shadowy rebellion to demand a new host — and mediator — for negotiations to end the war that has made night travellers of tens of thousands of children and displaced […]

Take a seat at one of the many waterfront restaurants bordering the Sea of Galilee in the Israeli city of Tiberias and nature immediately gives you a lesson in history, geography and military strategy. The lapping waters of Lake Kinneret, as it is known in Hebrew, shimmer placidly at your side, evoking images of biblical history. But what really grabs your eye is the soaring terrain rising ominously on the other side of the water, the Golan Heights. The land rises sharply from the eastern side of the lake. Sitting in the Golan’s shadow, there remains little doubt that control […]

With most of Congress in an uproar over new White House plan for the war in Iraq, one could be forgiven for thinking that the new strategy is diametrically opposed to last month’s report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. To be sure, the harsh tone towards Iran and Syria was not something that James Baker and Lee Hamilton recommended, but in several respects the ISG and the White House are actually singing in tune. First, sending reinforcements to Baghdad was not opposed by the Iraq Study Group. The ISG report clearly states that it could “support a short-term redeployment […]

Is Somalia Doomed to Repeat History?

“Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN.” –Sgt. Matt Eversmann in “Blackhawk Down.” Pity the poor Somalis, or the millions of them that have not yet found sanctuary in Europe, Canada or the United States. Recent events seem to have sucked them back into the cycle of violence and destruction that ruined the country in the 1990s, and made Somalia the poster-child for the concept of the failed state […]

Where are the Palestinians Heading?

Palestinian leaders preparing for a joint meeting with their Israeli counterparts and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a bid to move the stalled peace process forward, are having trouble keeping their own internal struggles in check as the situation in the territories spins rapidly out of control. If the Palestinians cannot present a united front ahead of the meeting set to take place within the next several weeks, they risk further delays in the of the hoped-for establishment of a Palestinian state and continued ills for their troubled population. Dozens of people have been killed and more than […]

TEHRAN, Iran — It wasn’t the news of the raid by the U.S. Army against the Iranian interests section in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil that set off the alarm bells. Nor the announcement by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “twice in the past two or three weeks . . . we’ve captured Iranians,” followed by former Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk threatening “serious consequences” as a result of Bush’s new strategy of escalation against Iran. The announcement that a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, would be moving […]

U.S. Involvement in Somali Conflict Remains Limited

So far, U.S. forces in the East Africa have limited air strikes in Somalia — the alleged home of several high-ranking al-Qaida suspects — to one aerial assault earlier this month that killed dozens, none of which were high-profile targets, a Pentagon spokesman told World Politics Review. “That was the only air strike conducted there,” said the spokesman, refuting reports that U.S. forces have conducted follow-up attacks since the Jan. 8 strafing that left dozens dead. The U.S. military has said all those killed were Islamist fighters, though Somali witnesses on the ground reported some civilians killed. The Pentagon spokesman […]

Why Israel May Believe It Must Take Unilateral Action on Iran

Last week’s London Sunday Times exposé “Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran” has set the media buzzing. Given the probable source for the thrust of the article — the senior Israeli military — this is not surprising. But what underlies the furor is the disconcerting reality and approaching menace of the first “in anger” nuclear strike since 1945. The Sunday Times article itself was almost a re-run of the paper’s March 13, 2005, “Revealed: Israel Plans Strike on Iranian Nuclear Plant.” (URL for link) Both were written by the same journalist, but with one notable difference: the latter suggested […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — For the cool price of $555, Lan Kosal will escort a client to a remote location in the Cambodian countryside to blow up a cow with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a grizzly form of entertainment popular among some backpackers visiting this poor Southeast Asian nation. The use of the Soviet-era launcher and its artillery is the relatively inexpensive part of the package, said Lan. “The real cost is the cow. You have to buy it before we let you kill it,” he explained matter-of-factly. Many tourists, he noted, aren’t interested in firing bazookas at bovines or […]

Our destination is on a high plain some 120 kilometers south of Kabul: a barren area that the native population calls simply “Dasht”: desert. About ten minutes earlier we turned off the main road and now we are advancing with difficulty over sand and gravel. It is a bright, beautiful day. The sunlight is like mica glistening out of a steely blue sky. The car must be somewhere out in front of us: a white Toyota Corolla that is supposed to take us to our scheduled meeting. Our investigations are almost completed. We have been waiting for days for this […]

‘Osama bin Laden Captured,’ and Other Headlines Not Seen in 2006

“Osama bin Laden Captured” is a headline that wasn’t written in 2006: the same with “Zawahiri Caught,” a reference to al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. A year is the sum total of its failures, as well as its successes; and before going too far into January, it might be sobering to take a quick backward glance at what didn’t happen last year. Iraq, of course, offers dozens of unfulfilled hopes and expectations. The Bush administration likes to boast of its role in bringing free elections to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. But free elections, it turns out, don’t guarantee democracy. To get […]

TEHRAN, Iran — A bravura performance by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at his own hanging has transformed him into a martyr in the eyes of secular and religious Sunni Muslim nationalists throughout the Arab World and may have sharpened Sunni-Shiite tensions beyond the point of no return. Defiant to the end, Saddam stood with a noose around his neck and expended his last words condemning America and Iran. It was a skillful manipulation of many Arabs’ fears that — with Arab nationalist strongman Saddam gone — a resurgent Iran will dislodge traditional regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Right up to the very end, the farm community near the town of Massoudiyye in northern Lebanon was untouched by this summer’s Israeli invasion. Its Lebanese farmers and their migrant Syrian workers, ironically, had even briefly benefited — demand for their produce increased as supply in the south waned under Israeli air attacks. Then, two days before the Aug. 14 ceasefire, an Israeli jet aimed a bomb at one of the community’s small road bridges — and missed. Residents came outside to see what had happened. That’s when the Israeli jet dropped a second bomb, killing 11 […]

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