War & Conflict Archive

State security forces in Burkina Faso summarily executed 31 unarmed people in the northern town of Djibo earlier this month, just hours after they were taken into custody, according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch. It described the killings as a “brutal mockery of a counterterrorism operation that may amount to a war crime.” The victims were suspected of collaborating with jihadist groups that have been operating in the area. Shocking as the massacre may be, it is by no means an anomaly in northern Burkina Faso and the neighboring region of central Mali, which have become epicenters […]

The first victim in March was Julio Gutierrez Aviles, the president of a local community action group in Campoalegre, a small town in the rural, mountainous department of Huila in western Colombia. Gutierrez had taken part in recent protests to support Huila’s farmers, trying to make a difference in a region that has long been seen as strategic by various armed groups in Colombia. According to local news, he was on his way home when he was attacked by a group of men, who shot him without saying a word and then left his body on the road. In the […]

United Nations-led efforts to forge a global cease-fire are gaining momentum, as dozens of parties to conflicts around the world have joined Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call to lay down their arms amid the coronavirus pandemic. The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote soon on a resolution codifying the global cease-fire, although disputes among the U.S., China and Russia—all veto-wielding permanent members of the council—could still impede the process. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, long-time U.N. watcher and WPR contributor Richard Gowan joins Elliot Waldman for a conversation about conflict resolution and peacemaking efforts amid the pandemic. Gowan […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Steven Metz is filling in for Candace Rondeaux this week. On April 15, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to make his annual visit to Kumsusan Palace in Pyongyang to celebrate the birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who is interred there. In North Korea’s dynastic cult of personality, it was a shocking break from tradition, and sparked reports that Kim had undergone major heart surgery and might even be near death. The secretiveness of the North Korean regime always makes it difficult to know exactly what is going on inside the country or […]

In early March, Thai government negotiators convened in Kuala Lumpur for a second round of direct talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, a secretive separatist group that is thought to control the vast majority of rebels operating in Thailand’s restive “deep south.” Until an earlier round of talks in January, the BRN had been excluded from dialogue with the government in Bangkok, which was controlled from 2014 until last summer by a military junta. Now, a nominally democratic government led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former army chief, is cautiously reviving a long-stalled peace process. The Thai […]

Somalia's semiautonomous Jubbaland region has become a proxy battleground in a Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute that is rooted in a disagreement over which direction the border between the two countries extends into the Indian Ocean. A 62,000-square-mile triangle of the Indian Ocean is driving a wedge in the Horn of Africa. For years, Kenya and Somalia have been at odds over the pie-shaped slice of the sea, to which each lays a claim and which is believed to contain sizable oil and gas deposits. But tensions between the two have been rising in recent months and are magnifying a standoff between […]

With the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crash dominating the headlines, the civil war in Syria has faded into media obscurity. But there is more bad news there that warrants the world’s attention. Turkey is engaged in a military campaign in Syria’s northwestern ldlib province that risks a conflict with Russia, protects radical Islamist rebels and prolongs the civil war, all at the expense of the civilians Turkey claims to protect. Meanwhile, the limited cease-fire deal that Ankara recently negotiated with Moscow only delays further bloodshed. Washington, which provides military aid to Turkey both bilaterally and through NATO, should […]