- The terrorist attack on an Ivory Coast beach resort, which left at least 16 dead,shows Al Qaeda’s growing focus on West Africa.
- A new documentary chronicles the first time rape was prosecuted as a war crime, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.
- Video: On patrol with those fighting Boko Haram in Cameroon
- Cameroon sentences 89 Boko Haram fighters to death.
- Cattle herders suffer the consequences of the Boko Haram fight after Nigeria shut down the cattle trade in Maiduguri for financing the terror group.
- Benin will deploy troops to the regional task force fighting Boko Haram.
- Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrested 18 pro-democracy activists.
- Long read: Young Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
- The Syrian civil war has been raging for five years, killing more than a quarter of a million people.
- Long read: “No one won or will ever win this revolution turned civil war”
- Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top Islamic State commander and former Chechen militant, reportedly died of injuries sustained in an airstrike.
- Hassan Aboud, another Islamic State commander, has also died of battlefield wounds.
- Secretary of State John Kerry says the Islamic State (or Daesh, as he refers to them) is responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shi’ite Muslims.
- Syrian Kurds declared a de facto federal region in the country’s north.
- Long read: in search of Syria’s pigeon smugglers.
- The Islamic State killed Syrian poet Mohammed Bashir al-Aani and his son.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial force withdrawal/drawdown in Syria, declaring many of the Kremlin’s goals accomplished. The move has “solidified Moscow’s influence not only on the battlefield but also at the negotiating table.”
- Long read: The Islamic State forces captive women to use birth control in order to pursue their brutal practices of sexual slavery.
- A car bomb in Ankara killed 37 people. A Kurdish group claimed responsibility.
- A delegation of Iraqi Kurds are set to visit Moscow in April to discuss weapons supplies.
- Turkey is working to end reliance on foreign drone systems, seeking to cultivate indigenous drone production.
- An American man fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq surrendered to Kurdish soldiers.
- Saudi Arabia says it will scale down its Yemen campaign.
- The death toll from a recent Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni outdoor market rose to 100.
- Hizb-i-Islami agreed to join the Afghan peace process.
- The Pentagon is punishing at least 12 US service members for their roles in the deadly attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz.
- North Korea defiantly launched another missile into the sea.
- At least 7 Abu Sayyaf militants were killed in a battle with Philippine troops.
- Prosecutions for state security and terrorism charges doubled in China in 2015.
- A police raid in Brussels killed a gunman with reported Islamic State links. Belgium is promising further sweeps.
- One of the Paris suicide bombers was buried in Brussels.
- In the past two years, land mines have killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians.
- Human Rights Watch says that rights have deteriorated in Crimea since the annexation two years ago, and that Russia has created “a pervasive climate of fear and repression.”
- Britain will sign a 15-year defense pact with Ukraine, increasing joint exercises, military training and intelligence assistance.
- President Obama will declassify military, intelligence and law enforcement records related to Argentina’s dirty war in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Colombia may miss the peace deal deadline.
- These days there is only one woman on the UN Security Council (US Ambassador Samantha Power).
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.
Die Denkende Nachteule.
