Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.

• Gunmen have taken 170 hostages at the Radisson hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako.
• The Islamic State’s control has strengthened in central Libya and the group is carrying out public executions.
• 32 people were killed in a suicide blast in the northeastern Nigerian city of Yola.
• Sambo Dasuki, security adviser under the previous Nigerian administration, has been arrested and charged with stealing $2 billion from the campaign against Boko Haram by awarding fake contracts for helicopters and fighter jets.
• A Nigerian military court sentenced a general to six months in prison for failing his duties during a battle with Boko Haram in January, one of the worst defeats of their army by the militant group.
• Burkina Faso is debating what to do with the former headquarters of the presidential guard, a notorious site of torture and assassination.
• Russian officials confirmed that the Russian jetliner that crashed in the Sinai, killing all 224 on board, was brought down by an act of terror.
• The attacks in Paris and the downing of the Russian jetliner illustrate a new strategy for the Islamic State, one that looks more globally in the vein of Al Qaeda.
• France has confirmed that the ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in a raid in Saint-Denis. A woman, Abaaoud’s cousin, detonated a suicide vest during that raid –– the AP looks at the history of female suicide bombers.
• One of the suicide bombers who detonated outside the Stade de France had a fake Syrian passport that he used to travel into Europe with refugees. This has already had the effect of stoking fears over the exhausted and war-ravaged refugees arriving in the West.
• Following the attacks in Paris, authorities raided the Molenbeek neighborhood of the Belgian capital of Brussels, a neighborhood with well-known links to radicalization. A decade ago, a young Muslim journalist investigated the neighborhood’s radical roots and found it to be full of extremist literature and recruiters for the fight in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
• A number of the Paris attackers were on US watch lists.
• Russia is using its air war in Syria to debut weapon systems that haven’t previously seen combat, like the Raduga Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile.
• Russia says that 160 Russians fighting with the Islamic State have been killed in Syria.
• Saudi Arabia will host a conference of Syrian opposition in December, with the aim of unifying it.
• The US is selling $1.29 billion worth of smart bombs to Saudi Arabia to replenish its stock, used up over Yemen.
• Of the over 5600 people who have died in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, more than 2500 have been civilians. Not only that, but Riyadh’s airstrikes aredestroying Yemen’s architectural heritage.
• Lebanese authorities have carried out a series of arrests following the attacks in Beirut that killed 44 people.
• In response to the attacks in Paris, France launched a serious assault over the weekend on the Islamic State’s capital in Raqqa, Syria. It is also seekingassistance under the EU treaty.
• The Islamic State has claimed, in its magazine Dabiq, that it executed two hostages: a Norwegian man named Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad and a Chinese man named Fan Jinghui.
• The execution of Fan Jinghui raises further questions about China’s future role in the war on terror.
• The Islamic State is “aggressively pursuing” chemical weapons capabilities.
• Violence continues in Israel and Palestine with attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank. In the past seven weeks, 18 Israelis and 80 Palestinians have been killed.
• Three Americans held captive by Houthis in Yemen have been freed and flown to Oman.
• Paramilitary groups in Iraq are asking for more funding to fight the Islamic State.
• In the devastated Iraqi town of Sinjar, recently liberated from the Islamic State by the Kurds, anger runs deep.
• The Taliban have silenced Radio Roshani, a station that aired programs promoting women’s rights and the rule of law.
• Though US combat operations have ceased in Afghanistan, those deployed and their civilian counterparts still face attacks.
• The Department of Defense knowingly shipped defective gun parts to troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – parts which exploded and wounded the soldiers and Marines using them.
• In Uzbekistan, the government has detained more than 160 people in and around Tashkent since the end of October on suspicion of involvement with the Islamic State.
• Iran arrested cartoonist Hadi Heidari, sending him back to prison to complete the rest of a suspended sentence. Iranian journalist Reyhaneh Tabatabaei has beensentenced to a year in prison for spreading anti-Iran propaganda.
• The U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee criticized an Iranian crackdown on journalists, activists and dissidents in a non-binding resolution.
• China has reportedly killed 28 alleged terrorists suspected of involvement in an attack on a coal mine in Xinjiang province.
• China says it has shown “enormous restraint” in response to US provocations over Beijing’s island-building in the South China Sea.
• European authorities find themselves at a disadvantage in dealing with the Islamic State’s online predations.
• Der Spiegel interviews White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes on the Paris attacks and the possibility of ground troops in Syria.
• The Washington Post rejects the argument that Snowden’s leaks had an impact on intelligence regarding the Paris attack.
• Rapprochement between the West and Russia over Syria and the war on terror isgiving Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe  pause, fearing that Moscow will use its new position to make gains in Ukraine.
• For Colombian rebels, giving up their weapons and demobilizing is a big leap of faith.
• The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), originally established as a temporary agency to deal with the threat of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, is transitioning into a permanent organization, now called the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency. Meanwhile, the threat of IEDs has only grown.
• Some in Congress celebrate the delay in the closure of Guantánamo and push to keep it open permanently.

• Egypt freed investigative journalist Hossam Baghat.
• Investigators are fairly certain a bomb was responsible for downing the Russian passenger jet in the Sinai.
• Egyptian forces say they have killed the Islamic State’s provincial commander in the Sinai.
• Leaked Emirati emails show that the UAE shipped weapons to some groups in Libya over the summer, violating an arms embargo. The information in the leaked emails threatens Libya’s already fragile and fractious peace process.
• In Libya, the Islamic State looks to model on its successes in Iraq and Libya.
• Italian police are investigating more than 30 suspects for trafficking weapons to Somalia and other African countries besieged by conflict.
• Chad has declared a state of emergency in the Lake Chad region after a series of attacks by Boko Haram.
• Boko Haram’s annual budget may be as much as $10 million.
• A Boko Haram raid in Niger and an ensuing clash with security forces have left 25 dead.
• A UN Security Council Resolution condemning killings in Burundi was unanimously approved, threatening the possibility of sanctions.
• As Burundi’s violence threatens to develop into an all-out ethnic, regional conflict, the UN is less equipped to deal with such a situation than it was before the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
• Further sex abuse allegations have arisen against UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.
• A UN peacekeeper was killed in a clash with the Seleka rebel group in the CAR.
• Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state.
• Kenyan troops stationed in Somalia are involved in the smuggling of 150,000 tons of sugar back to Kenya every year.
• 11 Kurdish militants were killed in clashes with Turkish forces near the borders with Syria and Iraq.
• Russia has accused the US of hijacking Syria talks.
• The Pentagon targeted Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State militant more well-known as Jihadi John, in an airstrike. The US reports a “high degree of certainty” that he was killed in those strikes.
• The US has increased its strikes against the Islamic State-controlled oil fields in eastern Syria.
• Syrian government forces broke through a year-long Islamic State siege of Kweyris military airport in northern Aleppo.
• This is the story of John Gallagher, the first Canadian volunteer to die fighting against the Islamic State.
• Footage of the moment a Russian strike hit the Sarmin National Hospital in Idlib.
• Dispatch from Syria: “The police are gone, and militias have flourished, snarling traffic with checkpoints and covering lampposts with pictures of dead fighters.”
• The Free Syrian Army is crippled by desertions.
• Kurdish Peshmerga forces are entering the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar to clear it of Islamic State militants, who seized it 15 months ago.
• The Iraqi army advances on Ramadi.
• Jerusalem’s youth population is caught up in a never-ending loop of retaliatory violence.
• A gunman at a US-backed military training center in Jordan killed five people, including two American contractors.
• A double suicide bombing in south Beirut left 43 people dead. The Islamic State has claimed the attack.
• Saudi Arabia appears “trapped” in its war on the Houthis in Yemen, as rights groups call for full investigations of their actions.
• War is ravaging Taiz, where the roots of Yemen’s protest movement began.
• Gulf military powers are focusing on short-term/immediate needs in their defense procurements.
• John Hamen, one of a pair of American contractors detained by Houthi forces in Yemen, has died.
• Huge demonstrations were held in Kabul to protest the government’s failure to do more against militancy after seven Hazaras, including a young child, were found murdered.
• The Afghan police say that a senior leader within a recent Taliban splinter group has been killed.
• Rival Taliban factions are battling it out in southeastern Afghanistan.
• Murod Juraev, a former opposition member in Uzbek Parliament, was freed after 21 years as a political prisoner.
• Huge protests have brought parts of northern and eastern Sri Lanka to a standstill as many demand the release of more than 200 Tamil political prisoners.
• Meanwhile, the US is looking for a win in its policy towards Sri Lanka now that President Maithripala Sirisena has taken power.
• A new Amnesty International report says rights lawyers in China face routine abuses by law enforcement.
• Four people died in a bombing at a village checkpoint in southern Thailand.
• Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy party won by a landslide in Myanmar’s first free(ish) elections in a quarter century. This will be the first time since 1962 that the country is not led by the military.
• Der Spiegel interviews former Russian opposition chief (and chess champion) Garry Kasparov.
• Over the last year and a half, Ukraine has developed into one of Europe’s largest armies. Despite the expansion of the army and defense budget, the country’s special forces remain poorly trained and under-equipped.
• Eastern Ukraine remains stuck in a state of pseudo-war.
• Russia says the televised leak of the design for a drone submarine that could attack coastlines with nuclear weapons was accidental.
• “At least 51 of my colleagues have been murdered since 2003…” This is what it is like to be an investigative journalist in Honduras.
• Comic strips tell the story of refugees’ journeys.
• The US Army is making long-term plans to replace its current fleet of helicopters.
• Congress is finally holding hearings on the issue of inter-service rivalries.

• President Obama has said there is a possibility that a bomb brought down the Russian passenger jet in Egypt. Meanwhile, Britain has halted flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh as a precaution.
• What does it mean for the war on terror if this was terrorism? What does it meanfor Putin?
• A state of emergency has been declared in the Maldives after a reported assassination attempt on the president. The vice president, accused of orchestrating the attempt, has been impeached.
• A wave of post-election killings continues in Burundi.
• Burundians have until the 7th to turn in their firearms, a strategy for ending the violence that experts cast doubt on.
• Retaliatory violence has kept its grip on the Central African Republic.
• Deutsche Welle interviews Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari.
• The US readies an outpost in Cameroon for the mission to help in the fight against Boko Haram.
• Fear and violence still plague a northern Nigerian town from which Boko Haram was ousted a year ago.
• The UN casts doubt on a unity government in South Sudan, saying the factions are arming themselves and failing to keep to the ceasefire.
• 13 UN contractors kidnapped in South Sudan have been freed.
• The White House says that a Middle East peace deal just cannot be accomplishedin Obama’s remaining time in office.
• Meet Mohammed Sabaneh, a 36-year-old Palestinian cartoonist whom Israelis are accusing of inciting violence.
• Turkey arrested 20 people with alleged ties to the Islamic State.
• Sympathies with the Islamic State are on the rise in the Jordanian city of Maan.
• Saudi Arabia continues to search for victory in Yemen.
• Russian airstrikes are reportedly targeting hospitals in opposition-controlled areas.
• Russia has sent anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria to support its air campaign.
• Senior officers with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have been killed in Syria.
• Amnesty International says the Syrian regime is profiting from forced disappearances, making money on a black market trade of information on missing people.
• New US efforts to equip ground forces in Syria exist in name only.
• A source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons hasindicated that evidence exists that mustard gas was used during fighting between Syrian insurgent groups in the town of Marea in August.
• Two reporters with the Syrian activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently were murdered by the Islamic State.
• Iran’s tensions with Saudi Arabia prove a challenge in peace talks.
• Ahmad Chalabi has died at 71. Chalabi played an influential role in pushing the US to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Aram Roston details his efforts for BuzzFeed. Frontline correspondent Martin Smith chronicles his experiences interviewing Chalabi at various points since the invasion. And here is an older New Yorker piece profiling Chalabi by the excellent Jane Mayer.
• The 36th anniversary of the siege of the American embassy in Iran highlights the tricky political game some Iranian leaders have to play between the hardliners and the new nuclear deal.
• Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of five people convicted on terrorism charges and on charges of spying for Iran.
• Afghan refugees living in Iran are being sent to fight in Syria.
• MSF has released its internal report into the targeting of its Kunduz hospital by US airstrikes, giving the events in graphic detail and reiterating their assertionthat no Taliban fighters were using the facility as a base.
• At the same time as the strikes that targeted the MSF hospital in Kunduz, US strikes also hit a warehouse and a mansion in the area. Though no one was killed in those strikes, the lack of militants nearby raises questions about the quality of intelligence provided by the Afghan security forces.
• The Taliban make gains in the northern provinces.
• The bustle of daily life is shutting down in Kabul as violence and worry grows.
• A breakaway Taliban faction has appointed a new supreme leader.
• Afghanistan is about to acquire four attack helicopters from India, a buy that Pakistan is unlikely to be happy about.
• The watchdog group overseeing Afghan reconstruction says the Pentagon spent $43 million on a gas station that cost $500,000 to build.
• Security is tight in Kashmir ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Modi.
• Fear grows as militants target intellectuals in Bangladesh.
• For those who’ve lived on Ukraine’s front lines, “conflict is still a fact of life.”
• The EU says Russia is not fully abiding by the Minsk deal.
• Ukraine says it will halt the withdrawal of light weaponry from the front lines if rebels do not stop violating the ceasefire agreement.
• Russia sentenced a Daghestani man to 17 years in a penal colony for belonging to the Islamic State – but did he?
• NATO is putting on a huge show of military strength, sending a signal to Russia.
• Refugees in Europe face a new crisis: winter.
• A tragic nightclub fire in Romania has become a turning point, triggering massive and ongoing anti-corruption protests that have led to the resignation of Prime Minister Victor Ponta and his cabinet.
• As Nazi sites crumble in Nuremberg, Germany is faced with a political and cultural dilemma.
• A commission of historians says that over half of West Germany’s post-war Interior Ministry had been Nazi Party members.
• The Bosnian war lives on in the courts.
• Chile acknowledges that famed poet Pablo Neruda may have been killed by Augusto Pinochet after the 1973 coup.
• Five Guantánamo Bay prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, haverefused to be handled by female guards.
• The House of Representatives voted to approve the revised defense bill.

• Nigeria published photos of its 100 most-wanted Boko Haram militants.
• The Nigerian army has rescued 338 people from Boko Haram.
• The African Union has released a horrifying report, accusing both sides in the conflict in South Sudan of murder, rape, mutilation and other terrible crimes against civilians. The commission also rejected President Salva Kiir’s claim of an attempted coup.
• 18 UN peacekeepers were freed in South Sudan, but a dozen UN contractors have yet to be released.
• Starting in 2016, the African Standby Force will be available to intercede either by request or at the decision of the African Union.
• Al-Shabaab is resisting the Islamic State’s push for gains in eastern Africa.
• An Eritrean radio show is guiding refugees through the hardships and complications of surviving the journey and seeking asylum.
• Fear and unrest have not dissipated in the Central African Republic.
• The Malian army says it killed five Islamist militants on the border with Burkina Faso.
• Clashes in Burundi early this week killed over a dozen.
• Tanzania’s ruling party candidate was declared the winner in the presidential election, but the opposition rejects the result.
• Transparency International highlights worries over corruption in Middle Eastern and North African defense sectors.
• Violence in Israel and Palestine continues despite Secretary Kerry’s plan to end it.
• The Palestinian uprising has shifted to the West Bank city of Hebron.
• New negotiations over Syria start today in Vienna. They will involve Iran for the first time.
• The US plans to increase ground raids inside Syria.
• Where does Britain’s aid to Syria go?
• The US will sell “smart” bombing kits to Turkey.
• Turkey fired on US-backed Kurds inside Syria.
• In Syria, militants with Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State are training for urban warfare.
• In Palmyra, the Islamic State tied three captives to ancient Roman columns and destroyed the ruins with explosives.
• The first death of an active duty Russian servicemember in Syria is mysterious: Vadim Kostenko reportedly committed suicide at the Latakia airbase, but his family does not believe the official story.
• At least 20 men from the Dagestani village Novosasitli have gone to Syria to fight.
• Texas Monthly profiles journalist Austin Tice, missing inside Syria since 2012.
• 93 percent of deaths and injuries in Yemen’s ongoing conflict are civilian. A new report details the devastations of explosive weapons in the country.
• A Doctors Without Borders hospital in Yemen was destroyed on Monday by a missile strike.
• Islamists are on the rise in Aden.
• The Islamic State continues its reign of brutality in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. A pseudonymous Iraqi historian inside the city has posted a report online detailing the group’s activity over the past month.
• At least 20 are dead after a missile hit a former air base near Baghdad, currently housing Iranian exiles.
• Iran arrested another Iranian-American, Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman.
• Earthquake aid in Afghanistan is hindered by conflict, even though the Taliban have promised to allow assistance.
• Warlords are gaining power in Afghanistan as the government turns to militias for help.
• The Army Special Forces unit who called in the strike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz knew it was a hospital but thought it was under Taliban control, reports the AP. There are still unanswered questions.
• Spain has fully withdrawn from Afghanistan.
• Almaz-Antey, the manufacturer of the Buk missile launcher, is suing the EU for losses from sanctions following the downing of Flight MH17.
• Russia arrested a Ukrainian library director over “extremist books.”
• Russia is cracking down on militancy with mass arrests of people with suspected extremist links.
• The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has expelled Doctors Without Borders from the region with no explanation.
• Some American military and intelligence officials are expressing concern at the proximity of Russian submarines to undersea cables.
• British citizen Shaker Aamer will be released from Guantánamo Bay after 14 years of incarceration without trial.
• Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz, another Guantánamo inmate, has been transferred to Mauritania.
• Private companies are exploiting the refugee crisis for their own gain.
• Openly gay refugees face added fears, even from their fellow asylum seekers, as they try to make their way to Europe.
• Eleven Colombian soldiers and a police officer were killed in an ambush by the ELN, the country’s second largest leftist guerrilla group after FARC.
• The US will send more ships to sail near the man-made islands constructed by China.
• The Pentagon selected Northrup Grumman to build the Air Force’s next long-range strike bomber.

• Gaddafi’s legacy continues to haunt Libya years after his death.
• Libya’s parliament rejected the UN’s proposal for a unity government.
• For Benghazi’s residents, the 2012 attack that has caused so much political fallout in the US was a benchmark in the city’s slide into chaos.
• Former Guantánamo inmate Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri faces a hearing in Morocco to determine his fate.
• Mali’s jihadist groups are using poached elephant tusks to finance their militancy.
• A pair of bomb blasts this Friday morning during pre-dawn prayers at a mosque in northern Nigeria have killed at least 18 people.
• Nigerian soldiers and some self-defense fighters have claimed they killed 150 Boko Haram militants and rescued 36 captives in an assault earlier this week.
• Eight villagers were killed Thursday in a Boko Haram raid in Cameroon.
• Four were killed in demonstrations in the Republic of Congo after police cracked down on a protest against President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s bid to continue his three decades of power. The opposition leader says forces of the presidential guard are surrounding his house, detaining him.
• The leader of Burkina Faso’s failed coup, General Gilbert Diendéré, has beencharged with crimes against humanity.
• Security forces in Guinea killed three people in the lead-up to elections this month, says Amnesty International.
• Turkey’s politics become more polarized in the wake of the Ankara bombings.
• Digging into the anger and frustrations have led to the latest flare up between Israelis and Palestinians, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said is in danger of “spinning out of control.”
• One of the many issues at stake is the continued evictions of Arab families from Jerusalem.
• The UN is pushing for a resolution to end the violence.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu caused a stir with his claim that a Palestinian mufti pressured Hitler into committing genocide. (Germany has reminded him that they alone bear the culpability for the Holocaust.)
• A top Hamas leader was arrested by Israeli troops in an overnight raid in Ramallah.
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Moscow to meet with Putin.
• Starting this Friday, Russia is holding talks in Vienna with the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Syria.
• Saudi Arabia, already engaged in Yemen, weights its options for countermoves in Syria.
• Iran and its proxy forces are pushing to retake Aleppo on behalf of Assad. 35,000 have been displaced by the Syrian regime’s Aleppo offensive.
• US-backed rebels are itching to move against the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa.
• Footage from a Russian drone shows the extraordinary damage inflicted on the city of Damascus by years of war.
• The US and Russia have signed a deal taking steps to avoid air conflict over Syria.
• A US hostage rescue mission in Iraq freed 70 hostages of the Islamic State. One US servicemember died in the battle, however – the first American combat death in Iraq since 2011.
• Hostilities are increasing between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
• The Gulf-backed forces fighting the Houthi in Yemen have little in common with one another, but are united in their desire to battle the Shi’ite group on increasingly sectarian terms.
• Yemen’s exiled government agreed to peace talks with the Houthi.
• Newly-elected Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has withdrawn Canada’s fighter jets from the air campaign against the Islamic State.
• The Islamic State makes $50 million a month selling crude oil.
• Militias are gaining power in Iraq.
• The Iraqi push to recapture Baiji has met with significant successes.
• Three mass graves were found in Baiji after the city was retaken Tuesday.
• Inside Iran’s Revolutionary courts.
• The Taliban have overrun more districts in Afghanistan. The conflict is especiallytesting Afghanistan’s special forces.
• Kunduz picks up the pieces after the Taliban’s short-lived takeover.
• Better, closer ties between Kabul and Washington have limited the political fallout from the American strike on the hospital in Kunduz.
• With the Iran deal negotiated, the US may turn its attentions to curbing Pakistan’s nuclear growth.
• The US will sell 8 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
• More than 3,000 refugees have drowned crossing the Mediterranean, trying to reach Europe. The task of identifying their bodies is grim and difficult.
• 17 European nations signed a terrorism prevention pact.
• NATO began its largest military exercises in more than a decade, a show of force in the Mediterranean with Russia in mind.
• Armenia’s heightened tensions with Azerbaijan this year have Armeniansrethinking the nature of their security relationship with Russia.
• Russia will station a military unit in the Arctic by 2018.
• Brian Whitmore of RFE/RL says that Russia is establishing a zone of control in post-Soviet states using corruption as a tool of statecraft.
• The International Criminal Court will investigate the possibility of war crimes committed on both sides of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
• Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists have both begun pulling weaponry and equipment back from the front lines in Donetsk.
• Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych is suing Kiev from Russia for violating his human rights “repeatedly.”
• Kosovo moves further toward accession to the EU. It also is moving toward membership in UNESCO – which Serbia is very unhappy about.
• The US and China face a potential showdown over US naval operations in the South China Sea, near seven artificial islands China has constructed to establish its territorial claim.
• Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appearance in front of the House Benghazi Committee lasted 11 whole hours and did not reveal much in the way of new information.
• The UN Security Council is facing criticism for failing to do its job and keep peace.
• President Obama made good on his promise to veto the defense budget.
• My Brother’s Bomber is a three part Frontline series reported by Ken Dornstein – a journalist whose brother died in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

• The Islamic State’s West Africa province publicly touts an attack on a Nigerian army position in Borno.
• A double suicide bombing outside a mosque in Maiduguri, Nigeria, killed more than forty, according to witnesses.
• A string of coordinated suicide attacks in Chad over the weekend killed 36.
• The US will deploy 300 troops to Cameroon to fight Boko Haram.
• The BBC speaks to three former child soldiers released by rebel groups in the Central African Republic this year.
• A group within Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked Tunisian soldiers, killing two.
• Algeria shut down El Watan TV station after it aired an interview with a former Islamist who criticized the president.
• Morocco is cracking down on journalists and activists.
• Scottish prosecutors have identified two Libyan suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
• Kizza Besigye, an opposition leader running for president in Uganda, is underhouse arrest to prevent him from holding illegal rallies.
• Angolan rapper Luaty Beirão detaining in June for “preparing acts pursuant to a coup d’etat,” is on hunger strike and his health is deteriorating.
• In Guinea, Cellou Dalein Diallo – the main electoral rival to incumbent Alpha Condé, has pulled out of the presidential election, alleging mass fraud.
• Violence continues to ramp up in Israel and Palestine and the Security Council has convened a special meeting to address it.
• The war in Yemen has escalated once again after Saudi Arabia targeted Sana’a with airstrikes in retaliation for a Houthi Scud missile launched at an airbase across the border.
• A suicide bombing and gun battle in Hodaida, Yemen, today (Friday) has killed 12.
• The Arab coalition is slowing aid to Yemen.
• Rifts are showing between the Kurdish Democratic Party and their rival, Gorram, threatening internal stability.
• Turkey is expressing its displeasure with the US over continued support for the Kurds.
• Is Turkey planning on using dams as a weapon against Kurds?
• Nearly 100 were killed and hundreds more were injured in twin blasts at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey over the weekend.
• Syrian troops and Russian jets are targeting rebel-held towns north of Homs. In fact, the majority of Russia’s airstrikes occur in coordination with Syrian troop movements on the ground and target groups other than the Islamic State.
• In Syria, US-made TOW missiles battle Russian-made tanks.
  The leader of Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra has called for revenge attacksagainst Russia.
• How Russia’s war in Syria links back to its longstanding one in Chechnya.
• With the help of Shi’a militias, Iraqi forces recaptured most of the Baiji oil refinery.
• Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forces have amassed, according to reports, in northern Syria, poised for a ground offensive.
• IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani was killed in Syria by the Islamic State.
• Iranian media reports that Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian has beenconvicted.
• Iran’s Guardian Council approved the nuclear deal.
• The Hari Rud river, separating Iran and Herat province in Afghanistan, has become a site of conflict after Iranian border guards reportedly opened fire on Afghans attempting to divert water.
• A tank carrying investigators forced its way into the site of the bombed Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz – potentially damaging evidence and definitely unnerving people.
• Foreign Policy has a first look at the images from the hospital attack.
• The Taliban have withdrawn from Kunduz, but overrun the Bala Baluk district of Farah province. The New York Times maps Taliban control in Afghanistan.
• The Taliban are making a tactical shift, increasing their targeting of urban areas.
• Changes have been made to the drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan: the current troop level of 9,800 will be maintained for “most of 2016″ and the US will keep 5,500 troops committed into 2017.
• The Islamic State’s brutality in some areas of Afghanistan is starting to make the Taliban look rather humanitarian in comparison.
• A suicide bombing at a lawmaker’s office in central Pakistan killed 7 people.
• The US seeks to limit Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
• At a summit of the heads of former Soviet republics in Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of a militant incursion in Central Asia.
• VICE News follows up with former Guantánamo detainees resettled in Kazakhstan.
• Abu Sayyaf, a militant group in the Philippines, has released a video showing two Canadian, one Norwegian and a Filipina hostage.
• Myanmar has signed a peace deal with eight armed rebel groups.
• The Islamic State’s influence is felt even in the Asia-Pacific.
• Following an investigation, authorities have concluded that Flight MH-17 was shot down by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system and that the missile was launched from an area mostly controlled by rebels.
• An Afghan refugee was shot and killed by police trying to enter Bulgaria.
• Tear gas keeps making an appearance in Kosovo’s parliament.
• Fifty-five British soldiers are refusing to cooperate with an investigation into Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday massacre.
• Peace seems at hand in Colombia, except in the more rural areas most scarred by the decades of conflict.
• The Intercept obtained a trove of documents about the American targeted killing/drone program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.
• A lawsuit was filed this week against the psychologists who took part in the development of the CIA’s torture techniques – the Guardian reports on the story of one of the three detainees involved in the suit.
• Egypt, Japan, Senegal, Uruguay and Ukraine were elected to the UN Security Council.
• The UN is criticized for not including more women in peace talks.
• Firearms manufacturers compete to sell the Army a new handgun.
• Two weeks ago, the House and Senate veterans affairs committees allowed a provision of the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to expire.
• A third female candidate will graduate from Army Ranger School this week amid a big debate over women who serve in the military.

• The Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning – awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for their “decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.”
• Tunisia’s tourism industry is struggling after this year’s terror attacks.
• A national unity government for Libya has been announced following months of difficult negotiations.
• The Islamic State has taken hold in Sirte, on the Libyan coast.
• 18 people were killed in twin explosions in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The blasts ended a stretch of peace in the city that had extended for more than a year.
• Clashes in Guinea’s capital between opposition supporters and supporters of the ruling party killed one and injured twelve.
• Former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré faced torture victims in court.
• Factional fighting in the Unity State in South Sudan, in violation of a recent peace agreement, killed 52 soldiers and rebels.
• Somalia is unable to pay and feed its soldiers – a situation that threatens the country’s ability to battle Al Shabaab.
• Suicide bombers killed 17 people in Damaturu, northeastern Nigeria on Wednesday.
• Leaked video shows Israeli soldiers disguised as protesters turn on Palestinians and open fire.
• Violence is escalating over the al-Aqsa holy site – several people, Palestinian and Israeli, have been stabbed today in the town of Dimona. Over the past week, four Israelis and seven Palestinians have been killed.
• Palestinians have tired of the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas – hoping for more results than symbolism.
• Lebanese security forces dispersed anti-government protesters with water cannons and tear gas.
• Syrian forces began a ground offensive backed by Russian airstrikes.
• Israel and Russia concluded their first round of deconfliction talks over Syria this week.
• A Q&A on the Russian Kalibr cruise missiles being used in the Syrian conflict.
• Four Russian cruise missiles meant for Syria crashed in Iran, say US officials. Russia denies this.
• Syrian rebels are struggling, now under Russian bombardment.
• Saudi Arabia is increasing its supplies to rebels in response to Russia’s airstrikes.
• Activists report Islamic State advances in large areas of Aleppo province.
• A leaked budget gives insight into Islamic State finances.
• A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander, Hossein Hamdani, has beenkilled in Syria.
• Iran and Hezbollah may risk a quagmire with their involvement in Syria.
• Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman documents where Syrian children sleep.
• The journey for young Syrians through Europe remains arduous and terrifying.
• Yemen’s General People’s Congress party, allied with the Houthi rebels,announced that it has accepted the UN plan to end the conflict.
• The Islamic State carried out attacks against coalition troops and the Yemeni government early this week in Aden.
• Kurds say that blood tests show Islamic State use of mustard gas.
• Iraqi forces recaptured several areas around Ramadi.
• A triple Islamic State car bombing killed 50 people in southern Iraq on Monday.
• Iraqi officials fear a “brain drain” as young Iraqis find work elsewhere.
• On Saturday, American forces bombed a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, killing 10 staff and 12 patients. That death toll may still rise yet – 24 staff and nine patients are still not accounted for.
• The US story over how this error occurred (the MSF hospital’s coordinates had been supplied to the US) has changed repeatedly.
• The organization is calling the incident a war crime – here’s an analysis of the legal issues at play.
• The American war in Afghanistan marked its 14th anniversary this week – it’s the longest war in US history. Business Insider put together a really spectacular photo essay from the end.
• US plans for a drawdown in Afghanistan may be reviewed and American forces kept beyond 2016.
• Pakistan continues efforts to increase exports.
• Suspected rebels killed a top police officer in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
• The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for killing two foreigners in Bangladesh – one Japanese and one Italian.
• Malaysian lawyer Matthias Chang, arrested for his role in attempting to expose corruption in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government, is on hunger strike.Tensions are rising as American vessels are set to sail through a zone around the Spratly Islands, contested territory in the South China Sea that the Chinese claim as theirs.
• A Russian court sentenced a man to 12 years for spying for the Ukrainian border service.
• A top US naval officer warned of a Russian “arc of steel from the Arctic to the Mediterranean.”
• Also… it was Putin’s birthday this week and he spent it in typical style.
• Putin’s birthday coincides with the anniversary of the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, murdered nine years ago this week.
• The ICC says a prosecutor wants to open an investigation into the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
• An AP investigation discovered that at least four cases in the last five years in Moldova, criminal networks with Russian links tried to sell nuclear material to extremists.
• The government is targeting independent journalists in Belarus ahead of the election.
• NATO is expanding in Eastern Europe.
• Romania modernizes its military in the face of possible Russian aggression.
• There were more than 58,000 violent deaths last year in Brazil.
• Declassified US intelligence documents show that a 1976 assassination of a Chilean diplomat in Washington was directly ordered by General Augusto Pinochet.
• The CIA dramatically rearranged its organizational chart.

• A series of coordinated explosions in Maiduguri, Nigeria were suicide bombings committed by five young girls. 14 (including the girls) were killed and 39 injured.
• Were Boko Haram to be defeated in Nigeria, its place in the Islamic State’s international network could mean it sustained elsewhere in Chad and Niger.
• A new age of combat airpower in Africa.
• The Sudanese army continues air raids in South Kordofan.
• The trial against former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré could be a milestonecase.
• The president of the Central African Republic, Catherine Samba-Panza, raced home from the UN summit as reports indicated violence was again on the upswing in CAR ahead of elections.
• Tens of thousands demonstrated in the Congo against President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s attempts to extend his rule.
• The leader of Burkina Faso’s short-lived coup, General Gilbert Diendéré, is inpolice custody.
• Burundi has accused Rwanda of training rebels.
• A Malian citizen and member of Al Qaeda-linked Ansar al Dine militant group has been brought before the International Criminal Court over the destruction of ancient religious monuments in Mali in 2012.
• The Islamic State attacked forces guarding one of Libya’s main oil ports on Thursday.
• France began airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria. On Sunday, at least 30 were reportedly killed in a French strike on an Islamic State training camp in eastern Syria.
• France opened a probe into the Assad regime for crimes against humanity.
• Russia began airstrikes inside Syria this week, and has admitted to targeting other groups than the Islamic State. This is the first time since World War II that the US and Russia are bombing the same country.
• Russia and the US have opened deconfliction talks over Syria.
• Russia is working hard to promote the intervention in Syria back home.
• Iraq, Iran and Russia plan to set up a joint intelligence-sharing hub to fight the Islamic State.
• Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said he is open to Russia conducting airstrikes against militants inside Iraq.
• A Pentagon Inspector General report finds a number of flaws in Operation Inherent Resolve’s Iraq train and assist program.
• Iran has sent reinforcements into Syria to aid both the Syrian government and Hezbollah.
• Interviews with dozens of people who live in the Islamic State’s caliphate show that “the militants have created a brutal, two-tiered society, where daily life is starkly different for the occupiers and the occupied.”
• Meet the Americans who have joined the fight against the Islamic State inside Syria.
• US-backed rebels turned over US equipment to Al Nusrah Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, in exchange for safe passage.
• Most Syrian refugees are too poor to make it to Europe.
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared at the UN that Israel’s failures to meet its obligations under the Oslo Accords mean that Palestine can no longer “be bound by these agreements.”
• Since the end of 2014′s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, about half of Gazan children need treatment for post-traumatic stress.
• Clashes continue this week over the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
• Israel deployed hundreds of troops to the West Bank on Friday after a Palestinian gunman opened fire the day before on a vehicle –– killing two Israeli settlement residents inside.
• A Saudi airstrike on a wedding party in Yemen killed 131 and is one of the single deadliest attacks on civilians yet in the ongoing war.
• Yemeni forces have regained control of the Bab al-Mandab strait.
• Bahrain, alleging that Tehran has smuggled weapons to militants and promoted “subversion,” has recalled its ambassador and expelled the Iranian charge d’affaires.
• The Afghan city of Kunduz was seized by the Taliban this week, but was recaptured a few days later, with the credit going to Afghan special forces. (Here’s a walk backwards through the bloody history of Kunduz.)
• Though they lost it quickly, the Taliban are committed to spinning this as a historic and symbolic victory.
• An American C-130 plane crashed in Afghanistan at around midnight on Thursday, killing 6 soldiers and 5 contractors. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the crash, but the US maintains this was an accident.
• The Pakistani army announced that 25 suspected militants were killed in airstrikes near the Afghan border.
• India rejected a Pakistani proposal of a four point peace plan for Kashmir.
• France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are meeting in Paris today (Oct 2) to work on peace talks to strengthen the almost-calm in Ukraine.
• The “Afgantsy,” veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, are back on the battlefield in Ukraine.
• A weapons withdrawal agreement was reached among Russian, Ukrainian and European delegates this week. Ukraine says it will soon pull small-caliber weapons from the east if the cease-fire continues to hold.
• International monitors with the OSCE say they have spotted the Russian TOS-1 Buratino weapons system, equipped with thermobaric warheads, for the first time.
• The trial of two suspected Russian soldiers detained in eastern Ukraine began in Kiev.
• Thousands protested the government in Montenegro.
• Old anger between Croatia and Serbia rise again amid the refugee crisis.
• The parents of Syrian soldier beheaded by the Islamic State are bringing suit in French court because one of the alleged killers is French citizen Maxime Hauchard.
• The CIA has withdrawn staff from the US Embassy in Beijing over concerns that the April hack of the Office of Personnel Management may expose its agents.
• Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe thinks recent breakthroughs in peace talks undermine the rule of law.
• Canada is thinking about an integrated force with the United States to respond to global hotspots.
• A US judge said that there was insufficient evidence to link Saudi Arabia to 9/11,dismissing the country as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by victims’ families.
• A former Guantánamo inmate filed a compensation claim for 12 years he was held without charge.
• The US House of Representatives passed the 2016 defense bill, but the 496 billion dollar base budget is under threat (or promise) of veto by the White House.

• Civilians are paying the price in Egypt’s war on terror.
• Egypt will be buying the two French Mistral-class amphibious assault ships that were originally constructed in a deal with Russia.
• Egypt is evicting families and razing farmland in Rafah to create a buffer zone with Gaza.
• Al Jazeera journalists Baher Mohammed and Mohammed Fahmy have beenpardoned.
• Younous Chekkouri, a former Guantánamo inmate repatriated to Morocco, wasdetained on his arrival and may face terror charges in his home country.
• Some lessons from Burkina Faso’s seven-day coup.
• At least 5 were killed in a car bomb attack on the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Somalia.
• Kenyan police found weapons stashed inside a shipment of UN vehicles last week.
• The UN mission in Liberia will hand over security responsibility to the government next year.
• The US has pledged $45m in support of African nations battling Boko Haram.
• More than 100 people were killed in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria, in a series of coordinated attacks on Sunday.
• The armed opposition in South Sudan has alleged further ceasefire violations by President Salva Kiir’s forces. Authorities in the country’s Unity state are warningabout violent escalations as well.
• The opposition’s leader, former vice president Riek Machar, will be in New Yorkthis coming week for the UN General Assembly.
• BBC’s Jeremy Bowen reports from a military hospital in Latakia.
• 75 US-trained rebels entered Syria.
• The Syrian government is bombarding the IS-held Palmyra.
• The testimonies of defectors challenge the ideological narrative of the Islamic State, as seen in this report from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College London.
• Ayman al-Zawahiri says the Islamic State caliphate is illegitimate and not based on “prophetic method.”
• The Islamic State generate $25m from kidnapping last year –– here’s a peek inside its “kidnapping machine.”
• The Pentagon has confirmed that French bombmaker and Al Qaeda member David Drugeon was killed in a strike.
• Russian flights, manned and unmanned, have been spotted over the Syrian province of Idlib; Moscow has deployed 28 fighter jets to the country. Russia is also conducting naval drills with a guided missile cruiser in the eastern Mediterranean.
• There were more U.S.-coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq in the past year than against the Taliban in Afghanistan between January 2010 and August 2015.
• A CENTCOM military analyst who criticized the Bush administration over Iraq in 2005 is now part of the group saying intelligence assessments of the fight against the Islamic State were manipulated to be more optimistic.
• The White House “ISIS Czar” is planning on stepping down.
• This is the patch you’ll get for fighting the Islamic State.
• The Washington Post profiles an iconic Beirut kebab house, Barbar’s, that has remained open, even through war, since 1979.
• Israel has eased its open-fire rules on stone throwers, but is imposing a minimum four-year sentence and harsher fines for offenders.
• The war in Yemen has been ongoing for six months now, and does not yet have an end in sight.
• Dutch diplomats are calling for a UN mission to the country to report on human rights violations.
• An Islamic State suicide attack in Sana’a on Thursday killed 25 Eid worshippers.
• President Hadi has returned to Yemen after six months of exile in Saudi Arabia.
• Two of three American hostages detained by rebels in Yemen’s capital have been released.
• A young Shiite man in Saudi Arabia, arrested at 17 in 2012 for taking part in a protest, faces crucifixion and beheading as punishment.
• The Taliban overran a military outpost in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistani border.
• US soldiers were told to ignore Afghan allies’ abuse of young boys.
• The US is reviewing revised drawdown options in Afghanistan.
• Pakistan’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement has drawn up a list of members it says were the victims of extrajudicial killings by paramilitary Rangers in Karachi.
• “Our investigation has laid bare the horrific level of violations and abuses that occurred in Sri Lanka,” said the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.
• A documentary premiered last week in Toronto profiling an all-female UN peacekeeping unit from Bangladesh.
• Armenian activist Smbat Hakobyan was severely beaten after an anti-government protest.
• Armenian police say three civilians have been killed by fire from Azerbaijani forces.
• Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng speaks out after a long silence about his torture.
• The US and China are discussing a cyber arms pact.
• A new Ukrainian military doctrine signed Thursday names Russia as the main military threat.
• The Guardian takes a look at the motivations of foreigners fighting for the separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk against the Ukrainian army.
• UN agencies and NGOs have been ordered out of Luhansk by pro-Russian separatists.
• President Vladimir Putin will be making his first appearance at the UN General Assembly in New York in a decade. President Obama will meet with him.
• A Russian lawmaker who accused the Kremlin of lying has been stripped of his position in local parliament.
• Russia is threatening countermeasures against a longstanding US plan to upgrade tactical nuclear weaponry in Germany.
• The flow of refugees has amped up border tensions between Serbia and Croatia.
• Two Basque separatists were arrested in France after years on the run.
• Yukiya Amano, head of the IAEA, is pushing back at critics who are unhappy that Iran did its own environmental sampling last week.
• Operation Igloo White, an expensive technological failure during the Vietnam War, laid the foundation for modern border surveillance.
• Colombia and the FARC rebels have come to an agreement on transitional justice and reparations. A final deal will be signed by March of 2016.
• Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rahman Shalabi, once considered too dangerous for release, has been repatriated to Saudi Arabia.
• The purchase of the F-35 has become a political issue in the Canadian election.
• Poster advertisements around London aimed to call out the British government for arms deals during last week’s Defence and Security Equipment International’s exhibition at the ExCeL Centre.
• The Pope on the arms trade: “ Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money, money that is drenched in blood — often innocent blood. In the face of the shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”

• A coup in Burkina Faso installed General Gilbert Diendere as head of state. Diendere is friendly with former President Blaise Compaore, who was ousted last October.
• 1.4 million children have fled Boko Haram, says the UN.
• A team of US Special Operations Forces is helping Niger build a wall against Boko Haram.
• The Egyptian cabinet resigned after the agriculture minister’s arrest for bribery.
• Moroccan historian and journalist Maati Monjib is on hunger strike after he was banned from leaving the country and put under investigation for harming Morocco’s image.
• Guantánamo Bay prisoner Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri has been repatriatedto Morocco after 14 years in the prison. He was never charged.
• Mohammed Mediene, the KGB-trained head of Algerian intelligence, wasdismissed over the weekend after 25 years at the helm of the Intelligence and Security Directorate.
• The Democratic Republic of Congo’s leading opposition party broke off talks with President Kabila.
• 17 UN personnel have been accused of sexual abuse in the Central African Republic.
• The South Sudanese government broke the peace deal only a few days after signing it by carrying out a helicopter gunship attack on rebel targets.
• Russia objected to US-proposed sanctions against the rivals fighting in South Sudan.
• Mozambique has declared itself landmine free.
• Palestinians were denied entry to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, an iconic and sacred site contested by some Jewish activists. Clashes ensued.
• As a result of clashes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed harsher measures on stone throwers, widening security forces’ power to respond and making punishments more serious.
• Bloody escalations between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Turkey have erased hard-fought work for peace – pushing the country towards possible civil war.
• The Syrian government carried out airstrikes on the city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s stronghold.
• The New York Times uses data visualization to convey the enormity of the Syriandeath toll.
• A Islamic State militant’s Tumblr rant (yes, his Tumblr rant) about Arabs and Syrians exposes some of the friction between foreign fighters and local supporters.
• Why do Islamic State militants fight?
• What if the Islamic State won?
• McClatchy profiles Abu Omar al Shishani, a Georgian-born Chechen who swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2013 and has been an influential force in legitimizing the group in the Caucasus.
• Russian military build-up in Syria may indicate they are making contingencies for a post-Assad Syria.
• Netanyahu will visit Russia next week for talks regarding Syria.
• Only four or five US-trained Syrian rebels are still fighting.
• BuzzFeed investigates the dubious role of a private company called Purple Shovel in the US mission to train and equip the rebels in Syria.
• A senior al-Qaeda leader has claimed online that French bomb maker David Drugeon was killed in Syria.
• France will start bombing Islamic State targets in Syria in coming weeks.
• The Saudi-led coalition pushes towards Sana’a, although they continue to experience losses.
• Yemen’s PM Khaled Bahah returned to Aden with some of his cabinet after exile in Saudi Arabia.
• The UN human rights chief called for an independent inquiry into violations on both sides in Yemen.
• Two suicide bombings at police checkpoints in Baghdad during rush hour on Thursday killed 21 people. They were claimed by the Islamic State.
• A Shi’ite militant group calling itself “Death Squads” released a video showing 18 Turkish workers kidnapped from Baghdad, and demanded that Turkey prevent Sunni militants from entering Iraq.
• Taliban insurgents stormed a prison south of Kabul, freeing 355 prisoners.
• The UN envoy to Afghanistan says that the leadership dispute within the Talibanwon’t prevent peace talks with Kabul from resuming soon.
• The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says the US is sending an excessive amount of weapons and equipment to Afghan forces.
• The Pakistani Taliban attacked a mosque inside a military compound in Peshawar today (Friday), killing 16 worshippers.
• The Pakistani army says that gunfire from the Indian side killed two civilians.
• Sri Lanka plans to establish a special court to deal with cases of atrocity committed during the civil war.
• Oleg Kashin, a journalist savagely beaten in Moscow in 2010, says he knows who’s responsible.
• Shelling fell silent in eastern Ukraine for the first time in 18 months. The fight against corruption now comes to the fore.
• Ukrainian parliament approved a debt restructuring deal.
• Separatists say the Kremlin is sending signals that it wants to keep the conflict from escalating, at least for right now.
• Some volunteers fighting in eastern Ukraine are now returning to their more posh lives in Moscow.
• Ukrainian artist Sergey Zakharov tells the story of his capture by separatists through a comic.
• A new report links Russia to a seven-year malware campaign that has struck Chechnya, NATO and others.
• A US Air Force general says he’s concerned about Russia’s modernizations and expansions of its air force.
• Pro-defense forces held rallies in Poland to show their readiness to defend their country.
• Germany, its asylum system overwhelmed, moves to pass legislation that will help limit and control the influx of refugees and Croatia closes most of its border with Serbia.
• Hungary has shut its borders with 109 miles of razor wire and is arresting any who try to sneak through. Refugees are now trapped trying to get into Hungary and onwards.
• The deadline for Republicans in Congress to prevent the implementation of the Iran deal has passed.
• Additional sanctions may be enacted if North Korea goes through with a launch.
• A brawl erupted in Japanese parliament over a security bill that could send Japanese troops to fight abroad for the first time since the end of the second World War.