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Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Russia Accuses UK of Sabotage Plans With US In ‘NATO Lake'
Russia has accused the U.K. of working with Ukraine in a plan to stage provocations involving a U.S. ship in the Baltic Sea. In a statement on Monday, Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR) said it knew of a plot to escalate the conflict in Ukraine with an operation in what is termed a "NATO Lake" due to its location surrounded by alliance members. The statement provided no evidence for its claims and Moscow is often accused of pushing misinformation as a cover for its own activities. It comes as Nichita Gurcov, senior analyst for Europe & Central Asia with ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) told Newsweek suspected Russian destabilization activities appear to be picking up again across Europe following a lull earlier in 2025. Newsweek has contacted the UK Foreign Office, the Ukrainian foreign ministry and the Pentagon for comment. The Baltic Sea has been dubbed the "NATO Lake" following the accession to the alliance of Sweden and Finland. Countries surrounding the body of water have accused Moscow of increasing sabotage acts in the region, and the warning by Russian intelligence could prompt concerns about further acts of aggression. The statement by Russian intelligence on Monday said the government of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky intends to increase sabotage and terrorist activity against Russia to reverse problems faced by Kyiv's forces on the battlefield and counter war fatigue among the Ukrainian population. The statement said coordinated operations by Kyiv and its allies were behind attacks on railways in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions, as well as Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian airfields on June 1, dubbed Operation Spiderweb. Kyiv's upcoming plans, according to Russian intelligence, are to escalate the Ukrainian conflict, disrupt Russian-American negotiations and convince the White House of further military assistance to Kyiv. The SVR also said that the Security Service of Ukraine and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense had been tasked with European special services "to intensify the preparation of a series of new bloody provocations." One proposed scenario would involve a Ukrainian-led plan to stage an alleged Russian torpedo attack on an unnamed U.S. Navy ship, which would explode at a "safe distance" and be blamed on Moscow. Another scenario would be a plan by Ukraine and the U.K. to work with unspecified northern European countries to find Russian-made anchor mines in the Baltic Sea, which they could blame Moscow for trying to sabotage international sea routes. The SVR statement gave no evidence for its claims, but it may raise concerns about Moscow's own intentions in the region. Ilja Iljin, a deputy commander of Finland's coast guard, told Politico in April the Baltic Sea has registered at least six suspected sabotage incidents since 2022, with 11 known undersea cables taken out since 2023 and tankers linked to Moscow accused of involvement. Meanwhile, Gurcov from ACLED told Newsweek Russian attempts at destabilization and targeting of countries supporting Ukraine had dropped earlier in 2025, possibly connected to Russian testing of the U.S.'s diplomatic pressure on Ukraine and its allies. But following this lull, there has been an increase in suspected Russian destabilization activities across Europe, which include incidents in the Baltic Sea. They also comprise arson and foiled sabotage plots. Armed Conflict Location & Event Data ACLED told Newsweek it recorded "at least seven incidents in May, including arson and foiled sabotage plots, in addition to increased tensions in the Baltic Sea." ACLED's analyst Nichita Gurcov said "as Ukrainian drones continue to strike deep into Russian territory, this increase in events is very likely to continue." Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR): "(Kyiv) has become the perfect executor of vile provocations and terrorist attacks on behalf of 'perfidious Albion and happily do its dirty work." The Baltic Sea region is likely to remain on high alert for sabotage after a string of outages of power cables, gas pipelines, and telecoms. Gurcov said that an increase in Russian sabotage events in Europe "is very likely to continue," following what appears to be a loss of interest by the U.S. in negotiating an end to the war and as Ukrainian drones continue to strike into Russian territory. Related Articles Ukraine Delegates Storm Out Over Speech by Alexei Navalny's DaughterIsrael's Attack on Iran Sends Oil Prices Soaring in Boost for PutinRussia Feigns at Peace. Congress Must Sanction Putin's War Machine | OpinionMap Shows Ukraine's Crippling Strikes on Russia's Microchip Plants 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Express Tribune
5 days ago
- Politics
- Express Tribune
The rise of Islamic extremism across the world
Listen to article Islamic extremists and their organisations have now turned their attention towards the parts of Africa where there are large Muslim populations but weak governments. The Islamists are now working through a new set of organisations. Asia is no longer their focus. After several years spent building its strength, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is now the strongest military force in West Africa and among the most powerful in the world. It has overtaken al-Qaeda. The JNIM was founded in Mali in 2017 as an umbrella organisation assembling four extremist groups. It is headed by Iyad Ag Gali and Ahmad Koufa, leaders of the 2012 uprising that came to be known as the "Arab Spring". Their organisation took over much of Mali's north. JNIM is "creating a state that stretches like a belt from western Mali all the way to the borderlands of Benin. It is substantial — even exponential expansion," said Heni Nsaibia, senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event or Data or ACLED, a non-profit research organisation that keeps of track of the militant organisations. Ag Gali belongs to the mostly Muslim Tuareg which has fought for decades to establish an independent Muslim state in northern Mali. Koufa is a Fulani preacher based in northern Mali. The differences between the two men have caused considerable uncertainty about the way Mali is likely to evolve. According to ACLED, in most African countries the security situation has deteriorated. In 2024, Burkina Faso ranked as the nation most affected by terrorist violence for a second straight year, and Niger saw the largest increase in terrorism-related deaths in the world. Increasingly, experts see JNIM's informant and supply chains stretching into stable nations such as Ghana, Senegal and Guinea. Several people who spoke to the journalists who were gathering material for an analysis for The Washington Post recounted how gun-toting JNIM members burst into mosques in Burkina Faso in recent years, announcing that strict Islamic laws would be implemented, schools would be closed and state institutions would be targeted. Violating the rules would carry a heavy price, probably public execution. According to ACLED, nearly 6,000 civilians have been killed, mostly for not following the rules being imposed by JNIM. There are real-time contacts between the Islamic groups operating in various parts of the world. The JNIM programme echoes the one being followed by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Somalia, a highly disturbed county in the horn of Africa, has also suffered because of the changing global approach by the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Because of the pullout of America from the area, al-Shabab, one of the affiliates of al-Qaeda, has taken control of important towns from Somali forces since the beginning of 2025. The new administration in Washington does not believe that this group poses a direct threat to the US forces. But according to Matt Bryden, founder of Sahan, a Nairobi-based think-tank, the gaining strength of al-Shabab "would have far-reaching implications for US policy in Africa and much of the Middle East". The sudden breakup of the Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, in 1991, was the result of the defeat of its troops to save from collapse the Communist regime Moscow had installed in Kabul. Moscow was defeated be seven Islamic groups that called themselves the mujahideen who were able to march from the Pak-Afghan border to Kabul. They did this with the help of the security services of Pakistan. Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Geneva agreement, with Pakistan included as one of the signatories, which assured a peaceful exit of the Soviet troops in 1989. The countries along the periphery of the collapsed Soviet Union gained independence. Among those that became independent states were the Muslim states of Central Asia. There were attempts by some elements in these countries to bring Islam into the pattern of governance. These developments were analysed by Barnett R Rubin, noted American authority on the Middle East, who has studied the threat of radical Islam to stability in the Middle East and Central Asia. In a presentation organised by the Asia Society's Asian Social Issues, he focused on local developments in the republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and how they might affect the spread of radical Islam in the area. According to Rubin, the JNIM leadership is watching the developments in Syria. Corrine Dufka, another Middle East watcher, based in Washington, believes there is a model for mainstreaming the trajectory of Islamic movements. Some of JNIM senior leaders are looking at Ahmed al-Sharra — Syrian leader who has recast himself as a moderate after once being closely associated with al-Qaeda. He was embraced by the Americans when, during the recent visit to the Middle East, President Trump found him to be an attractive person to lead Syria. The way the United States left Afghanistan after having been present in that country for 20 years has followed the same approach in West Africa and the Middle East. According to the Defense Department in Washington, there are now fewer than 200 United States troops in the area — down from 1,400 as recently as 2023. "JNIM is now ascendant, but would likely collapse into many parts," one former senior official said to me in a conversation, aware that I was writing on the development of Islamic radicalism around the world. "In a region where we used to monitor and influence developments, we no longer have the tools that follow those policies." According to the official I spoke to, "we are concerned about President Hassan Sheikh Mohammad's prioritization of internal politics and leaving the ground to al-Shabab, the most lethal associate of the once-powerful Al-Qaeda which has pushed the government forces out of several towns in the country's west." Somalia's fractious government which operates from Mogadishu, the country's capital, was propped up by the United States aided by an extensive African Union peace-keeping operation. The AU also had the help of the United States, receiving both training and equipment from Washington. With the Americans no longer closely involved, there is opportunity to act on the part of other regional powers. The obvious candidates are Iran, Turkey and possibly Pakistan. If Pakistan were to be involved, it would do so with the backing of China. This is a subject on which I will write later.
Washington Post
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump travel ban targets nations mired in civil wars or armed conflicts
When President Donald Trump announced his new and expanded travel ban this week, the list of countries facing restrictions exhibited few obvious through lines. A closer look, though, reveals that many of the countries are united by a harsh recent history of civil war or armed conflict. Of the 12 countries from which travel is fully restricted, three are embroiled in bloody civil wars: Yemen, Myanmar and Sudan. Myanmar is considered among the most extreme conflicts in the world because of the number of armed groups involved in the civil war there, ranking behind only Gaza and the West Bank in an assessment by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit analysis and crisis-mapping project. The country's military has faced an intense internal conflict since forcibly seizing power in 2021 and only controls about 21 percent of the country, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. ACLED lists Sudan as the eighth-most extreme conflict zone amid a ruinous civil war between the country's army and a rival paramilitary force. The fighting has led to more than 150,000 fatalities and a mass humanitarian crisis that numbers among the worst in the world. Yemen, considered by ACLED to have high but not extreme levels of conflict, has been threatened by the presence of Houthi militants. The Trump administration re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in early March. These conflicts and others around the world have prompted mass migration from the violence and into neighboring countries or places deemed to be more stable — sometimes prompting political backlash aimed at refugees. In some cases, migrants don't have homes to return to or cannot return because of instability or the presence of a hostile regime. Many of the remaining countries on the total-ban list — Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya and Somalia — are also undergoing conflicts of varying degrees of intensity. In Haiti, the government is struggling to regain authority after gangs seized vast control of its capital, Port-au-Prince. Ten percent of the Haitian population has been displaced as a result of gang violence. Neighboring Dominican Republic implemented a plan in 2024 for mass deportations of Haitians back across the border. Haiti's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement Thursday that it was working to find a swift solution to the ban, given the consequences on Haitian families living inside and outside the country. 'This decision comes at a moment when the Haitian government is striving, with the help of its international partners, to fight the insecurity and to strengthen border security,' it said. In Somalia, a fractious government emerging from a multi-decade legacy of civil war, is seeking assistance from international partners to fight against al-Shabab insurgents, who are global affiliates of al-Qaeda. The group, which previously led a fatal assault on a U.S. airfield in Kenya, has retaken crucial areas from Somali forces over the past three months. Farther north in Africa, Libya is at risk of political instability over its oil fields, just five years out from a six-year civil war that broke the country in two. In most cases, the White House cited visa overstays as the justification for putting countries on a full travel ban, including Muslim-majority nations such as Iran, Somalia and Yemen. While the overstay rate was high in some instances, the total number of visas issued was relatively small, The Washington Post reported. It was not immediately clear why some countries with higher overstay rates were left off. A handful of countries impacted by the ban — including Cuba, Venezuela and Iran — were tied together by historically adversarial relationships with the United States. Human rights organizations condemned the move, referencing the confusion and turmoil that was suffered under the first Trump administration's travel ban. 'This brings back all the tragic stories … people who were unable to see a dying relative or the birth of a new child and had to attend weddings on Zoom,' Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, a U.S.-based advocacy group, previously told The Post.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Mapping Israel's expanding air attacks across Syria
The Israeli military says it shelled targets in Syria in response to a pair of projectiles that fell in open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday. Since December 10, 2024, just two days after the stunning collapse of more than 53 years of the al-Assad family, Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria's military infrastructure, including major airports, air defence facilities, fighter jets and other strategic infrastructure. Over the past six months, Israeli forces have launched more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging an assault roughly every three to four days, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED). The map below shows the ACLED-recorded Israeli attacks between December 8 and May 30. The bulk of the Israeli attacks have been concentrated in the southern Syrian governorates of Deraa, Damascus and Quneitra, which account for nearly 60 percent of all recorded Israeli attacks. Deraa was the most targeted governorate, with 57 recorded attacks, focusing on former regime military sites and suspected arms convoys. Damascus governorate, which hosts key military highways and logistics hubs, was attacked at least 49 times. Whereas Damascus city, the capital was attacked 18 times. Quneitra, adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, was attacked at least 25 times; many attacks were aimed at radar and surveillance infrastructure. In the immediate aftermath of al-Assad's ouster, Israeli troops advanced into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, including areas within the United Nations-monitored demilitarised zone, violating the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria. The incursion drew widespread international criticism. The UN, along with several Arab nations, condemned Israel's actions as breaches of international law and violations of Syria's sovereignty. Despite these condemnations, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in February that Israeli forces would remain in the area indefinitely to 'protect Israeli citizens' and 'prevent hostile entities from gaining a foothold' near the border. Satellite imagery captured in February and analysed by Al Jazeera's Sanad verification unit showed six military bases were being constructed in the UN-supervised buffer zone on the border with Syria. Since taking power following the overthrow of al-Assad, President Ahmed al-Sharaa has consistently stated that his government seeks no conflict with Israel and will not permit Syria to be used by foreign actors to launch attacks. He has condemned Israel's continuing strikes on Syrian territory and its gradual expansion beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights. While Israel's air attacks on Syria have escalated in recent months, Israel has been attacking targets in Syria for years. ACLED data collected since January 2017 shows how Israeli attacks have been steadily increasing. The animated chart below shows the frequency of Israeli attacks from January 2017 to May 2025.
Kuwait Times
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
Jihadist attacks hit Mozambique
MAPUTO: A series of attacks in northern Mozambique this month point to a resurgence of violence by Islamic State-linked militants as energy giant TotalEnergies prepares to resume a major gas project, analysts say. The group terrorized northern Mozambique for years before brazenly vowing in 2020 to turn the northern gas-rich Cabo Delgado province into a caliphate. TotalEnergies paused a multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas project there in 2021 following a wave of bloody raids that forced more than a million people to flee. The insurgency was pushed to the background by a months-long unrest that followed elections in October. But there has been a new wave of violence. In May, the Islamists attacked two military installations, claiming to kill 11 soldiers in the first and 10 in the second. A security expert confirmed the first attack and put the toll at 17. There was no comment from the Mozambican security forces. Dramatic strikes There were two dramatic strikes earlier — a raid on a wildlife reserve in the neighboring Niassa province late April killed at least two rangers, while an ambush in Cabo Delgado claimed the lives of three Rwandan soldiers. Also unusual was a thwarted attack on a Russian oceanographic vessel in early May that the crew said in a distress message was launched by 'pirates', according to local media. 'Clearly there is a cause and effect because some actions correspond exactly to important announcements in the gas area,' said Fernando Lima, a researcher with the Cabo Ligado conflict observatory which monitors violence in Mozambique, referring to the $4.7 billion funding approved in mid-March by the US Export-Import Bank for the long-delayed gas project. 'The insurgents are seeing more vehicles passing by with white project managers,' said Jean-Marc Balencie of the French-based political and security risk group Attika Analysis. 'There's more visible activity in the region and that's an incentive for attacks'. 'Propaganda effect' Conflict tracker ACLED recorded at least 80 attacks in the first four months of the year. The uptick was partly due to the end of the rainy season which meant roads were once again passable, it said. TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said last Friday that the security situation had 'greatly improved' although there were 'sporadic incidents'. The attack that stalled the TotalEnergies project in 2021 occurred in the port town of Palma and lasted several days, sending thousands fleeing into the forest. ACLED estimated that more than 800 civilians and combatants were killed while independent journalist Alex Perry reported after an investigation that more than 1,400 were dead or missing. Rwandan forces deployed alongside the Mozambique military soon afterwards, their number increasing to around 5,000, based on Rwandan military statements. The concentration of forces in Cabo Delgado 'allows insurgents to easily conduct operations in Niassa province,' said a Mozambican military officer on condition of anonymity. The raid on the tourist wildlife lodge straddling Cabo Delgado and Niassa provinces was for 'propaganda effect', said Lima, as it grabbed more international media attention than hits on local villages that claim the lives of locals. Strikes on civilians, with several cases of decapitation reported, often fall under the radar because of the remoteness of the impoverished region and official silence. 'More than 25,000 people have been displaced in Mozambique within a few weeks,' the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last week. This was in addition to the 1.3 million the UN said in November had been displaced since the conflict began in 2017. 'The renewed intensity of the conflict affects regions previously considered rather stable,' said UNHCR's Mozambique representative Xavier Creach. In Niassa, for example, about 2,085 people fled on foot after an attack on Mbamba village late April where women reported witnessing beheadings. More than 6,000 people have died in the conflict since it erupted, according to Acled. — AFP
