International Crisis Group
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Islamic State offensive raises risk for Libya’s oil sector
The attacks against Libya’s biggest oil terminals were lethal and sustained. The last two weeks have seen suicide bombings, huge fires at storage tanks, and a hole blown in a major pipeline.
The oil ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf had been closed for more than a year, and the Islamic State militants advancing on them backed off after three days of shelling and clashes.
FULL ARTICLE (Via Reuters)
Photo: Wikimedia/Javier Blas
SOURCE: Reuters
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Wave of bombings further tests Iraq’s stability | AP via Washington Post
By Adam Schreck
Lt. Col. Saad Maan Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, insisted that the border move is solely a technical matter and is unrelated to the prevailing tensions in the country. He did not elaborate, but he said the crossing should reopen within 48 hours.
Iraq temporarily shut the same crossing in January, weeks after anti-government demonstrations erupted along the desert highway heading to the checkpoint.
The International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization, recently warned that the standoff between Sunnis and the central government has begun a dangerous slide toward confrontation.
Photo: DVIDSHUB/Flickr
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Al Arabiya | Damascus blasts push Syria ever closer to civil: analysts
The recent escalation of violence in Syria, including twin bombings on Thursday that killed scores, has pushed the country closer to war and could spell an end to a U.N. ceasefire mission, experts say.
“The country is in a civil war vortex, and all this is happening while the international community is not living up to its responsibilities,” said Khattar Abu Diab, professor of international relations at Paris Sud University.
Though the Damascus bombings were the deadliest since an anti-regime uprising began in March last year, analysts said the imminent failure of a U.N.-backed peace plan was already clear.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has failed to implement a six-point plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, said Abu Diab.
“The ceasefire has not been respected, people have not been allowed to protest freely and peacefully, and the political prisoners have not been freed,” said the analyst.
The putative truce technically came into effect on April 12, but hundreds of people on both sides have died since then, and the U.N. and rights groups have accused both the regime and rebels of violating it.
Earlier this week, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon warned the government and opposition that there was only a “brief window” to avoid “a full-scale civil war.”
But with no clear alternative to the peace plan in sight, “we stand before a dead end,” Abu Diab noted
Some say the U.N. mission may have already failed.
“The West is supporting a mission that it doesn’t believe in,” said Peter Harling, an expert on Syria with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, told AFP.