International Crisis Group
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How likely is international military intervention in Libya?
After Iraq and Syria, will international military intervention against the Islamic State group now take place in conflict-ridden Libya as well?
Western powers including the United States, Britain and France are openly considering such a move, but appear reluctant to act without a government of national unity in place.
FULL ARTICLE (Via Yahoo News)
Photo: AFP/Abdullah Doma
SOURCE: AFP
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Aller en Centrafrique, pour quoi faire ? | Thierry Vircoulon et Thibaud Lesueur
La République centrafricaine (RCA) est souvent qualifiée de pays oublié, mais c’est loin d’être le cas. Elle a en effet bénéficié pendant longtemps de la présence et de l’attention soutenue de la communauté internationale, mais ces efforts ont été inutiles. Alors que l’ONU vient de donner son feu vert à une intervention militaire française pour mettre fin au chaos et qu’une réunion spéciale sur la Centrafrique est organisé avec le Secrétaire général des Nations unies en marge du sommet Afrique-France à Paris, un partenariat international et régional différent est plus nécessaire que jamais.
La France a toujours eu des troupes en RCA depuis l’indépendance en 1960. Lorsque la crise actuelle a éclaté, 400 militaires français ont été déployés à l’aéroport. L’Union européenne, qui a une délégation à Bangui, est le principal bailleur de fonds depuis dix ans. En 2011, des conseillers militaires américains sont arrivés sur le territoire pour aider l’armée ougandaise à arrêter Joseph Kony, le chef de l’Armée de résistance du Seigneur, recherché par la Cour pénale internationale pour crimes de guerre et soupçonné de se cacher en RCA.
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Photo: EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection/Flickr
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Syrie: L'International Crisis Group s'oppose fortement à toute intervention militaire | Ismail Beji
Alors que la possibilité de frappes militaires contre le régime syrien se fait de plus en plus précise, le célèbre think tank International crisis group s’est exprimé sur la question.
A travers un communiqué publié dimanche 1er septembre 2013, le groupe de réflexion rappelle les conséquences probables d’une telle opération. Des frappes militaires en Syrie seraient, selon eux, diamétralement opposées aux intérêts du peuple syrien dont le bien-être ne pourra être assuré que par l'instauration d’un cessez-le-feu et une transition politique faisant consensus.
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Photo: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Flickr
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Mali: No Quick Fixes for a Complex Crisis | allAfrica
By Gilles Yabi
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has agreed on a revised concept of operations for the deployment of an international military force of 3,300 soldiers to help the Malian state wrest control of the northern part of the country from Islamist fighters.
This step, taken on November 11 following a collective effort by regional and international partners, is welcome. But military intervention alone cannot solve the country’s deep crisis.
The situation in Mali is desperately fractious. A military coup toppled the government in March, while separatists and al-Qaeda-linked fundamentalists took over the northern half of the country. Mali is now divided geographically, politically, militarily and religiously.
Photo: Magharebia/Flickr
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Intervention in Eastern Congo a Rising Priority for Activists | AlertNet
Carey L. Biron
As the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate in the wake of an armed rebellion that began in April, some activists have strengthened calls for foreign military intervention.
Photo: davehighbury
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CSM: Hostage rescue - Will US intervene more in Somalia?
Scott Baldauf
Now that the US Navy Seals have successfully rescued two hostages – an American and a Dane – from Somali criminal gangs, will the US military begin to increase its presence in the ongoing Somali civil war?
Not likely.
For starters, the US has largely delegated regional security to others. The fight to control Somalia, led by a shaky transitional Somali government and supported by an African Union peacekeeping force, as well as Kenyan and Ethiopian military forces, is primarily an East African affair. In this fight against the radical Al Shabab Islamist militia, the US military plays only a sporadic and peripheral role. Even in the ongoing foreign naval patrols aimed at controlling Somali piracies in the Indian Ocean, the US Navy is just one of many participants in an operation under European Union naval command.
Yet President Obama praised the Special Operations Forces (members of the famed Navy Seal Team 6), and said that commando operations sent a strong message to kidnappers like Somali pirates.
“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” Mr. Obama said. “This is yet another message to the world that then United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.”
But even as a tool to combat kidnapping in Somalia, the military option has its drawbacks. While it has proven effective in some individual cases, going in with guns has tended to increase the militancy of the Somali pirates and kidnap gangs, and merely displaced rather than dispersed them.
“The rise in kidnapping on land in Somalia is in part due to the fact that the operations against piracy on the sea have increased,” says E.J. Hogendoorn, director of the Horn of Africa program for the International Crisis Group. “The pirate gangs are not trying to take the ships, they are kidnapping the crews and holding them for ransom from the shipping companies, much as the gangs are now kidnapping foreigners on land and holding them for ransom.”