International Crisis Group
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A Geopolitical Deal to Save Syria
In this Crisis Group video, Middle East and North Africa Program Director Joost Hiltermann explains that a genuine geopolitical deal is the best chance of ending the devastating conflict in Syria, where human costs and transnational radicalisation are increasing at an alarming rate.
FULL INTERVIEW (via Crisis Group)
Source: youtube.com
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Statement on a Syrian Policy Framework
On its current trajectory, and with no military or diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, the Syrian war will worsen. Four years into a popular uprising that gradually degenerated into civil strife and regional proxy war, the conflict’s Syrian protagonists – the regime and its loyalist militias versus the broad spectrum of armed rebel factions and the external political opposition – are too fractious, fragile and heavily invested in their current courses to break with the status quo. They are also, as should be clear by now, incapable of military victory in a war rapidly fuelling the growth of a third category of protagonists: Salafi-jihadi groups. The sides’ respective state backers are better positioned to change tack and so affect the course of events, but they are prisoners of their own shortcomings, fears and wishful thinking.
Photo : REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh
Source : Crisis Group
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US Civilians and Veterans Leave Home for Isis Fight with Help from Social Media | Fazel Hawramy & Raya Jalabi
From his muddy outpost on the front line in North Iraq, Grim can see the black flag of the Islamic State snapping in the wind just 500 metres away.
The 52-year-old Boston native – who several months ago found his way to a peshmerga base south of Kirkuk – sits in a crude breeze-block shelter, surrounded by mud and dirt, gunfire crackling in the background.
“We are fighting a scourge,” said Grim, who did not want to disclose his real name. “We are fighting murderers and rapists: people who burn people in cages, people who behead people. This is not a civilised army. They are animals.”
FULL ARTICLE (via The Guardian)
Photo: jan Sefti/ Flickr
Source: The Guardian
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Diplomatie, retenue militaire et patience sont les seuls remèdes pour la Libye | Jean-Marie Guéhenno & Issandr El Amrani
« L’Etat islamique » (EI) médiatise avec beaucoup d’habileté les atrocités qu’il commet, poussant les Etats à réagir dans l’émotion. Après l’Irak et la Syrie, c’est maintenant la Libye qui est concernée. La décapitation de 21 chrétiens égyptiens a conduit l’Egypte à bombarder des camps d’entraînements sur la côte libyenne et à lancer une offensive diplomatique auprès du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies (ONU) pour qu’il autorise des opérations militaires. Les exemples assez peu concluants de l’Irak et de la Syrie –sans même évoquer la campagne de l’OTAN en Libye de 2011 – devraient pourtant faire réfléchir : bombarder ne peut pas tenir lieu de stratégie politique, d’autant qu’en Libye, pays majoritairement sunnite, l’EI ne peut se nourrir des mêmes revendications sectaires qui l’aident en Irak et en Syrie.
FULL COMMENTARY (via Le Monde)Photo: George Henton/Flickr
Source: Le Monde
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Ordering Chaos (ft. Jean-Marie Guehenno, International Crisis Group CEO) | Worlds ApaRT
The conflicts in Syria and Ukraine precipitated a breakdown in the US–centered international order. And with the emergence of a multipolar world, few of the international mechanisms governing power relations between nations have proven effective. How can world leaders tackle the global proliferation of conflicts, and which principles could help ensure a peaceful future? Oksana is joined by Jean-Marie Guehenno, president of the International Crisis Group, to examine these issues.
(Source: youtube.com)
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In Syria, the Enemy of an Enemy is Still an Enemy | Colum Lynch
For U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, the path to a Syrian peace deal ran straight through the Islamic State, or Daesh, the Islamist extremist group seeking to form a caliphate in the heart of the Middle East.
Speaking in a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting last October, the Swedish-Italian diplomat said the rise of the extremist movement — known for sexually enslaving women and beheading Western journalists and aid workers — supplied just the shock needed to focus the attention of the United States and other key powers on Syria. He said it would also threaten the interests of the warring parties inside Syria enough to scare them into possibly embracing peace.
“It took abhorrent acts and images of terror to return the limelight on Syria,” de Mistura told the council, according to a confidential copy of his statement, which was obtained by Foreign Policy. “We need to take advantage of this.”
FULL ARTICLE (via Foreign Policy)
Photo: UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
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The Rise of IS “being helped by Western double standards" | BBC World Service Newsday with Nuala McGovern
Jean-Marie Guéhenno speaks with the BBC World Service about the double standards created by the West in the fight against Islamic State.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno is head of the International Crisis group, and was previously head of UN peacekeeping.
FULL INTERVIEW (BBC World Service)
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Syria battle between al Qaeda and Western-backed group spreads | Oliver Holmes
(Reuters) - Fighting between the Syrian arm of al Qaeda and Western-backed rebels in northern Syria spread from Aleppo province into neighbouring Idlib on Friday, the rebel group and an organisation monitoring the civil war said.
Clashes began on Thursday when the al Qaeda Syria wing, the Nusra Front, seized positions from the Hazzm movement west of Aleppo, threatening one of the few remaining pockets of the non-jihadist insurgency.
A Hazzm official said by telephone clashes had spread to Idlib and that his group had retaken some areas previously controlled by Nusra.
FULL ARTICLE (via Reuters)
Photo: Christiaan Triebert/flickr
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Geopolitical storm clouds barely register on partying markets | Paul Taylor
Geopolitical risk is back with a bang due to conflict in Ukraine, the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and Syria, the politics of anger in Europe and the collapse of oil prices, but partying financial markets have barely registered it, yet.
Before the annual talk-fest of business and political elites began on Wednesday in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, a World Economic Forum survey said the risk of international conflict had now overtaken concerns about the economy, disease or climate change as the biggest threat to business and countries.Ukr
Yet investors drunk on cheap central bank money have driven stock prices in the United States and parts of Europe to near record heights, apparently oblivious to dangers near and far.
FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)
Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
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Syria Calling: Radicalisation in Central Asia
Bishkek/Brussels | 20 Jan 2015
The Islamic State (IS) is attracting Central Asians to Syria and fostering new links among radicals within the region. Unless the five Central Asian governments develop a credible, coordinated counter-action plan, including improved security measures but also social, political and economic reforms, growing radicalism will eventually pose a serious threat to their stability.
The fallout from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq is a major security concern for Central Asian governments. Between 2,000 and 4,000 of their citizens have left for IS-held territory to fight or otherwise support the Islamic State cause. The five – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – crippled by corruption, poor governance and policing, have done little to address a threat as intricate as radical Islam. Instead, they are fuelling further radicalisation by curtailing civil liberties and initiating security crackdowns. The latest International Crisis Group briefing, Syria Calling: Radicalisation in Central Asia, analyses the socio-political context behind growing radicalism in the region and argues that a comprehensive solution requires the states to improve coordination between security services, but as importantly to liberalise religious laws and provide greater outreach and economic opportunity to and for young people, including women.
The briefing’s major findings and recommendations are:
- While fatigue with social, economic and political circumstances is an important linking thread, ideological commitment to jihad is for many the main reason Central Asians are drawn to IS. The growth of radical Islam is exacerbated by poor religious education and multiple grievances against the region’s secular governments.
- Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) members have been active recruiters for IS in the Ferghana Valley and have taken advantage of what in Central Asia is seen as a glamorous association to reinvigorate their own group. The IMU also appears to have acted as a bridge for a wider variety of Central Asian fighters, including Uighurs from western China.
- A program in which European and Asian police share with security services in Central Asia their experience in rehabilitating former radicals, male and female, would be highly desirable. However, the capacities of Central Asian police forces to absorb and implement lessons learned are undermined by weak state structures and distrust of the police.
- Central Asian officials, Russian and Western diplomats and regional experts all expect the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan security services to take a zero-tolerance approach to returning fighters. Islamic State supporters seeking to return to Central Asia and avoid a tough homecoming would likely choose to go to Kyrgyzstan, thus putting it at greater risk.
“It is easier for IS to gain recruits in Central Asia than in nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan”, says Deirdre Tynan, Central Asia Project Director. “Its appeal in the region is rooted in an unfulfilled desire for political and social change. Rich or poor, educated or not, young or mature, male or female – there is no single profile of an Islamic State supporter”.
“Central Asia is fortunate that Syria is relatively distant, no major attacks have yet occurred, and the risks are still in infancy”, says Paul Quinn-Judge, Europe and Central Asia Program Director. “But governments should assess accurately the long-term danger jihadism poses to the region and take proper preventive action now, not brush the danger aside or exaggerate it in a way that will only make the problem worse”.
Photo: AFP/Reuters
