In Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) lost the city of Mosul in July (the country’s second-largest city), and the city of Hawija this week (the militant group’s final urban stronghold in the country. More than 1,000 prisoners determined to be ISIS fighters also surrendered en masse. The group, however, still controls significant territory in neighbouring Syria, including the city of Raqqa, its de facto capital. In Syria this week, a Russian military jet crashed, killing the two crew members on board. “Russia has staged air strikes in Syria in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad since 2015”, and since then 37 Russian servicemen have been reported killed in action. Continue reading
The shooting in Las Vegas which left at least 59 dead – making it the deadliest shooting in modern United States history – may have dominated the headlines, yet the rituals of (terrorist) violence played out in different parts of the world too. A car and a knife terrorist attack in Alberta, Canada left four people injured, while a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” in Marseille, France stabbed two women to death. France remains under a state of emergency (which has been extended six times) after the Paris attacks in November 2015. And in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which also released an audio recording of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said to have been killed in a Russian military airstrike in May this year, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing which killed at least six people. Continue reading
Political turbulence is expected in Germany, Japan, and New Zealand. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel might have secured a fourth term in power, but the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) will enter parliament as the first far-right party in more than 50 years. Still, “all roads lead to [Chancellor] Merkel”, and in the move from electoral rhetoric to the parliament, the AfD has to find parliamentarians “who can master detailed briefs inside parliamentary committees”. In New Zealand too, the winner of the country’s general election – Prime Minister Bill English (whose predecessor resigned in December last year) and his centre-right governing party – did not capture a parliamentary majority, “meaning it will have to assemble a coalition if it wants to extend its nine-year hold on power”. And in Japan, in a bid to seek “a fresh mandate to overcome ‘a national crisis’ amid rising threats from North Korea” and to shore up his government’s fluctuating approval ratings, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a snap election. Continue reading
