Crisisgroup

Whatever the Assad regime and its opponents may think, no side is heading toward military victory in Syria. On its current trajectory the war will worsen, with the already devastating death toll accompanied by increasing trans-border radicalization and further destruction of the country’s social and urban fabric.

تمشي الأمم المتحدة على حبل رفيع في ليبيا. الشهر الماضي، اتخذ مجلس الأمن قراراّ بإدانة تنظيم الدولة الاسلاميّة – وهو آخر الفاعلين من غير الدولة الذي ظهر في الفوضى الحاليّة. وبسبب هذا التهديد، يزداد الضغط على الأمم المتحدّة للتخفيف من حظر السلاح الدولي المفروض منذ أربع سنوات للسّماح بتوريد السلاح للجيش الوطني الليبي لمحاربة تنظيم الدولة. إلّا أن هذه خطوة ستكون سيئة للغاية؛ حيث من شبه المؤكد أنها ستُفشِل المحادثات الجارية بواسطة الموفد الأممي برناردينيو ليون، والقضاء على أيّ أمل في حل سلميّ، وخلق تربة خصبة لازدهار الجماعات الجهاديّة.

Le forum de Bangui, qui s’ouvre aujourd’hui, est une étape fondamentale de la transition en République centrafricaine (RCA) et suscite des attentes très importantes. Il doit permettre aux participants de débattre des causes profondes de la crise, de forger un consensus national autour des principaux défis auxquels le pays est confronté et, selon les termes de la présidente de la transition, Catherine Samba-Panza, de « dégager une vision pour l’avenir ».

An agreement on the framework for a Joint Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program in early April marked a major step forward. However, mid-month, Colombia’s peace process suffered a serious blow when Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters killed government soldiers in an ambush; and fighting resumed in Ukraine between the military and separatist forces. The announced end of Saudi Arabia’s five-week airstrike campaign in Yemen on 21 April brought few tangible results: missile strikes continued as the humanitarian situation became increasingly dire. Violent protests erupted in Burundi late month ahead of crucial presidential elections in June, and in Chad where popular discontent spilled over into violence. South Sudan and Kashmir saw their worst violence in months, while an earthquake in Nepal on 25 April killed thousands, amid the country’s ongoing political impasse.

La crisis en la Habana dificulta - y sin embargo podría facilitar- las negociaciones con el ELN. Explicación perceptiva de por qué ha sido tan difícil empezar, de los riesgos que están corriendo el ELN y el gobierno, y de cómo podrían salir del atolladero.

The United Nations is walking a tightrope in Libya. Last week, the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the latest non-state actor to emerge in the current chaos. Because of this threat, pressure is mounting on the UN to relax a four-year-old international arms embargo to allow weapons to be delivered to the Libyan military to fight the group.

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.

Guinea’s history of electoral violence may not be over. Tension is building around the presidential poll scheduled for this October and the local elections planned for early next year. The opposition – principally Cellou Dalein Diallo's Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea and Sidya Touré’s Union of Republican Forces – is concerned about possible fraud. Threatened protests should be taken seriously: in 2013, about 100 people died during electoral unrest.

Colombia’s attempt to end five decades of bloodshed could be at risk, after local Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) units appeared to have breached a four-month-old unilateral ceasefire by ambushing a military patrol 14 April, reportedly killing eleven soldiers and wounding another twenty. The deadliest guerrilla action since the peace negotiations began two and a half years ago is not likely to lead to a collapse of the talks, but the parties and the international community must now move quickly to prevent them from unravelling.

La Guinée n’en a peut-être pas fini avec son histoire de violence électorale. La tension monte autour de la date des élections présidentielle (octobre 2015) et communales (premier trimestre 2016). L’opposition se dit préoccupée par les risques de fraude. Comme les incidents survenus lors de sa tentative de manifestation à Conakry, le 13 avril (un mort et de nombreux blessés), l’ont montré, l’opposition est capable de mobiliser. Elle en est capable malgré ou peut-être à cause des lourdes pertes subies lors de la dernière phase de controverse électorale, en 2012-2013, au cours de laquelle plus de 50 personnes, essentiellement des partisans de l’opposition, avaient trouvé la mort. Le pays doit échapper à la spirale entre répression et mobilisation.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is implementing its strategy of atrocities with gruesome skill. After Iraq and Syria, the group is using Libya to force outside states to react on the basis of emotions, not strategic thinking. The beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians persuaded Egypt to bomb militant camps on Libya’s coast and to launch a diplomatic offensive at the U.N. Security Council to authorize military operations on Libyan soil.

Benjamin Netanjahu hat das Rennen um das Amt des Premierministers nicht allein durch seinen zielgerichteten Wahlkampf gewonnen. Es war wohl ebenso wichtig, dass sein Konkurrent Jitzchak Herzog von der Arbeitspartei es nicht schaffte, eine politische Vision zu formulieren, die als wirkliche Alternative gesehen wurde. Israels schwächelnde Linke wird auch in Zukunft der Wahlverlierer sein, solange sie nicht erkennt, dass sie tiefgehende Verbindungen zu einigen der religiösen, ethnischen und nationalen Wählerschaften des Landes aufbauen muss.

The agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (France, Britain, China, Russia, the United States and Germany) on the key parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is an important step forward. Now that the parties have overcome major hurdles for sealing the deal, however, they need to worry about selling it to skeptics back home. This is particularly true for Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

ما مایل هستیم مراتب تقدیر خود را به مذاکره کنندگان چین، اتحادیه اروپا، فرانسه، آلمان، ایران، روسیه، انگلیس، و ایالات متحده آمریکا برای تلاش های خستگی ناپذیرشان از مهر ماه 1392 تا به امروز که منجر به دستیابی به چهارچوب برنامه جامع اقدام مشترک در روز 13 فروردین 1394 شد، ابراز داریم.

« 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.

Here is a new Iraqi paradox: whatever progress the Shi’ite Muslim-dominated Baghdad government makes against jihadi insurgents occupying large swathes of north-western Iraq, it is simultaneously undermining what is left of the Iraqi state, whose frailty and malfunctions created the environment in which jihadism was able to surge in the first place.

We would like to recognise the nuclear negotiators representing China, the European Union, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States for their unwavering endeavours since October 2013, which have led to agreement on the framework for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, announced on 2 April 2015.

The International Crisis Group applauds the 2 April agreement on a framework for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached between Iran and the P5+1/EU3+3 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). This achievement is a triumph of multilateral diplomacy and a testament to the seriousness of purpose, patience and persistence of the negotiators involved in this process.

March saw significant improvements in resolving longstanding conflicts, particularly in Myanmar and Colombia. However, Yemen’s political crisis tipped into all out-war, and fighting increased again in South Sudan following suspension of the peace talks. In Africa, election-related tensions worsened ahead of Burundi’s June presidential elections, while renewed international support to Guinea-Bissau gave a lift to political stability and reform. In a significant development for West Africa and beyond, Nigeria witnessed, for the first time in its history, the ousting of a ruling party through national elections, with Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the 28 March presidential elections.