Hashd al-Shaabi launched an offensive on Tal Afar on 29 October; the looming recapture of Tal Afar prompted a strong reaction from Turkey, which maintains ties to the Turkmen population there. Tal Afar is thus yet another flashpoint of competing interests between Ankara, Erbil, Baghdad, and Tehran and can possibly further destabilise the situation in Nineveh.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and International Affairs
Nearly two years since the north side of Shingal was liberated from the Islamic State, most of the Yazidi population is still displaced. Yazidis are trapped between millstones of the competition of exogenous actors, such as the KDP, the PKK-linked forces, and Baghdad, over the control of the strategically important disputed territory of Shingal.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Security, and International Affairs
The Islamic State (IS) has not only surprised everyone with its cruelty but also by proving to be one of the world’s richest terrorist organisations. Now that its economic gains are draining due to military setbacks and financial strains, IS-held territories are increasingly struggling through economic hurdles – the challenge ahead is to link military interventions against IS with concrete economic plans.
The post-conflict planning following the 2003 invasion of Iraq was weak at best and as a result many elements were at play that led to the marginalisation and political disenfranchisement of the Sunni community. Consequently, radical entities, such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), exploited local dynamics to take up a position within society in the Sunni areas of Iraq. It is important that the current fight against IS in Iraq avoids this pattern at all costs; if the liberation is devoid of long-term planning it will likely result in the resurfacing of a number of issues responsible for the rise of IS in Iraq in the first place. Lessons must be learnt from the mistakes of post-Saddam planning and these must not be repeated post-IS. There needs to be a multifaceted approach to the preparation for the liberation of Mosul that goes well beyond the military dimension.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and International Security
This policy brief examines developments regarding resolution of the Syrian issue, particularly in light of three key events: Russia’s announcement of a withdrawal, Geneva III talks and the opposition’s latest announcement that they wanted the talks to cease given increasing aggression on civilian areas. For the opposition belonging to the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Assad cannot have a role in Syria’s political future, particularly given that his regime and its allies is responsible for 95 per cent of the casualties in the country, far exceeding any other actors in Syria, including the Islamic State organisation.(1) This policy brief looks at the outcomes of the third round of Geneva III, what Russia has gained from its intervention and so-called withdrawal, and argues that any future proposals for Syria which maintain Assad’s position will result in continuation of fighting.
The 7 March 2016 attacks on Ben Gardane by Islamic State (IS) occurred in the context of growing upheaval in next-door Libya, internal government tension in Tunisia and challenges faced by Tunisia’s security apparatus after several armed attacks in the country during 2015. This policy brief examines the security, political and regional contexts of the Ben Gardane attack, the positive and negative aspects of the state’s response and addresses preventative measures the state is likely to take in the future.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Terrorism, and International Affairs
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Today, the creation of a Palestinian state appears to be a distant possibility: the international community rejected to manage the issue, and the leadership in these territories weakened because of its divisions, revealing their inability to advance. Both the political and the territorial partition between the Gaza strip, governed by the Hamas and the West Bank, under Palestinian authority in line with Fatah, reveal a profound crisis that questions the very contours of Palestinian politics. It also shows that Hamas’ integration in the political game made it impossible to pursue the security subcontacting system. Maintaining the system avoids reconstructing the Palestinian political community, and makes it difficult to develop a strategy that moves towards sovereignty. Since October 2015, the popular and pacific resistance project has been shelved by the return of the violence against Israeli civilians. The Palestinian leadership counts on internationalization of the cause, which has shown mediocre results. Will the replacement of Mahmoud Abbas by his competitors permit to leave the rut?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Politics, Sovereignty, War, Territorial Disputes, Governance, Peacekeeping, Conflict, and State
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Four years after the negotiations started in Havana, 2016 marked the success of the peace talks between
the Colombian government and the Farc rebels. Even if during the entire process the outcome was
unclear, most political actors did not wait for the actual signature of the agreement to claim results.
New public policies have been launched and in the rural and land sector the break with a violent
past has been loudly dramatized. Changes conducted in the name of the consolidation of peace do
however have more discreet effects. They cause an increased business of land, which risks producing
exclusion and dissent in rural areas. Although it is undeniable that the post conflict agenda includes
reparation policies for the victims and protection for small farmers, taking advantage of peace as an
opportunity for economic development does also trigger interest for territories that are defined as new
agrarian frontiers. And so, not only have the agro-industrial exploitation and the commodification of
nature become legitimate, but they seem to be part of the social changes that are both made possible
by peace, and desirable.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Corruption, Crime, Natural Resources, Political Science, and Emerging States
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
War since 1979 and the reconstruction of the state under Western tutelage since 2001 have led to
a simplification of the identity of Afghan society, through an invention of ethnicity and tradition – a
process behind which the control or the ownership of the political and economic resources of the
country are at stake. Hazarajat is a remarkable observation site of this process. Its forced integration
into the nascent Afghan state during the late nineteenth century has left a mark on its history. The
people of Hazara, mainly Shi’ite, has been relegated to a subordinate position from which it got
out of progressively, only by means of jihad against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the US
intervention in 2001, at the ost of an ethnicization of its social and political consciousness. Ethnicity,
however, is based on a less communitarian than unequal moral and political economy. Post-war aid to
state-building has polarized social relations, while strengthening their ethnicization: donors and NGOs
remain prisoners of a cultural, if not orientalist approach to the country that they thereby contribute
to “traditionalize”, while development aid destabilizes the “traditional” society by accelerating its
monetization and commodification.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Religion, War, History, Sociology, Peacekeeping, Identities, State, and Anthropology
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Central Asia, Asia, and United States of America