CounterVortex

Africa

Turkey in oil-for-security deal with Somalia

Turkey has sent 500 troops to the Somali capital Mogadishu, the first phase of a planned 2,500-strong deployment to bolster the government against recent advances by the insurgent group al-Shabaab. Turkey already has 300 soldiers in Mogadishu, primarily to train the elite Gorgor brigade. Meanwhile, Turkey has also struck a controversial oil and gas exploration deal with the government in which it will receive 90% of all future revenues as a cost-recovery mechanism. Somalia will earn just 5% in royalties. (Photo: United Nations via Globely News)

Africa

Qaeda franchise takes war to Benin

The government of Benin announced that 54 soldiers were killed in attacks by jihadists on military positions in a national park near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger. The attacks in Park W, claimed by al-Qaeda-affiliated JNIM, are the deadliest yet in Benin. JNIM attacks in Benin have now caused more fatalities so far in 2025 (157) than they did in the entirety of 2024 (103), according to the conflict monitoring group ACLED. National Park W, where the attacks took place, is part of the WAP complex (made up of W, Arly and Pendjari national parks) straddling Benin’s northern borders. The park complex has become heavily militarized in recent years in response to jihadist infiltration. (Map: Gregor Rom/Wikimedia Commons)

Central America

MAGA-fascism and the struggle in El Salvador

US-directed repression and counter-insurgency in El Salvador in the 1980s allowed the imposition of “free trade” or “neoliberal” regimes in the generations since then—ultimately culminating in the adoption of CAFTA. This, in turn, has exacerbated the expropriation of the traditional lands of the peasantry by the agro-export oligarchy. It also led to the hypertrophy of the narco economy and a new nightmare of violence, which Nayib Bukele has exploited to establish a new dictatorship. This dictatorship is now openly in league with Donald Trump, and has in fact become critical to his fascist agenda. In Episode 275 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down El Salvador’s historical role as a laboratory of genocide and police-state methods for US imperialism, and the imperative of trans-national resistance. (Map: University of Texas)

Europe

Tatar Mejlis opposes betrayal of Crimea

The representative body of the Crimean Tatar people has vowed to oppose any international recognition of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The Tatar Mejlis, now sitting in exile in Kyiv, said that any move to recognize Crimea as Russian territory would violate international law. Refat Chubarov, the body’s chairman, asserted in a statement: “Crimea is the homeland of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and an integral part of Ukraine. Accordingly, no one can decide the fate of Crimea under any circumstances, except for the Ukrainian state and the Crimean Tatar people.” The statement comes amid reports that the Trump White House is pressuring Kyiv to accept a peace formula that includes formal US recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea. (Photo: Crimean Tatar Mejlis)

Africa

Trump prepares arms-for-minerals deal with DRC

Former Blackwater CEO and and mercenary boss Erik Prince is to lead a team helping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) secure and tax its extensive mineral wealth, news reports reveal. The deal, reached before the M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January, was just confirmed to Reuters by Congolese officials and diplomats. M23 has since January seized the eastern DRC’s two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu, and is threatening to march on Kinshasa, the capital. The Prince-led initiative runs parallel to a broader minerals-for-security deal being negotiated between the DRC and the Trump White House. (Photo: Abel Kavanagh/MONUSCO via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Massacres mount in Nigeria’s Plateau state

Communal violence in Nigeria’s troubled north-central state of Plateau has killed more than 100 people in just under two weeks. Plateau has a history of tensions between Muslim pastoralists and mostly Christian farmers over access to land. The state governor described the latest killings as “coordinated acts of terror” and has blamed armed Fulani herders for the violence. In what seems like an abdication of responsibility for security by the police—a trend across much of Nigeria—he said every community “must defend itself.” (Map: Google)

Watching the Shadows

Trump-Bukele detention deal heads for clash with courts

The Trump administration’s deportation policies took center stage this week as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited the White House, courts continued challenging the legality of the deportations, and a Maryland senator travelled to El Salvador in an attempt to make contact with a man known to have been wrongfully deported. With Trump now openly defying the federal courts—and, in fact, seeking to expand indefinite detention of deportees in El Salvador’s prison system—the long-awaited showdown between the executive and judiciary appears to have arrived. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)

Syria

Demand release of Syrian political prisoners in Lebanon

Detained Syrians held in harsh conditions in Lebanon are demanding their release, asserting that the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship invalidates the terrorism-related charges against them, which were originally made due to their support for the opposition or affiliation with the rebel Free Syrian Army. Since the revolution began in 2011, hundreds of Syrian refugees have been detained in Lebanon, sometimes in relation to their supposed membership in armed groups, but often arbitrarily. Syrian inmates at Roumieh prison, east of Beirut, managed to get a message out to the new transitional government in Damascus earlier this year, appealing for intervention on their behalf. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa raised the issue of “prisoners of conscience” in Lebanon during negotiations with the Lebanese government in February. But there has been no action since then—despite the fact that nearly 100 prisoners went on hunger strike to press the issue. Amnesty International has documented torture and other abuses at Roumieh, with Syrians being particularly targeted. (Photo via Facebook)

Watching the Shadows

MAGA-fascism and the dark side of 420

April 20 has become a national day of celebration for the hedonistic cannabis subculture, but it has also long been marked by the radical right and Nazi-nostalgists around the world for unsavory reasons. It now emerges that Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order declaring a state of emergency on the southern border also set a deadline of April 20 for a joint Pentagon-Homeland Security recommendation on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. This has sparked much speculation that Trump will immediately do so, declaring martial law and consolidating a dictatorship… this weekend. How likely is this, and is the date a mere coincidence? In Episode 274 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Image: APE)

Planet Watch

MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Greenland

In Episode 273 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg happily notes how the entire political spectrum in Greenland has united against Trump’s design to annex the country—and breaks down how the MAGA agenda for the Arctic interlocks with Putin’s agenda for Europe, and the world. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)

FREE SYRIANS STAND UP FOR PALESTINE

In an unprecedented wave of demonstrations across government-held territory, the Syrian people have taken to the streets not to challenge their own leadership, but to protest Israel’s ongoing human rights atrocities in Gaza and its repeated military strikes on Syrian soil. An explainer by JURIST breaks down what’s fueling the anger, what it signals about a country emerging from decades of harsh internal rule, and why Syrians are rallying around a cause that reaches well beyond their own country’s borders.

South Asia

Isolated people under threat in Andaman Islands

A US national was arrested on North Sentinel Island, in India’s remote Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, for illegally seeking to make contact with the isolated Sentinelese people, an officially designated “particularly vulnerable tribal group” (PVTG). London-based Survival International expressed relief at the arrest, but called the news deeply disturbing, saying the adventurer’s actions “put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk,” due to their lack of immunity to common outside diseases. Within days of the arrest, a journalist with local news channel Republic Andaman was found dead—apparently targeted for his reportage on illegal logging and mining in the archipelago. And far greater threats loom; Survival warns that isolated peoples could be wiped out if New Delhi goes ahead with its plan to transform Great Nicobar Island into the “Hong Kong of India,” with massive new port facilities and rapid urbanization. (Photo: Survival International)