ISIS – Page 14 – CounterVortex

Syria

Trump lays claim to Syrian oil

In its latest annual report, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that the armed conflict in Colombia saw the "worst humanitarian consequences" of the past decade in 2025. The number of people killed or injured by explosive devices rose by 34% to 965, overwhelmingly non-combatants. The number of individual disappearances doubled to 308. Violations of international humanitarian law documented by the ICRC reached 845 cases, while figures for displacement and "confinement" doubled. According to the Comprehensive Victim Support & Reparation Unit (UARIV), at least 235,619 people were displaced individually in 2025, while 87,069 were displaced in mass displacement events, and 176,730 remained "confined" in communities under siege by armed actors. (Map: PCL)

Afghanistan

UN rights office protests Trump military pardons

UN General Assembly members approved a resolution supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity on the day marking the third anniversary of Russia's massive invasion of the country. The resolution won 93 votes in favor, with 18 votes against and 65 abstentions. Washington sided with Russia, as well as Belarus, North Korea and Sudan, to vote against the measure. Hungary, Israel, Eritrea, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Nicaragua also voted against. China and Iran were among the abstentions. The US had declined to co-sponsor the resolution, instead pushing its own language that failed to blame Russia for the war or mention Ukraine's borders. (Map: PCL)

Afghanistan

CIA-backed Afghan forces commit ‘grave’ abuses

A state of emergency has been declared in Chile following protests that initially erupted over transit fare hikes in Santiago but quickly escalated to an uprising over general economic agony. Youth have blocked thoroughfares, burned buses and ransacked shops, while whole families have filled the streets in a nationwide cacerolazo—beating pots and pans to express outrage over the high cost of living. Protesters have similarly taken the streets, erected barricades and clashed with police in Lebanon, where a state of "economic emergency" has been declared. Again, demonstrations were initially sparked by government plans to impose a tax on text messaging, but protests have continued even after the tax was rescinded in response to the upsurge of popular anger. Demonstrators have revived the slogan from the 2011 Arab Revolution, "The people demand the fall of the regime." (Photo: KaosEnLaRed)

Iraq

Iraq: Turkish jets attack Yazidi villages

Amnesty International condemned the recently adopted "Criminal Procedure Regulation for the Courts" in Afghanistan, saying that the legislation violates the rights of women, girls and minority groups in the country. Among critical aspects of the new law is its decriminalization of domestic violence in cases where a woman does not actually have visible injuries or broken bones (Article 32), and its imposition of a three-month prison sentence for a woman who undertakes to visit relatives without permission from her husband and does not comply with a court order to return home (Article 34). Under Article 34, women and girls in abusive situations will have less recourse to seek refuge with family, Amnesty found. Article 26 also officially designates Shia Muslims, who make up some 15% of the population, as "heretical." (Photo: ArmyAmber/Pixabay)

Southeast Asia

Indonesia: inauguration amid revolt, repression

Belarusian prisoner of conscience and opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich was released from imprisonment weeks after suffering a stroke. Following his release, Amnesty International reiterated the need for justice for victims of human rights violations in Belarus. Statkevich, imprisoned for his role in the 2020 post-electoral protests, was one of 52 Belarusian prisoners released in September following a deal with the US. Upon their release, Belarusian authorities attempted to deport the 52 former prisoners. While they were being brought to the Lithuanian border, Statkevich forced his way out of the bus, declaring, "I will keep fighting." Statkevich was then detained again and transported to a penal colony. The stroke precipitated his release, but Amnesty stressed that being released due to failing health does not constitute justice. The Belarusian Human Rights Centre Viasna reports that 1,142 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Belarus. (Image: Monument to Belarusian political prisoners in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Source: Паўлюк Шапецька via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

Trump makes grab for Syrian oil-fields

UN human rights experts decried Russia's conviction of nine International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, calling the ruling a "flagrant violation of international law." After a trial held in absentia, the Moscow City Court sentenced Prosecutor Karim Khan and eight ICC judges under the Russian Criminal Code for "unlawfully prosecuting Russian citizens in The Hague," and subsequently placed them on an international wanted list. Prosecutor Khan received a 15‑year prison term, with the others receiving sentences of between three and 15 years. The case concerns the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for President Vladimir Putin and one of his cabinet members on war crimes charges. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Syria

Syria: confusion, anger as US troops withdraw

US immigration enforcement faces mounting scrutiny from international officials as well as congressional Democrats following a detainee death ruled a homicide by a county medical examiner in Texas. The disturbing development comes amid a dramatic spike in deaths in Homeland Security custody. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on the US to ensure that its immigration policies comply with international law, citing reports of arbitrary detentions, family separations, and dehumanizing treatment. Democratic lawmakers meanwhile demanded that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem answer for a growing death toll in immigration detention since President Donald Trump took office for his second term. (Photo: Paul Goyette in Chicago via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

Podcast: against Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in Syria

The Syrian interim government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reached an agreement to immediately halt fighting and integrate SDF-held areas into state institutions. The deal follows days of renewed clashes, in which government forces routed SDF strongholds in the city of Aleppo and then pushed east, taking several towns that had been under the control of the Kurdish-led autonomous administration. Just hours before the agreement was reached, autonomous authorities in the Kurdish region, known as Rojava, had announced a "general mobilization" in support of the SDF, citing an "existential war" launched by Damascus against their territory. (Photo: Rudaw)

Syria

Syrian Kurds forge military pact with Assad regime

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged the Israeli government to abandon proposed legislation that would mandate death sentences exclusively for Palestinians in specific cases—for crimes committed both in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Türk stated that the legislation is "inconsistent with Israel's obligations'" under the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. He also raised concerns over the "introduction of mandatory death sentences, which leave no discretion to the courts, and violate the right to life." The rights chief asserted that Israel has frequently violated the fair trial protections enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention for Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza, adding that this "amounts to a war crime." (Photo: RJA1988 via Jurist)

Syria

Turkey prepares ‘humanitarian’ genocide of Kurds

Turkey launched its assault on the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria, with air-strikes and artillery pounding areas along the Syrian-Turkish border. Hundreds of civilians have fled the bombardment, headed south into areas still held by Kurdish forces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is cloaking this aggression in the guise of a "safe zone" for refugees, a humanitarian operation. In reality, Erdogan is exploiting the refugees as demographic cannon fodder, using them to populate areas Kurds are now to be displaced from, creating a new class of refugees, pitting Arabs against Kurds, and establishing the conditions for potentially generations of Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria. (Map: Genocide Watch)

North Africa

Drone wars over Libya

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the military coup in Guinea-Bissau that took place just days after national elections, saying that it gravely violates constitutional order and democratic principles. The African Union similarly condemned the coup, while the West African regional bloc ECOWAS suspended Guinea-Bissau until there is a full restoration of constitutional order. This latest military takeover reflects a pattern of instability in Guinea-Bissau since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1974, and follows a long string of coups or coup attempts. Guinea-Bissau also ranks first among African countries in the cocaine trade, a reality that looms ever larger over national politics. In his inaugural speech, transitional president Maj-Gen. Horta Nta Na Man justified the military takeover as necessary to thwart a plot by "narco-traffickers" to destabilize the country. Government efforts to crack down on the narco trade are believed to have prompted previous coups d'etat in Guinea-Bissau. (Map: PCL)

Iraq

Multiple powers still bombing Iraq

Trump continues to pursue his perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize—now profferring "peace" plans for Ukraine and Gaza that would actually reward war crimes, and therefore portend wider war. In both cases these new "peace" plans are merely sanitized recapitulations of earlier proposals—for the surrender of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia, and for Israeli annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and "transfer" of their indigenous inhabitants. Meanwhile, the actual winner of this year's Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, is obsequiously pandering to Trump, and playing along with his bellicose designs on her country. In Episode 306 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg cuts through the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda. (Image via Twitter)