Greater Middle East

Yemen moves closer to return of ‘all-out war’

Yemen is closer to all-out war than at any other point since the 2022 ceasefire, UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council amid an upsurge of violence in and around the divided country. A Houthi attack on a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb strait killed six people, while fresh clashes between Houthi and government forces erupted in the frontline city of Taiz the following day. The Houthis said a drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s Jizan oil refinery, on the Red Sea just over the border from Yemen, was a response to Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace. (Map via PCL)

Greater Middle East

Israeli ‘ecocide’ seen in Lebanon

Lebanese firefighters, residents, and environmental groups have accused the Israeli militaryof deliberately lighting wildfires across the areas of southern Lebanon it occupies, with some labelling it “ecocide.” According to the reports, up to 40% of the land in areas close to the front line has been burned by Israeli drones, flares and munitions since June, with firefighters in some cases attacked as they attempted to respond. (Photo via Amnesty International)

Europe

Podcast: geopolitics of The Odyssey

The righties are apoplectic that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey famously portrays a Black Helen—displaying their ignorance of the actual intercourse between Africa and the ancient Greek world. But apart from the cultural politics of the movie, the geopolitics of the Trojan War have all too much to say about the contemporary world crisis. Then, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles constituted the strategic chokepoints at issue, just as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb do today. And the Bosphorus & Dardanelles could suddenly become critically strategic if Turkey becomes embroiled in either the Middle East war or the Ukraine war—or both. The current world crisis could bring about a civilizational collapse far more decisive and complete than the Bronze Age Collapse that followed the Trojan War. In Episode 341 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Map: BestQuest)

Greater Middle East

Türkiye: conditional amnesty for PKK fighters

Türkiye’s parliament announced that it has passed a new law creating conditional legal mechanisms for members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), allowing criminal charges to be indefinitely postponed if authorities confirm that the organization has dissolved and surrendered its weapons. The shift signifies an advance for the government’s “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative and a potential de-escalation in the country’s decades-long conflict with Kurdish militants. (Photo: KurdishStruggle via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

US-Iran war spirals across Middle East

With the US-Iran war escalating, more countries in the Middle East have—officially or unofficially—entered the fray. As the US stepped up air-strikes on Iran, it joined with Saudi Arabia to launch strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq. Iran (or the Houthis) hit Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan, where three US soldiers were killed. Saudi Arabia is building a military alliance to police the Red Sea, with an eye toward removal of the Houthis from power in Yemen. The US Senate again failed to pass a War Powers Resolution, while the Iran regime apparently sees it as in its political interest to extend the conflict on at least a minimal basis. Nonetheless, it appears to be quickly spiralling out of control. (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Egypt: dozens detained over Gen Z online group

Amnesty International called on authorities to immediately release dozens of people detained in Egypt over their alleged involvement with Gen Z002, a Discord-based group used to discuss political issues, criticize government policies, and host dialogue about bringing meaningful change to the country. In January, Gen Z002 organized an online poll titled “Popular Referendum to Remove El-Sisi,” which asked participants whether or not they supported removing President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi from power. Reports indicated that the poll received more than 330,000 responses and spread across social media platforms through Arabic-language hashtags. (Image via Facebook)

Greater Middle East

Turkish ecological defender faces prison

Amnesty International condemned the conviction in Turkey of environmental activist Esra Işık. The activist was convicted of “resisting a public official to prevent performance of duty” and “insulting a public official,” and sentenced to two years and one month in prison. Işık was detained in March following participation in demonstrations against an extraordinary “urgent” land expropriation decision by the Turkish government, in which over 600 parcels in the Akbelen Forest area were to be seized for expansion of a coal mine. (Photo: Cumhuriyet)

Greater Middle East

Iran-linked terror conspiracy case in Bahrain

Bahrain’s High Criminal Court held its first hearing in a national security case involving 19 defendants accused of forming and operating a terrorist organization linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The case concerns 19 individuals, of whom 11 are currently in custody and eight remain at large. Prosecutors allege the group sought to destabilize Bahrain’s political order, obstruct government institutions, undermine national unity, and ultimately overthrow the constitutional system. The defendants are also accused of efforts to spread political messaging aligned with wilayat al-faqih, the governance theory of Iran’s cleric-led political system. (Photo: Pixabay via Jurist)

Greater Middle East

Repression in Ankara ahead of NATO summit

Amnesty International raised concerns over an absolute blanket ban by the Turkish government on all protests in the capital Ankara ahead of the NATO summit that is to be held in the city next week. The statement also decried the pretrial detention of more than 100 people in the city, including lawyers, academics and activists. Amnesty describes the measures as “excessive” and constituting an attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. (Map: CIA)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: the Iran MoU in the Great Game

The “Memorandum of Understanding” signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is contingent on the cooperation of two entities not a party to it: Hezbollah and Israel—which continues to commit war crimes in Lebanon. The provisions on Iran’s nuclear program do not even recoup the progress won in Obama’s nuclear deal that Trump tore up in his first term. And Trump’s claim when hostilities began back in February to be acting on behalf of Iranians who rose up in mass protests against the regime are now completely betrayed in a “non-interference” pledge. In Episode 334 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to urge support for alternative voices that take a neither/nor position regarding MAGA-imperialism and the Islamic Republic, and again recalls the anarchist slogan: Neither your war nor your peace! (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Shaky US-Iran ceasefire; escalation in Lebanon

The United States and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding that aims to end the war the US and Israel launched on Iran nearly four months ago. The 14-point agreement, signed by Donald Trump at a gathering hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in the Palace of Versailles—where the treaty to end World War I was signed in 1919—opens up the Strait of Hormuz for a 60-day ceasefire window, during which the two sides have vowed to negotiate a long-term resolution to the Iranian nuclear standoff. The US will also terminate all sanctions against Iran, provide $300 billion for post-war reconstruction, and unlock all frozen Iranian funds and assets. But despite—or possibly because of—the signing of the MoU, which calls for an end to fighting in Lebanon, the fighting there immediately flared again. A rash of Israeli air-strikes followed Hezbollah’s killing of four IDF soldiers in a southern Lebanese village, prompting furious statements from Israeli politicians such as extreme-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said “all of Lebanon must burn.” (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Trump urges Syria to intervene against Hezbollah

US President Donald Trump suggested at the G7 summit in France that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa could wipe out Hezbollah if Israel was unable to do so without causing heavy civilian casualties. The comment came in spite of repeated statements from Damascus ruling out any military intervention in neighboring Lebanon. Syria’s Interior Ministry emphasized that “Lebanon is a sovereign state and not a backyard, as the former regime viewed it.” (Photo: Ahmad al-Sharaa meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus, May 9. Credit: SANA via Radio Free Syria)