Middle East
Fighting in Yemen continued to escalate this week. On Wednesday, the Houthi rebels seized an airbase as they moved closer to the city of Aden, where President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was sheltered. By Thursday, Mr. Hadi had briefly sought shelter in Oman before moving on to Riyadh. On Thursday, Saudi Arabia led airstrikes against the Houthis in the capital, Sanaa, as well as the cities of Saada and Taiz. The strikes also involved aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan. Pakistan and Egypt provided naval support. All ten countries are predominantly Sunni Muslim, while the Houthis area Shiite group. John Kerry, America’s secretary of state commended the attacks, while Iran (whose population is mostly Shiite) denounced them. Ground troops from the Saudi-led coalition also began to march toward Aden. The Brookings Institution warned that the intervention was unlikely to speed resolution of the conflict. The Daily Beast reports that the conflict in Yemen has become a “regional proxy war” and represents a big setback for American counter-terrorism operations.
Despite Iraqi security forces’ troubles in wresting control of Tikrit from the Islamic State, Hadi al-Amiri, commander of the Iraqi volunteer forces, claimed that the Iraqis did not need help from America’s air force. Meanwhile, the offensive to retake Tikrit stalled again, likely due to high casualties and disagreements among Iraqi leaders on how to proceed. At the request of the Iraqi government, the United States launched airstrikes against an Islamic State weapons depot, but hours later Mr. al-Amiri reiterated his opposition to America’s involvement. A retired American general said that American ground forces are needed to defeat the Islamic state.
Israel released three months’ worth of tax revenue it had collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. When the Palestinians sought to join the International Criminal Court, Israel suspended payments of tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority.
Africa
As Nigeria prepared for elections on Saturday, Human Rights Watch reported that the Islamist militant group Boko Haram has killed more than 1,000 civilians in 2015. That number represents an increase in attacks since last year, but the Nigerian military announced on Friday that it had recaptured the town of Gwoza, a Boko Haram stronghold. Polls indicated that the elections, which were postponed six weeks ago due to the instability caused by Boko Haram, are deadlocked. Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State earlier this month, has clashed with security forces from Cameroon, Chad, and Niger as well. Nigeria’s government estimates that instability caused by the conflict with Boko Haram has displaced almost one million people since 2009.
The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution to shrink the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 2000. President Joseph Kabila had asked for the peacekeeping force of 21,000 to be reduced by at least 7,000. But the UN recently backed out of planned joint operations with the Congo’s military against a rebel group because of allegations that two Congolese generals have been involved in egregious human rights violations. The resolution says that the 2,000-man reduction will become permanent only after “significant progress” is made against the FDLR rebel group.
The South Sudan Democratic Army, a rebel group active in South Sudan, released more than 300 child soldiers, lending credence to a United Nations-led effort to craft a peace deal in that country.
One year after the Ebola outbreak began in West Africa, it has killed more than 10,000 and infected almost 25,000. Those numbers continue to rise, but they are far, far lower than the worst-case scenario that America’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) envisioned last fall. After a three week lull when no new cases of Ebola were reported in Liberia, a new case was reported in that country on Friday, March 20. Meanwhile, Guinea and Sierra Leone have reported inconsistent progress in containing the disease.
A court in Senegal sentenced Karim Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, to six years in prison for corruption. A few days earlier, the Senegalese Democratic Party, the country’s primary opposition party, had chosen Karim as its presidential candidate. State lawyers defended the sentence as a major step forward in combating corruption, while Karim and his supporters boycotted the end of the trial because they believed the judge to be biased.
At least seven people were killed when militants opened fire in a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia on Friday. The militant Islamist group al-Shabab claimed credit for the attack, and the militants remained in control of the hotel as this briefing went to press.
Police in Kenya arrested 52 people in response to an incident in which a senior officer in a counter-terrorism police unit was shot and killed in Mombasa. Police suggested that the killing might have been revenge for a crackdown on suspected Islamic militants; in the past weeks, police have detained dozens of people from Mombasa mosques believed to recruitment centers.
Americas
In a promising sign for peace talks in Colombia, former members of the rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo (FARC) worked with a British NGO to clear landmines planted during the country’s devastating ongoing civil war. Soon, the former fighters should be joined by current FARC members. The war between Colombia’s government and the FARC began in 1964 and is one of the world’s longest-running civil conflicts. The FARC announced a unilateral ceasefire in December, and has since announced that it will no longer recruit minors to its ranks. Meanwhile, the government and the FARC continue peace talks in Cuba.
The United States pondered legislation that would promote sharing of cybersecurity information, but a report from the Congressional Research Service indicated that the country’s conflicting laws and policies make reform difficult. In other cybersecurity news, America’s law authorizing bulk collection of data on Americans’ telephone calls is set to expire in June. A spokesman for President Obama’s National Security Council said that letting the law expire would deprive the nation of a critical national security tool.
Two men, a U.S. Army National Guardsman and his cousin, were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly providing material support to the Islamic State (IS). Hasan Edmonds, the national guardsman, was arrested in Chicago Midway International Airport. According to prosecutors, the two were planning for Hasan to travel to Egypt to join IS, while his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, would carry out a terrorist attack in the United States.
Asia
Myanmar’s military continued an assault on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, an ethnic Kokan rebel group. The fighting spilled over Myanmar’s border with China, even though Chinese officials had recently rebuked Myanmar for dropping a bomb in a Chinese sugarcane field, killing five Chinese. Meanwhile, peace talks between the government and and an umbrella group representing sixteen ethnic rebel groups crawled along in the capital, Yangon.
Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives was arrested on corruption charges for abducting criminal court judge Abdulla Mohamed. The charge stems from Mr. Nasheed’s order to arrest Mr. Mohamed because the judge was allegedly blocking a corruption investigation. Mr. Nasheed is one of the primary political threats to current president Abdulla Yameen.
China refused calls from several foreign governments to free five women’s rights activists who have been detained for almost three weeks. The activists had been planning demonstrations in Beijing and Guangzhou to call for safe sex and awareness of sexual harassment.
The Turkish parliament passed legislation permitting police to use firearms against armed demonstrators, to detain people for up to 48 hours to uphold order, and to conduct certain investigations without authorization from prosecutors or judges. Meanwhile, two cartoonists at a Turkish satirical magazine were sentenced to 11 months in prison for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, though the court later commuted the sentence to a fine.
Europe
David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced that he will not seek a third term if his Conservative Party remains in power. An editorial in The Guardian calls the move “an act of both strength and weakness.”
Spain’s legislators voted on laws that Amnesty international claims would “formalize abusive practices against migrants and refugees.” The laws would legalize immediate and collective expulsion of migrants and refugees to North Africa without formal procedures, broaden the range of crimes classified as terrorism, and limit where and when demonstrations can take place, among other restrictions.
Petro Poroshenko, the president of the Ukraine, dismissed Ihor Kolomoisky, a regional governor and business magnate who had financed pro-government military forces. Mr. Kolomoisky had used his personal militia in an attempt to prevent the government from regulating his business interests.
Oceania
The Philippines submitted 3,000 pages of materials to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in support of its claim against China. The Philippines and China dispute control of islands and surrounding waters in the South China Sea. China has refused to participate in the arbitration because it believes that the court does not have jurisdiction. China in turn criticized the Philippines when the Philippines resumed repair and reconstruction work on the disputed Spratly Islands after suspending those operations due to concerns about their effect on the case.