Photo source: Nordic Africa Institute By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Senegalese authorities have launched a military offensive against fighters allied to the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance, a separatist group in the southern region of the country in March 2022.   According to Senegal’s chief of staff, the offensive aimed to destroy all armed gangs, conducting criminal activities in the area, to preserve the integrity of Senegal’s territory. Due to this operation, around six thousand people fled, with most of them taking nothing with them. Alasan Senghore, the secretary-general of the Gambia Red Cross Society, told Voice of America that the latest episode of fighting is one of the worst he’s ever seen. It is because the panic of fighting is in the minds of people most of the time. In the past, this organisation has carried out food distribution for displaced people in the Ziguinchor and Bignona departments of Casamance. Most of the fighting has been taking...

  Photo source:  El Liberal By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront A new resistance force has been announced in Azerbaijan by Iran. It is called Huseynyun, a faction similar to what Iran has endorsed in the past such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthis), the Fatemiyoun and Zainebiyoun, composed of Shia Afghans and Pakistani fighters. Collectively, these factions are called the ‘axis of resistance’ to prevent persecution.  There is little known about the group. Although, many analysts believe that it was first formed during the 2016 Syrian conflict. These developments will bring internal political instability inside Azerbaijan. Although, being a Shiite majority, it is largely secular, and doesn’t subscribe to the Iranian form of government, after years of Soviet rule. It is a close ally of Israel as well as Turkey.  In the past too, Tehran tried to export its resistance inside Azerbaijan, but it didn’t find much success. It was in 1991 when Iran tried...

  Photo source: The New Arab By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Mercenaries change warfare in profound ways because they commercialise it, and Colombian veterans have become especially sought after for their perceived value and combat experience. Their reputation stems from years of fighting the FARC insurgency, which honed small‑unit tactics, jungle warfare and counterinsurgency skills that foreign employers prize. Many retire early with meagre pensions and limited job prospects, making contractual work abroad enticing; as The Guardian reported, recruiters describe Colombian veterans as ‘battle‑hardened, disciplined and relatively inexpensive compared to Western contractors’, which helps explain their prominence in global conflict markets. The Middle East has become particularly lucrative, with deployments across Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, where wealthy governments and elites are willing to pay for foreign manpower without the domestic politi...

Photo source: New York Times By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront In the fight against extremism, the United States deployed thousands of troops in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, a move that resulted in a crushing failure. But, in places like Somalia, the United States turned to a different playbook. They favoured spies, special operation raids, and drone strikes, instead of troop deployment. The mission was to hunt al-Qaeda fugitives, which later expanded to fighting Al-Shabaab, the most dangerous of al-Qaeda affiliates. Now, with time, this playbook is also failing. Al-Shabaab has been strongest in Somalia for years. They roam the countryside, bomb cities, run an undercover state, make extortion rackets, and demand parallel taxes, which are at least $120 million a year, by American government estimates. Al-Shabaab also has had plans to attack the United States, after the arrest of a militant in 2019, who took flying missions in the Philippines, for conducting another 9/11 attack...

  Photo source: DW By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Journalism is not a crime. But, when Julian Assange's extradition to the United States became legal, it was a classic case of the attack on press freedom. Ironically, a court in London paved the way for Assange’s prosecution on Human Rights Day. And, it is also cynical that all this happened on the day two journalists were awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December 2021. His fiance, Stella Moris believed that his case is a ‘grave miscarriage of justice.’  The prison, where he lived is called ‘British Guantanamo’ for its tough conditions. He was convicted there for breaching the conditions of his bail after his asylum was revoked by the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Some of the charges of his alleged disruptive behaviour inside the embassy were outrageous, according to his supporters, including smearing faeces on its walls. The US had won its appeal against a January 2022 court ruling where it was said that he could...

Photo source: Al-Jazeera By Naveed Qazi, Editor, Globe Upfront Due to multiple obstructions by the ruling Malian regime, France has decided to withdraw its troops from the country in February 2022. In fact, the decision applies not only to France’s Barkhane force in the Sahel but also to the Takuba European force that Paris had been trying to forge along with its allies.   Macron promised that the withdrawal would be done in an orderly manner. It was in 2021 when Macron first promised a walkout from Mali if the country veered into radicalism. A European special mission is withdrawing, too. The withdrawal is expected to be in a four to six-month period.  The immediate cause is a diplomatic breakdown between France (and its allies) and the junta that overthrew Mali’s elected government in 2020. The junta led a second coup in 2021 and has since refused to hand power to civilians. It wants to keep power till 2025. The junta also recently kicked out the French ambassador and D...

Photo source: Politico By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront For months, Putin denied that he would invade his Ukrainian neighbour. Even Ukrainian intelligence and its think tanks had made calculations that a large-scale war was not imminent, at the land border. But, Putin shocked everyone, and eventually went ahead and chose war by land, air, and sea, in February 2022, after a pre-dawn media address, as he thought Russians 'could not be safe, could not develop, and could not exist' for a while. He even claimed that his goal was to protect his people subjected to bullying, and genocide, and aimed for the demilitarisation and de-Nazification of modern Ukraine. For this, he even vowed to bring ‘Ukrainian fascists’ to court, who run the country since 2014. Although, Ukrainian leaders, including its prime minister, rejected Russia’s slur, outrightly. But, in reality, there are some Ukrainian territorial defence groups who are overtly and unabashedly hard-right in their ideological...

Photo source: The Guardian By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Afghanistan has plunged into a middle of a ravaging famine, after a severe drought.  Unlike past humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, that received credible worldwide attention, this one has not, amid a nose diving revenue. A country which is left to drug trade, with opium as the only cash crop, and having an addiction to remittances, a question arises: are Taliban fit to govern? They are actually denying the scale of the famine. The question of their competence in pacifying the crises comes at a time when common Afghans are selling their children and kidneys for survival. Infact, the unregulated kidney selling practice has already nicknamed a nearby settlement in Herat as ‘one kidney village’. Some are willing to sell their kidney for as little as fifteen hundred US dollars to brokers, who have wealthy patients by their side. The irony is that even after selling a kidney, they still are trapped in poverty, as the mon...

  Photo source: Al-Monitor  By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Israel’s observer status inside African Union granted in July 2021 has split many political institutions in the continent. An observer status for Israel gives them the privilege to participate in the organisation’s activities, but they don’t have the ability to vote or propose resolutions, showing that an observer status gives limited rights. However, through it, Israel will fine-tune its diplomatic relations in the continent. The consequences of recognising Israel could be as important as the 1975 Resolution 77 (XII) by the Organisation of African Unity, the predecessor of the African Union, which recognised Zionism as a form of racism.  Historically, many experiences between Africans and Palestinians converged, as they saw liberation struggles in lieu of Western imperialism. This can be explained in the wording of the above-mentioned Resolution 77 (XII), which equated between 'the racist regime in occupi...