The security situation in Africa’s Sahel region continues to deteriorate. In January 2020, the U.N. envoy to West Africa reported that terrorist attacks have increased fivefold in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger since 2016, like reported by counterextremism.com.

In 2019 alone, there were more than 4,000 deaths from terrorist attacks, compared to 770 in 2016. Recently on February 16, gunmen murdered at least 24 people, including a pastor, in an attack on a church during Sunday mass in northwestern Burkina Faso. Despite a steady stream of reports from Human Rights Watch and the World Food Programme, warning of an accelerating humanitarian crisis, efforts by governments, joint military forces, and Western allies have thus far been insufficient.

Despite the growing Islamist threat in the area, the U.S. seems to be sending mixed signals about its commitment to the region. As reported by the New York Times in December 2019, Defense Secretary Mark Esper is mulling moving troops from West Africa to concentrate on challenges from Russia and China. After allies voiced worry over the report, Secretary Esper stated last month that the review of troops in the region would be more of a “rebalancing” and not a “reduction.” Esper’s attempt to assuage fears was followed by the quarterly report on East, North, and West African counterterrorism operations from the inspectors general of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Department of State (DoS), and Agency for International Development (USAID)—the first to be unclassified. It revealed that the United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) had shifted from a “degrade” strategy to a “contain” strategy in dealing with violent Islamist extremists.

Burkina Faso may be the most threatened of the Sahel countries and is emblematic of conditions across the region, where al-Qaeda- and ISIS-aligned groups are stoking ethnic and religious differences to gain strength and threaten central governments. Prior to 2015, Burkina Faso was considered a relatively secure country and free of Islamist jihadist activity. Five years later, the World Food Programme warned that the country risks becoming the next Syria. In late 2019, USAFRICOM reported that “security in Burkina Faso is deteriorating faster than anywhere else in the Sahel.”

This is particularly worrying for multiple reasons. Due to the relative peace that existed for decades, the Burkinabe government has had little need for forces dedicated to the specific jihadist threat experienced by its neighbors. It is also the poorest country in the region. The military lacks the materiel and training to present a formidable response to the terrorist threat. Though Burkina Faso is part of the G5 Sahel Joint Force and the Sahel Alliance and has the support of former colonial power France’s Operation Barkhane, vast swathes of the country appear ungoverned and communities remain vulnerable. While the violence has been mostly concentrated in the country’s north and east, it threatens the remainder of the country, as well as currently stable Ghana to the south.

Although it is a poor country, Burkina Faso does have a “gold vein” and deposits of other resources. Gold mining accounts for approximately 10 percent of Burkina Faso’s GDP. Should the country slide into chaos, those resources could provide an economic and public relations boon to Islamic extremists. That nightmare scenario came a step closer on November 6, 2019, when Islamist militants attacked a mining company’s bus convoy, killing at least 39 people. The country’s mineral resources, for the sake of Burkina Faso’s future, must be prevented from falling into the hands of extremists.

Finally, with multiple extremist groups—historically al-Qaeda-aligned and now a growing ISIS-linked network—swarming the country’s north and expanding east, Burkina Faso risks becoming the next jihadist hub. The symbiotic relationship between global Islamist networks and local jihadists, like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), can have alarmingly destructive effects. Of the countries and regions where ISIS seeks to infiltrate, Burkina Faso and the Sahel appear the least well-equipped to respond.

To make matters worse, in desperation, the Burkinabe government gave the green light for vigilantes to take up arms. This was a controversial move that has produced unintended consequences for civilians in neighboring Nigeria, which is struggling with the persistent and brutal threat from Boko Haram.

There is some hope, however. France announced in early February 2020 that it would send an additional 600 troops to join the 4,500 already involved in Operation Barkhane. The G5 Sahel Joint Force (FCG5S) and France also agreed to step-up efforts to combat jihadists and coordinate under a new Sahel Coalition. That leaves the rest of the world. The U.S. should consider increasing existing military and financial assistance in order to bolster joint defenses and help communities under pressure from jihadist attacks and recruitment. As the crisis appears to be taking a turn for the worse, now is not the time to “rebalance” forces or resources away from the Sahel.

The last stronghold of the Islamic State, the Syrian town of Baghouz, fell to a coalition of Kurdish and Arab soldiers (backed by American, French, and British commandos) in March 2019. Following the collapse of ISIS’s “caliphate,” there are still significant questions about the hundreds of fighters from Southeast Asia who traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside ISIS and other militant groups, like reported by icct.nl.

Some of these fighters and their families are being detained in prison camps run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), while others have fled, and are planning their next move. In mid-February, the Indonesian government reversed a prior decision to repatriate nearly 700 Indonesian citizens who traveled abroad to join jihadist groups in the Middle East, citing the security and safety of the general public.

Though not all returnees will engage in threatening activities upon leaving the Middle East, some may radicalize others, plot attacks, and join or create extremist networks—even, perhaps, within prisons.

Radicalize Others

Southeast Asian jihadist networks could help facilitate returnees’ radicalization activities. Established groups can provide returnees a platform from which they can indoctrinate others. In Indonesia, joining a terrorist organization was not criminalized until 2018, so it is possible that some extremist returnees were allowed to resettle in their hometowns. Further, Southeast Asian ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria have sought to recruit new jihadists at home. Malaysian fighter Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi has been responsible for or linked to recruiting at least a third of the individuals arrested in Malaysia in connection with ISIS between 2013 and 2016, including the person who conducted the first ISIS-linked terrorist attack in the country.

Even if they are captured, returnees may be able to continue to advance their cause from captivity. In the Indonesian and Malaysian penitentiary systems, terrorism convicts have radicalized fellow prisoners and guards. Returnees are likely to engage in such activity as well. Following a May 2018 prison riot in Indonesia involving over 150 detainees charged with terrorism, authorities transferred the prisoners to Nusakambangan, a prison island. However, simply relocating prisoners will not halt their activities.

Plot Attacks

It is likely that Southeast Asian returnees will plot and conduct terrorist attacks, and a number of returnees have already been involved in plots and attacks in the region. In June 2017, Syawaludin Pakpahan, an Indonesian returnee, fatally stabbed a police officer. In Syria, he had fought with the Free Syrian Army rather than a jihadist faction. However, Pakpahan reportedly held jihadist beliefs, and sometimes helped guard nearby ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra posts, resulting in his dismissal from the FSA and return to Indonesia. He became an avowed ISIS supporter upon his return. Pakpahan’s actions demonstrate how Indonesia’s established jihadist networks can provide a pathway for returnees to plot attacks at home.

Malaysian and Indonesian returnees have been convicted in several foiled plots as well. In 2015, Malaysian authorities arrested Malaysian returnee Murad Halimmuddin, along with others who had discussed kidnapping politicians and attacking military installations. In May 2019, Indonesian authorities arrested seven returnees, including a high-ranking ISIS member who had been in Syria for years, while foiling a technologically advanced Wi-Fi bomb plot. While militants have used Wi-Fi signals to detonate bombs in the Middle East, this method is new to Southeast Asia.

In some recent plots and attacks, high-ranking Indonesian ISIS fighters acted as “virtual plotters,” recruiting members and coordinating operations in Southeast Asia via online communications from Syria. Bahrun Naim, confirmed dead by U.S. officials in 2018, was the most prominent Southeast Asian virtual planner. He allegedly organized the 2016 suicide bombings in Jakarta, among other attacks, and he published an online bomb-making instruction manual in Malay, which will likely continue to be used by Southeast Asian militants even after his death.

ISIS may seek to plot attacks in Southeast Asia with returning foreign fighters. While evidence suggesting that ISIS has had a direct role in terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia since the death of Bahrun Naim has been mixed, despite ISIS claiming responsibility for numerous attacks, regional counterterrorism analysts suspect that they maintain connections to local jihadist networks such as the Jemmah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) group.

Join Established Violent Extremist Networks or Create New Ones

Returning Southeast Asian foreign fighters may join the region’s established jihadist networks. Returning Indonesian foreign fighters most commonly join JAD. However, the number of independent jihadist cells in Indonesia has expanded since authorities arrested hundreds of JAD members after the 2018 attacks in Surabaya.

Some returning fighters may bolster a resurgent Jemaah Islamiyah. Following the July 2019 arrest of Jemaah Islamiyah leader Para Wijayanto, Indonesian police revealed that they suspect Jemaah Islamiyah of having sent six groups of recruits to fight in Syria.

Or—in lieu of joining existing networks—returning fighters may seek to create new cells. In addition to his participation in the initial stages of plotting small-scale attacks, returnee Murad Halimmuddin viewed himself as the “spiritual leader” of a small terrorist group that sought to recruit 20 members to commit attacks in Malaysia.

Foreign fighters from all three countries are likely to join militant groups operating in the Philippines. Counterinsurgency efforts during and after the siege of Marawi have weakened Philippine militant groups, particularly the Maute group, but they quickly began regrouping and recruiting new members. The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters group continues to seek territorial control, while the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has perpetrated suicide bombings, including the January 2019 Jolo Cathedral bombing claimed by ISIS.

Of these groups, ASG is the most likely to attract foreign fighter returnees, as it is both accessible—through its activity in eastern Sabah and around the Sulu Sea—and has recently carried out several attacks. ISIS has released propaganda videos encouraging Southeast Asians to join its affiliates in the Philippines, and ISIS recruitment networks in Southeast Asia have encouraged would-be jihadists to travel to the Philippines. While estimates vary, between 40 and 100 fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, and elsewhere have entered the southern Philippines.

Travel Elsewhere

Not all Southeast Asian foreign fighters have returned home or will do so. Some will disperse to other countries, fearing prosecution or wishing to fight in another theater. From Syria and Iraq, Indonesian foreign fighters have traveled through Iran to join ISIS-Khorasan in Afghanistan. For example, Indonesian authorities believe that JAD member Saefullah (aka Daniel, aka Chaniago) is currently a part of ISIS-K.

Whether foreign fighter returnees radicalize others, plot attacks, join established violent extremist networks or create new ones, or travel elsewhere outside the region, there is a palpable concern—indeed, a likelihood—that the fight against ISIS is not over, but is merely entering a new phase. While many debate what this new phase may look like, given the prominence of Southeast Asians in ISIS, there is little doubt that militants from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia will play a role in ISIS’s unfolding story.

Mention persecution of Christians and most people rightly assume that this is a problem in countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia or even Pakistan. While in this country, although we may not be able to actually stop Christians being persecuted in such places, the responsible government departments, courts and the UN are doing all they can to help its victims, like reported by christianconcern.com.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has certainly been edging forward in the right direction. The review announced at Christmas 2018 by Jeremy Hunt into how the FCO can help persecuted Christians was a once in a generation event that has the potential if properly implemented to be a genuine gamechanger. At the beginning of February there was even a debate in both Houses of Parliament on persecution of Christians.

However, the review only dealt with the FCO and as a number of submissions to its consultation observed, there appeared to be a major problem at the Home Office, or more specifically that part of the Home Office dealing with asylum policy.

There is a significant and growing body of evidence that it is actually easier to claim asylum in the UK if you are an Islamist, than if you are a Christian facing if not imprisonment at the hands of the state, then certainly vigilante violence which is likely to cost you your life if you return to your home country.

Take the case of Reza Kharkhah, one of many thousands of Iranian Muslim young men who have travelled to Britain in recent years to try to claim asylum. Like many, he had dabbled in drugs. Yet, after arriving in the UK, he became a Christian together with his British girlfriend with whom he had a child. They came off drugs and turned their lives around. Given a new hope and purpose in life he regularly attends his local evangelical church where he has been baptised and seeks to share the gospel with other Iranian Muslims on social media.

Now across the Islamic world being baptised as a Christian is recognised as ‘apostasy’ – and abandoning Islam carries a mandatory death penalty for any sane adult male in the shar’ia of both Shi’a and Sunni Islam. Not only that – any criticism of Islam also potentially carries the death penalty for Islamic blasphemy. So, if he is sent back to Iran, if he’s lucky he’ll only be arrested and imprisoned. More likely, some zealous fanatic will try to kill him, either for apostasy or blasphemy or both. In fact, often such ‘honour killings’ are carried out by members of one’s own family. Yet, when his claim for asylum was turned down, the judge suggested, that there would be no risk to him if he were sent back to Iran.

Reza’s is far from being an isolated case. In fact, it is not even just Christian converts from Islam who face being turned down. Three years ago, the Archbishop of Mosul whose diocese was then still under the control of Islamic State was invited to the UK to attend the consecration of the UK’s first Syriac Orthodox cathedral at which Prince Charles was the guest of honour and personal messages were read out form the HM the Queen and Prime Minister, Theresa May. Also invited were the Archbishop of St Matthew’s diocese in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains and the Archbishop of Homs in Syria, part of whose dioceses IS and other jihadist groups had previously taken over.

Yet, all three archbishops were refused visas to visit the UK by the Home Office. When this story hit the headlines and concerns began to arrive in MPs’ mail bags, Home Office officials responded by claiming that the visa applications had all been properly assessed in line with the current policy i.e. they blamed it on government policy, rather than Home Office ineptitude!

In fact, it was far from being an isolated case, only months earlier Lambeth Palace had had to intervene with the Home Office after two bishops from Sudan had been refused visas for an exchange visit. Neither was an isolated incident.

However, the clearest evidence of the problem has been the tiny number of Christians resettled in the UK under the Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement Programme operated by the Home Office. According to the latest Freedom of Information responses the Home Office have supplied, of the 17,013 Syrian refugees resettled in the UK between January 2014 and the end of June last year a mere 100 were Christians – that’s 0.6 of 1%. Now, whilst no one knows exactly how many Christians there were in Syria before the current fighting started, most published estimates suggest Christians were between 5 and 10% of the population.

Not only that, Christians have been specifically targeted and churches deliberately destroyed. In February 2015 jihadists religiously cleansed an entire district of more than 30 Christian villages around the Khabour river in North East Syria, blowing up the churches after they had done so. IS even published a slave price list which only listed prices for Yazidi and Christian women. This has all happened in a region which has witnessed at least seven genocides of Christians in the past two centuries. In fact, the very word ‘genocide’ was coined as a result of reflection on the Armenian genocide.

Now those of us who have been aid workers know that when a group has been specifically targeted, they are normally overrepresented in refugee populations. So, when Home Office officials knew three or four years ago that Christians were being significantly underrepresented in the Syrian refugee scheme – they should have taken action. But they didn’t. Instead they denied there was a problem. However, there clearly is a problem – not least with the UNHCR to whom the Home Office outsourced the initial selection of refugees. However, their refusal to even admit the massive under representation of Christians was a problem highlights a broader problem within the culture of the Home Office.

But it is not just the Home Office that has a problem. There is a wider cultural problem within a whole swathe of the secular liberal establishment including government, academia and even at times the courts, which at best refuses to see Christians as a priority no matter how great their suffering. Yet other groups are treated somewhat more sympathetically, even members of organisations which have been implicated in the persecuted of Christians.

Take the Muslim Brotherhood for example. The current Home Office Guidance produced by its independent Advisory Group in 2017 effectively recommends that senior members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood should be granted asylum in the UK because they are deemed likely to face persecution and denied a fair trial in Egypt. This is the Muslim Brotherhood which was the world’s first ever Islamist organisation, which in January 2015 called on its followers to engage in ‘jihad’ – something the Home Office guidance actually admits.

In fact, in 2015 just before the Home Office issued this guidance the government review of the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood had always accepted the ‘political utility’ of violence, although on occasions it had found it pragmatic publicly to disavow it. The Jenkins review observed:

However, the Muslim Brotherhood at all levels have repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.

It is also observed that

Senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood routinely use virulent, anti-Semitic language

and that

Senior Muslim Brotherhood figures and associates have justified attacks against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since its ousting from power in 2013 the Muslim Brotherhood has also been implicated in large scale attacks on Egyptian Christians because they had opposed the Islamist constitution which the Muslim Brotherhood sought to impose while they were in power. Literally dozens and dozens of churches have been attacked and destroyed by large mobs of brotherhood supporters. Yet this is the organisation whose senior members should, according to the Home Office guidance, be presumed to be at risk of persecution and so receive asylum in the UK, while according to other Home Office guidance issued at the same time Egyptian Christians should not be.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not an isolated example. Four years ago Pakistan witnessed widespread pro blasphemy law demonstrations following the execution of Mumtaz Qadri for murder. Qadri, a police bodyguard had murdered liberal Muslim politician Salman Taseer because he had spoken up in support of Christian mother Asia Bibi, then facing a death sentence for alleged Islamic blasphemy. The demonstrations called for Qadri to be declared an Islamic martyr and national hero and the immediate execution of Asia Bibi before her Supreme Court appeal was heard. They directly inspired a radical Muslim in Bradford to drive to Glasgow and murder Asad Shah, an Ahmadiyya shopkeeper whom he accused of committing Islamic blasphemy on his Facebook page. Despite, this immediately afterwards two of the main leaders of Pakistan’s pro blasphemy demonstrations arrived in the UK having been granted visas by the Home Office for a preaching tour of mosques.

The contrast with people like the archbishops whose visas were refused and Reza Kharkhah whose asylum application was refused could hardly be greater.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reported to be keen to change the whole culture of Whitehall. The whole area of how Christians from countries where they face persecution are treated, might well be a good place to start.

The Sahel region in Western Africa is witnessing a massive surge in Islamic terrorist attacks. Three countries- Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso- reported 4000 deaths in 2019 and the trend of staggering casualties in attacks by al Qaeda and Islamic State-linked outfits continues in 2020, like reported by eurasiareview.com.

The governments and militaries of the affected states are ill prepared to deal with the upscale in violence. With the United States of America considering pulling out its troops, 5000 French troops may not be able to contain the Jihadist wave in general and the resurgence of the Islamic State in particular, which may engulf the entire Sahel region causing deaths and producing thousands of IDPs.

Spate of Attacks
On 1 February 2020, unidentified heavily armed men on motorbikes arrived in Lamdamol village in Seno province of Burkina Faso, north of the capital Ouagadougou and massacred 20 civilians. The attack took place a week after a similar carnage in the province of Soum. Suspected Islamist terrorists had rounded up the villagers, executed the men and asked the women to leave the village. In early January, 36 people had been massacred at two villages in the northern Sanmatenga province. Jihadists also kidnapped and killed a Canadian mine worker and abducted two other humanitarian workers in December 2019. These incidents are the latest in a series of attacks that have taken place in this West African nation. A day before the 27 January attack, the prime minister of Burkina Faso and cabinet had resigned taking responsibility for the slide in security situation.

Along with Burkina Faso, other West African nations such as Mali and Niger have experienced a significant surge in terrorist attacks in recent months. On 26 January, 20 gendarmes, or paramilitary police officers were killed in central Mali in an attack by Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) – an umbrella group of al Qaeda affiliates. On 9 January, at least 89 soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack on the Chinagodrar base military camp in Niger along the western border with Mali. More than 60 militants were also reportedly killed when the army responded backed by French air strikes. In December, another 71 soldiers were killed in an ambush claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group in the region. Especially with regard to the attacks on the security forces, the militants appear to work on a twin objective strategy: one, to break the morale of the forces and second, to steal their weapons and equipment.

According to the United Nations, over 4000 people were killed in 2019 in extremist attacks, making Sahel one of the most violent regions across the world affected by Islamist extremism. In comparison, three years earlier, only 770 deaths were reported from the region. According to a recent briefing at the United Nations Security Council, the geographic focus of terrorist attacks has shifted eastwards from Mali to Burkina Faso and is increasingly threatening West African coastal states.

Multiple Complex Insurgencies
These insurgent groups have adopted the branding of international terrorist organizations like the Islamic State and al Qaeda. However, their focus remains local. They thrive in areas bereft of governance exploiting local conflicts. Islamist ideology is used by the groups to bridge different ethnic groups, convincing them to fight for Islam rather than over smaller tribal conflicts.

Most of these groups trace their roots to the Algerian civil war that began in the early 1990s and spanned a decade. Islamist fighters from Algeria fled the country, seeking refuge in the deserted areas of northern Mali. Violence began in 2012, when a political crisis in Mali sparked a rebellion by ethnic-based movements and jihadist groups in the north of the country. The uprising was eventually quashed and the territory seized by jihadists was reclaimed by French forces. But these groups and the ideology they support was far from defeated. For a while, militant violence was confined mostly within Mali’s borders, but violence is increasingly spilling across borders.

Though once considered resistant to the phenomenon of Islamic extremism, Burkina Faso has suffered a rapid rise in Islamist extremism in recent years. The number of deaths has risen from about 80 in 2016 to more than 1800 in 2019. Half a million people are currently displaced and continuous attacks are forcing thousands more to flee their homes.

In recent months, Islamist groups, some with links to the Islamic State and al Qaeda, have been waging larger, more sophisticated attacks and are expanding into new territory. Al Qaeda, weakened in many parts of the world, has strong branches in both East and West Africa. The al Qaeda linked JNIM is still the most dominant jihadist actor inside Mali and large parts of Burkina Faso and Niger. In addition, recent Islamic State attacks in the region have demonstrated its growing capabilities. In January, AQ released a two-page statement praising the jihadists in Mali and Somalia. The Islamic State, on the other hand, has released photographs and videos claiming responsibility for the attacks in Niger.

Regional Counter terrorism Response
Rising extreme inequality, despite impressive economic growth in the past two decades, feeds insurgencies in the region. Nearly 70 per cent of West Africa’s population depends on agriculture and livestock for a living. That way of life continues to be threatened by persistent droughts. As a result, a lot of young men have found a career in terrorism. The combination of poverty, weak state presence and under-resourced armies has allowed jihadist groups, criminal networks and ethnic armed groups to thrive in the region, despite regional and international efforts.

A seven-year campaign led by French troops starting 2012, deployment of hundreds of U.S. special forces, massive aid for local militaries and a billion dollar-a-year United Nations peacekeeping operation have been unable to decisively weaken the multiple overlapping insurgencies in the region.

In 2014, leaders of Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Chad created the G5 Sahel group, a French-backed taskforce of 5000 personnel to fight the militants. However, that clearly has failed to deliver. The reason is to do with their extremely small size which makes their mandate to police over a very large region extremely difficult to execute. Moreover, the military response to the upscaled terrorist attack is clearly falling short due to a variety of reasons including availability of resources. Burkina Faso’s meagre 6000 Army personnel are ill-equipped and poorly trained to deal with assaults that usually involve hundreds of highly mobile, lightly-armed militants travelling on motorbikes or in pickup trucks. In response, the government is considering developing a people’s militia by providing weapons to civilians above the age of 18. The BBC reported that members of Burkina Faso’s parliament have ‘unanimously voted in favour of arming civilians in a move they said would help combat the armed groups. It is due to be signed into law.’ It is difficult to foresee how these civilians supposed to be trained for 14 days will be able to put up a better resistance than the professional military.

Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou has reorganized the leadership of military in order to reformulate its strategy. The new military leadership has also announced a new offensive to begin against the Islamic State in the region, though it is unclear when or how it will progress. Past offensives have so far failed to stymie the spread of jihadist violence. Mali’s prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has announced plans to increase the numbers of its army by 50 percent (10,000 soldiers) this year. At the same time, he wishes to hold negotiation with the Jihadists. It is not clear how much would the exercise of increasing the size of the military cost and if Mali would be able to bear the expenses alone. Frequent attacks on the soldiers in the West African nations by the Jihadists as a tactic to deter young men from joining the army could also pose problems for new recruitment by the government.

Prognosis/ Future trends
The present spate of violence appears to take place as the Islamic State affords more attention to its growing branch in Sahel. In 2019, the Islamic State’s central leadership renamed its ‘Islamic State in the Greater Sahara’ wilayat (province) into ‘West Africa Province’. This adds to the specter of violence in the region where the al Qaeda affiliated groups such as the JNIM are almost enjoying a free run and are expanding fast.

Amid concerns that domestic or regional response may not be sufficient, there are additional reasons to worry. The U.S. plans to withdraw a significant proportion of its troops deployed in Africa. The U.S. currently has 6,000 military personnel in Africa, though only several hundred are deployed against militants in the Sahel. A Pentagon proposal revealed that the U.S. is weighing the option of military cuts in Africa. The US decision is necessitated as it redirects resources to address challenges from China and Russia after two decades focused on counter-terrorism operations.

Apart from 14000 UN peacekeeping forces in northern Mali, France has 4500 troops in Mali who are dependent on logistical as well as intelligence inputs from the U.S., which also maintains a drone base in Agadez town in Niger from where it launches air operations. France announced in January that it would deploy 600 additional troops to the region, despite rising anti-French sentiment in some countries and criticism at home that its forces are bogged down. The move came after President Emmanuel Macron sought support for the French military from the G5 countries and threatened to withdraw his forces in its absence. This token increase, however, is unlikely to make much impact on the ground.

Violence in the coming months, therefore, could spread even farther south and destabilize the region. It can possibly spillover into the northern part of Guinea, Benin, Togo, Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Sahel indeed could be close to a tipping point that could see an irreversible slide into violent chaos that will strengthen extremist groups and send a new wave of migrants to Europe.

After the US killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iran has been feeling a vacuum in its “axis of resistance.” Iran now must reach out to Hezbollah to help it shore up its role in Iraq, according to recent reports, like reported by jpost.com.

Why is Hezbollah the go-to, with its thousands of fighters and base of support barely in the hundreds of thousands, when Iraqi Shi’ites number in the millions?
Middle East Eye first reported on January 14 that Iran had tasked Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah to deal “uniting Iraqi proxies” after Soleimani’s death. Now Reuters has followed up on those rumors from a month ago regarding Hezbollah’s role in Iraq. “Two additional sources in a pro-Iran regional alliance confirmed that Hezbollah…has stepped in to help fill the void left by Soleimani in guiding [Iraqi] militias.”

The mystery surrounds the “Hezbollah will manage Iran’s affairs in Iraq” story and the mystery must be understood as relating to Iran’s trust in Hezbollah. In a time that Iran’s leaders now look to with nostalgia there were three men that anchored Iran’s power abroad. Qasem Soleimani, Imad Mughniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah. From Tehran’s point of view the “good old days” of the 2006 war against Israel brought them together. Now two of them are dead. Muhandis, a key Iranian ally in Iraq is also gone. It’s important to understand that these were trusted knights of the realm for Iran. They operated in Syria, which was key to Iran’s attempt to create a “road to the sea” via Iraq to Lebanon. Kataib Hezbollah, for instance, had a headquarters base in Albukamal until it was blown up in an airstrike in the summer of 2018.

Does Iran’s tapping of Hezbollah mean that it does not have faith in the Shi’ite base in Iraq and that it is concerned that months of anti-Iranian protests in Iraq might have damaged it? Perhaps it thinks Lebanese can operate in Iraq more easily now. Hezbollah sent Mohammad Al-Kawtharani to Iraq to negotiate after Soleimani and Muhandis were killed on January 3. Meetings followed in Lebanon and Iran. One goal was to bring Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq’s largest political party, together with Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the second largest party. Amiri is head of the Badr Organization as well and fought alongside Iran in the 1980s. As such the idea was to unite Sadr with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Sadr complied, ordering marches against the US in Iraq on January 24 and sending his blue hatted Saraya al-Salam to tamp down the protests on February 1.

But it’s not so simple. Sadr held meetings in mid-January in Qom in Iran with members of the Iraqi militias, the Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd al-Shaabi). Who was at the meeting? Akram Al-Kaabi of the Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba militia was photographed along with Sadr. But Kawtharani was not photographed there. Nevertheless Irib News showed a photo of the various flags of Iran’s proxies all united behind an image of the “martyred” Soleimani during the same week. Iran’s

message was unity and Hezbollah was expected to help.
According to Reuters Kawtharani has close connections to Iraq’s militias and, like Sadr, was born in Najaf. Soleimani would go to him in times of crises. Kawtharani was in Iraq and Iran in late December, according to other reports and Al-Hurra. He spoke to Amiri and went to Qom to speak to Sadr. This was prior to the major crises between the US and Iraqi militias which unfolded on December 27 when a rocket killed a US contractor. Kawtharani was trying to push the Iraqis to unify on a new Prime Minister choice.

The US Treasury department sanctioned Kawtharani in 2013. He was accused of being involved in “training, funding, political and logistical support to Iraqi Shi’a insurgent groups.” He was a member of Hezbollah’s Political Council and had helped free Hezbollah member Ali Musa Daqduq. Daqduq was involved in planning an attack that had killed five US soldiers in Iraq in 2007. Kawtharani had helped send fighters to Syria to support Assad after 2011, like Muhandis and Al-Kaabi. It might be assumed they worked closely on this issue.

The recent attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) in the city of Malé, a popular honeymoon destination in the Maldives, may come as a surprise to many. The idyllic holiday destination doesn’t tend to conjure up images of an environment conducive to recruitment by terrorist groups. But, in fact, almost 200 individuals left this area to fight alongside terrorist groups in Syria following the expansion of ISIS in the summer of 2014, assisted by the Syrian state’s war on its population. There are thirty-plus known individuals hoping to return to the Maldives, like reported by eeradicalization.com.

The environment in Malé is completely different to the tourist islands. It boasts of being 100% Muslim in its citizenry and the values it espouses are conservative and Islamic. As such, unlike on the islands for foreign holidaymakers, there is no sale of alcohol. This cleavage is becoming ever-more evident, reflected in an increasingly polarised society, both culturally and politically.

Within these areas, the traditional Muslim identity — historically connected with the institution of Al-Azhar University in Egypt — is coming under challenge from two directions.

People will often describe the traditional view of Islam in the Maldives in order to contrast it with the rise of unreconstructed Wahhabism — not the type of Salafi/Wahhabi thought often described as politically “quietest”, or developed from the early revolutionary movement.

To illustrate the difference, there have been attempts by traditionalists to deal with modernity. For example, on women’s rights and place in an overtly identifying Muslim society, it is not uncommon to see young women in hijabs driving motorcycles throughout the capital and there are female heads of multiple ministries. By contrast, the hardline revolutionary Wahhabi thought opposes this attempted integration and this doctrine is being promoted on the island.

In one Islamic bookstore, primitivist works on ‘Jihad in Qur’an and Sunnah’ written by hardline Wahhabi clerics advocate for al-Wala wal-Bara (a concept of having fealty and loyalty only with other Muslims who share the right beliefs only i.e. Salafis, and actively having to disavow everyone else), and these theological texts exist alongside more overtly politicized works influenced by Muslim Brotherhood ideologues like Sayyid Qutb, promoting civilisations conflict and rejecting human rights and democracy, such as the polemical, ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ by Bilal Philips, a Canadian convert and supporter of suicide bombing.

This combination of Wahhabism and modern political Islamism has created huge conflicts in the society, which are still being worked out, a process that has been ongoing for many years in the civil society space.

From the other direction, there are reformist voices, various civic actors and political groups, some of whom have been met with accusations of blasphemy that have furthered polarisation in the society. Liberal activists are being criticised for insulting the religion of Islam, and even the dissolution of various democratic movements, thereby supposedly damaging the “unity” of a 100% Muslim society.

This ideological and identity conflict on its own does not explain the recruitment to ISIS and Al-Qaeda, nor does the geopolitical context in Syria. But understanding the local dynamics helps build a picture of a large proportion of young people in the Maldives. Disenfranchised and internally migrating from the islands to the capital, these young people lack education and face the growing problem of gangs and drugs, an atomized and unstable situation that social activists believe provides a strong recruitment pool of vulnerable people, against the backdrop of an ever-more radicalized version of Wahhabi-Islamism, and ideological conflict within the society.

The political landscape suffers from tensions around its own ideological make up and political persuasions, between those who see India as an ally and those who align themselves closer to Pakistan, and those who see the conception of secular governance as either religiously inclusive or exclusive. These debates divide the society. Like Pakistan, the concept of secularism seems almost reductionist to some; the very word to describe it, la-deeni, literally means not religious and has connotations with a desire to remove religion from society. On the other side is an inclusive concept of secularism as religious neutrality, as seen in India and Bangladesh.

These broader debates around identity, religious pluralism, the nature of radicalism and extremist ideology, and the polarization by mainstreaming either extremist ideologies or anti-religious politics, has created an environment conducive to the recruitment of vulnerable young men.

This stark reality is a challenge facing the current government in the Maldives, which is trying to figure out ways to reintegrate its returning foreign fighters. The issues of what kind of society, religious persuasion, and sense of Maldivian identity to integrate and re-belong to for such individuals are the questions that contextualize the current debates surrounding deradicalization and management of the security concerns related to ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

On 17 December 2015, the Libyan Political Accord (LPA) was signed in Skhirat, Morocco to the cheers of major powers, regional actors and Libya’s immediate neighbours; it was hailed as a major breakthrough, putting Libya on the road to redemption. In a ceremony hosted by the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, everyone was happy that Libya was finally going to have a government and start rebuilding after four years of destruction and bloodshed.

The accord created a nine-member strong Presidency Council and authorised it to establish what was called the Government of National Accord (GNA). This was meant to be a caretaker authority with a transitional agenda that included the drafting of a new constitution, organising elections and stemming the flow of illegal migrants into Europe, as well as running Libya.

A week later, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2259 recognising the GNA as the only legitimate government in Libya and giving it control over Libya’s impressive revenue from oil exports; the vote was unanimous. However, according to Article 4 of the LPA, the GNA would only be legitimate after winning the approval of the country’s House of Representatives. The legislative body was, after all, a signatory to the UN-brokered accord that created the GNA.

Just hours after the ceremony in Morocco, those parliamentarians who signed on behalf of the House of Representatives, publicly rejected it and claimed that they had been tricked into signing. The legislator denied the GNA a vote of confidence twice, thus rendering it illegitimate, and making it illegal for the institution to operate in Libya.

In the background, forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar were in eastern Libya gaining ground and territories from an array of different Islamist organisations which dominated Benghazi and much of the surrounding territory. Haftar himself never accepted the GNA nor the deal that brought it about. He continued his fight and last April took it to the outskirts of Tripoli claiming, sometimes rightly, that the GNA is controlled by militias and must be ousted.

Once established, the GNA moved to Tunisia and considered how to create a government and get back to Tripoli. At that time, four years had passed since the West and the UN made the disastrous mistake of using force, spearheaded by NATO, to topple Muammar Gaddafi’s government, which led to his murder in October 2011. Libya has been a battleground ever since.

Tripoli was under the control of various militias, most of which rejected the GNA and prevented it from entering the capital until March 2016. I witnessed the complicated negotiations at the time conducted by one such militia which liked the idea of having the GNA installed in Tripoli. It took Paolo Serra, the UN’s Libya military advisor, three months to convince the top militias to allow the GNA to enter Tripoli. Then, on 16 March 2016, it finally moved into a disused naval base east of the capital.

This was another mistake by the UN; it sent a government straight into the hands of the militias. At the time, the GNA was, and largely still is, without an army or police force and unable to protect itself. It stayed in the naval base for almost a year, unable to move to government offices a few kilometres away. The local militias wanted something in return for allowing the GNA to move to its headquarters in Tariq El-Sika. Fearing that they would lose control, the militias came up with the idea of becoming part of the GNA itself. The latter agreed and the militias became, nominally, part of the interior and defence ministries, effectively wielding power on the ground. The largely powerless GNA had no choice but to accept this and hurried to start its work. As days passed, it became clear that the GNA’s top priorities were to control illegal migration to Europe, and to fight Daesh in Sirte. However, with the militias dominating the GNA, the illegal migration has increased and Daesh has taken more territory along the coast, threatening Libya’s oil production and exporting region.

Late as usual, the West which supported and recognised the GNA as Libya’s legitimate government, started to realise its mistake. Apparently, some Western countries, particularly France, Italy and the US, wanted to install and legitimise the GNA only to claim that they have a partner in the struggle against migration and terror organisations in Libya. The GNA found itself forced to bless militias over which it had little or no control. The coalition of militias that expelled Daesh from Sirte was recognised as the GNA’s army even though it is an independent militia which fought the extremists for its own sake, not for the sake of Libya.

This made serving the people of Libya less important for the GNA. Living conditions, even in the capital Tripoli, declined even more. The cost of living soared, bank liquidity became scarce every single day, blackout hours tripled and adequate security was absent. The GNA could not function properly, even if it wanted to, simply because it was — and is — a hostage to the militias. Dominating government departments, the militias started to make money through a series of scams, mainly in the import-export business, while also getting paid by the government.

Instead of being an interim authority, the GNA is still in place, four years longer than it was supposed to be. Under pressure from Haftar’s forces, which control most of Libya, the GNA accepted Turkey’s offer of military help and signed a security deal with Ankara on 27 November 2019. The Europeans could not do much about this, despite disliking it. In terms of international legitimacy, the GNA is a UN-recognised government and can enter into agreements with other countries, and this is what it did in the deal with Turkey. The Europeans and the US were taken by surprise, and could not legally challenge the fact that Turkey is now sending arms and fighters to help the GNA against Haftar’s forces. It is worth remembering that Europe and the US created the GNA in the first place. With the war in Libya now involving many foreign state actors, getting rid of the GNA without a reliable alternative in place is dangerous and politically very awkward.

The UN and the West are now in a trap created by themselves. Getting out of it is easier said than done, because Turkey, not the UN, now has the upper hand in Tripoli.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is following an assertive and aggressive foreign policy, from northern Syria to the eastern Mediterranean. His policy of brinkmanship contains the dangers of a military confrontation with too many players, although such a possibility means a lose-lose scenario for all players involved, like reported by al-monitor.com.

Ongoing escalation in Syria will undoubtedly influence the situation in Libya, as Erdogan’s policies have linked the two matters. Besides, the course of the events in Libya will influence the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean.

The offensive of the Russian-backed Syrian regime forces against Idlib, where eight Turks were killed by shelling, has cracked Turkey and Russia’s partnership, which had looked solid since 2016.

Erdogan said that Turkey would be unable to deal with a new influx of Syrian refugees. “We will not shy away from doing whatever it takes to prevent this, including using military force,” he said.

More interestingly, Erdogan ​declared the Astana process “moribund” and leveled a rare rebuke against Russia, accusing it of violating its commitments under the 2018 Sochi deal.

The timing of the apparent rift between Turkey and Russia regarding the military situation in Idlib has also blown up the expectations on the ultimate amelioration of relations between Ankara and Damascus, which comes in the wake of the Russian-brokered meeting between Turkish and Syrian spymasters in Moscow Jan. 13.

Erdogan’s disgruntlement with Russia coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron’s unusually straightforward rebuke of Erdogan. “I want to express my concerns with regard to the behavior of Turkey at the moment,” he said. “We have seen during these last days​ Turkish warships accompanied by Syrian mercenaries arrive on Libyan soil. This is an explicit and serious infringement of what was agreed in Berlin. It’s a broken promise.”

Macron’s remarks indicate that Turkey has not abided by the agreement made at the Berlin conference on Libya Jan. 19. Yet Turkey denies it has deployed Syrian fighters to Libya. To add insult to injury, Macron made these statements during a press conference with the prime minister of Greece. He also announced that France would send its warships to the eastern Mediterranean to support Greece.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the French decision, describing the warships as “guarantors of peace.”

While French warships sail the eastern Mediterranean and Macron supports Khalifa Hifter’s Libyan National Army on the battlefield, two Turkish frigates and a flotilla of warships have been spotted off the coast of Tripoli. Turkey’s commitment to Libya’s Tripoli-based government, the Government of National Accord, (GNA), even includes the provision of sophisticated air defense systems.

During his recent tour of Africa, Erdogan described Hifter as a “putschist” and a “traitor” to late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. He also criticized the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company, for increasing Hifter’s chances at ousting the GNA.

As with Idlib, Libya constitutes another crack in Turkey’s partnership with Russia, and mirrors the downside of prioritizing personal relations in foreign policy. It’s no secret that Vladimir Putin courted Erdogan for years to woo Turkey away from NATO and to create fissures in the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Erdogan responded positively to Putin, to the extent that he is now seen as Putin’s Trojan horse in NATO. However, it is now apparent that the Russian military has persisted in its support of the Syrian regime and Hifter in Libya.

Syria and Libya also reveal the limits of Putin. For example, Putin could not secure Hifter’s consent to sign the cease-fire document during talks in Moscow — a loss of prestige for Russian diplomacy. Putin also could not curb the Syrian regime’s ambitions in Idlib, as he had done previously. It is also unclear whether Putin could force Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Hifter in Libya to back down to have Erdogan on board.

There are also allegations that many within the Russian military and diplomatic community are dissuading Putin from adopting positions that would satisfy Erdogan, who has conflicting interests with Russia in Syria and Libya.

The situations in Syria and Libya could end the Turkey-Russia partnership that has emerged over the last four years, and the Russian policy of turning Turkey away from NATO and the West may go up in smoke.

Yet a rift with Russia would not be a relief to Erdogan, given his increasingly problematic relationship with the West. His seemingly revived fraternity with Germany’s Angela Merkel may not compensate for his falling out with Macron and the majority of the European Union, despite his fear-mongering tactic of threatening to flood Europe with Syrian refugees.

Marc Pierini, the former EU ambassador to Ankara, wrote in an analysis for Carnegie Europe: “Although British, French, and German leaders may express their views in different styles, the EU’s political mood has become increasingly critical of Turkey and especially of its president. The substantive reason is the perception that Turkey is pivoting away from the values it once said it was sharing with the European Union and the [trans-Atlantic] alliance.”

Erdogan’s policies are now between the Russian hammer in Syria and the French anvil in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean. Erdogan’s political survival could hinge on the debacles and blunders of these two interlinked fronts. Nonetheless, it’s too early and imprudent to write off his chances of success, too.

Erdogan is risking possible military confrontations with too many players due to his aggressive foreign policies in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean. For now, this scenario is widely seen as a lose-lose situation for everybody involved. Yet there is now doubt that ongoing developments in Syria will influence the situation in Libya.

The disunity, in terms of political choices, between Europe and Russia will play into Erdogan’s hands. As long as real options to deter Turkey’s unilateralism and aggressive foreign policy are produced, Erdogan may get over his problems with a face-saving deal.

Erdogan’s gunboat diplomacy in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean, and European fears of Syrian refugees, might still pay dividends.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not an Islamist in the extreme sense of the word, but he certainly does like the Islamists a lot. In the heyday of the Islamic State in northern Syria and Iraq, it was Erdogan who kept the Turkish border open so that thousands of foreign fighters and their families could go to join that terrorist proto-state, which was a descendant of al-Qaida, like reported by japantimes.co.jp.

More recently, he has stationed Turkish troops in Syria’s Idlib province, the one remaining rebel-held part of the country, where Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, another offshoot of al-Qaida, rules unchallenged.

Unchallenged, that is, except by Syrian Army troops backed by Russian air power who are gradually winning back control on the province in a slow, grinding offensive that last week captured Idlib’s second-biggest city, Maarat an-Numan. So it’s no surprise that the Turkish Army in Idlib is now firing directly on Syrian forces.

The story is a bit muddy, with Turkey claiming that four of its soldiers in Idlib were killed by Syrian shell fire on Sunday. But the Turkish government said it had killed 35 Syrian troops in retaliatory fire.

Erdogan added: “Those who question our determination will soon understand they made a mistake” and also warned Russia, Syria’s ally, “not to stand in our way.”

The Russians will take this seriously, since Erdogan deliberately set up an ambush in 2015 and shot down a Russian plane that strayed into Turkish airspace for only 17 seconds. But Moscow won’t back down, so Erdogan is now playing with the prospect of a shooting war with Syria and Russia.

That would be enough on his plate, you might think, but he is also intervening in the civil war in Libya. He backs the Islamist-dominated government in the capital, Tripoli, against the rebel army led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar that controls most of the country, and he has just sent troops to support it.

The troops are Syrian Arabs, part of the same Islamist puppet army that Erdogan used recently to invade the Kurdish part of Syria. His intervention in Libya puts Turkey into a potential confrontation with France, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, all of which back Haftar. So does Russia.

Nothing daunted, Erdogan is spouting the same tough-guy rhetoric over Libya: “We will not hesitate to teach a deserved lesson to the putschist Haftar if he continues the attacks on the country’s legitimate administration and our brothers in Libya.” So there’s a few more potential enemies for Turkey. His plate is getting rather full.

But Erdogan’s not finished yet. He has also militarized a dispute with Greece and Cyprus over seabed oil and gas reserves, to the extent that Turkish fighter planes are now violating Greek airspace almost daily. And he has demanded that Athens demilitarizes 16 Greek islands that are close to the Turkish west coast (making them hostages, vulnerable to Turkish invasion).

France has now sent warships to the eastern Mediterranean, and President Emmanuel Macron has explained that “Greece and France are pursuing a new framework of strategic defence.” “Defense” against whom? Turkey, obviously. Who else could it be?

Turkey is still formally a member of NATO, so technically France and Greece are its allies, but Erdogan doesn’t seem bothered by that. Neither was he bothered by the fact that the United States is also a NATO member when he invaded northeastern Syria last October to drive the Kurds, America’s key allies in the war against Islamic State, from their homes in the border region.

He got away with that: the Kurds had served their purpose and Trump just abandoned them to their fate. But is he really wise to take on almost everybody else at once?

Like President Vladimir Putin in Russia, Erdogan is a strongman ruler who has to win an election every four years. Putin is perennially popular in Russia and wins easily, but Erdogan usually scrapes through with just over half the vote. The country is divided down the middle, and the other half loathes him and his Islamist policies.

One small and successful war might benefit Erdogan by mobilizing Turkish nationalism, but three at once? Against Russian and Syria on one front, France and Egypt on another, and Greece plus France and perhaps other NATO members on a third.

He used to be a fairly competent strategist, but he has been in power too long (17 years) and he has lost the plot. This is megalomania.

The Iranian people are protesting against the mullah’s regime. They are angry that 176 people were killed on a passenger airplane, which was targeted by an Iranian missile. Increasingly, the Iranian people are viewing the Iranian regime, not America and not Israel, as their enemies and are demanding that their leaders step down. However, is this enough in order to bring about regime change in Tehran, like reported by inn.com?

Iraqi human rights activist Mr. Al Hamadani, who is a good friend of the State of Israel and seeks the establishment of an Israeli Embassy in Baghdad, believes that we have an obligation to support the Iraqi and Iranian protests, regardless of their chance of success, for otherwise our future is quite bleak.

Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights, believes that the death of former Al Quds Force Chief Qassem Soleimani was a game-changer: “Alongside the angry demonstrations in Iran that call for the departure of Khamenei, the refusal to step on American and Israeli flags at Tehran University and the tearing up of pictures of Qassem Soleimani, there is a confusion in the mind of the regime that indicates a vacuum following Soleimani’s elimination.”

This vacuum can especially be felt in countries that are under the grip of the Iranian regime, such as Iraq. “In Iraq, the militias have disappeared from the streets and their leaders do not appear like their predecessors,” Safadi claimed. “The protesters are beginning to sense that the cloud of oppression and the fear of the militias that was felt one week ago has been lifted. Another step that could complete the end of the Khamenei era is if a foolish Iranian move provokes US forces, leading to a significant clash with US forces. This step could destroy Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq.”

Given this power vacuum, Iraqi human rights activist Mr. Al Hamadani concurs that eliminating Soleimani was the correct decision: “Eliminating Soleimani was necessary for global peace and security. He led the militias loyal to the Iranian regime in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, who are responsible for killing and displacing millions of people. He planned terror attacks against opponents of the Iranian regime in Europe. He planned to launch major terror attacks against American forces, tried to get the American forces out of Iraq, overthrew the Iraqi political system in favor of the Iranian regime, controlled Iraq’s oil wells and stole Iraq’s wealth. Not to mention, they were responsible for bombing Israel by providing Hamas and the Islamic Jihad with missiles.”

However, Iranian journalist Neda Amin does not believe that the death of Soleimani and Iranian public discontent following the downing of the civilian aircraft is enough in order to bring about regime change in Tehran: “Without American support, regime change is not possible. They will just kill people. However, the Majles (Iranian Parliament) does want Rouhani removed, so that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards can take more power. Yet, the demonstrations will be crushed. Many Iranians will go to prison and die. This regime cannot be beaten by a few demonstrations.”

“These demonstrations can make them weak but that is it,” Amin noted. “The regime has the power, money, guns and support of Russia. With the elimination of Soleimani by the US, their power decreased in Iraq, in Syria and the greater Middle East but they moved their power and influence to Iran in order to harm Iranians. They seek to attack Iranians. Because they are Iranians inside of Iran, the world will do nothing. The UN watches every day and every hour Israel is in Gaza but they don’t care about the plight of the Iranian people.”

The question remains, will the US select to take stronger action against the regime in Tehran beyond what they have already done? At this point, it is hard to tell. Trump is, predictably and purposely, unpredictable. While Trump did state that he is not seeking regime change in Tehran, Trump warned Iran’s leaders on Twitter: “Do not kill your protesters. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you and the world is watching. Most importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free. Stop the killing of your great Iranian people.”

In fact, Trump has even tweeted in Farsi in solidarity with the Iran protests. As could be expected, the Iranian leaders did not heed the warning and have opened fire upon the Iranian demonstrators. The mullah’s regime also mocked Trump’s Farsi tweets. Now, it remains to be seen whether Trump will take action or merely continue the war of words.

Iranian political theorist Dr. Reza Parchizadeh believes the time has come for America to act: “America made a huge mistake four decades ago by not seriously responding to the Islamist invasion of Iran that eventually engulfed all of the Middle East. Its shadow threatens the West and the rest of the world today. What started with the US Embassy takeover and the American Hostage Crisis of 1979 by the Islamists has now grown into a full-blown offensive on American security interests across the Middle East. And it is not just the US regional allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE that are struck by the Islamists. Today, American herself is under fire. This offensive against American security interests by the Islamists and their global allies will only continue to escalate if it is not decisively dealt with.”

Iraqi human rights activist Mr. Al Hamadani concurs with Parchizadeh: “Regime change in Baghdad and Tehran will enable America to support the Iraqi and Iranian people to achieve international security. I ask both the US President and American Congress to support the demonstrations in Iran and Iraq, and to continue to press the Iranian and Iraqi regimes so that both peoples will obtain freedom and will rid themselves of dictatorial regimes. Remember, supporting the Iraqi protests helps to cut off financial support for the Iranian regime and thus helps to weaken the mullah’s government in Iran.” A weakened Iranian regime will make it easier for the Persian people to overthrow their tyrannical government.

However, former Israel Consul General Dr. Yitzchak Ben Gad noted that the US presidential elections are in 2020 and he fears that a US-led war against Iran would not help Trump’s re-election campaign. Nevertheless, for Israel’s sake, Ben Gad hopes that this is not an impediment for President Trump: “The US acting against Iran is good for Israel. The mullah’s regime believes that Israel has no right to exist here and must be destroyed. They dream of having a Persian Shia Empire in the Middle East. Over the past few months, they have been attacking the US and their allies. They shot down a US plane over the Persian Gulf. They attacked the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. And they provoked Bahrain by trying to place the Shia in power.” This does not even include the attack upon the American Embassy in Baghdad and the missile attack on the military base in Kirkuk, which killed an American contractor. In fact, Iran has targeted US forces with ballistic missiles on multiple occasions.

In conclusion, regime change is still possible in Tehran, if the US wishes to invest in it. However, despite some hopeful sentiment, that is not likely to happen during an election year, especially when President Trump is under heavy fire for eliminating Soleimani by his Democratic opponents, who are prone to appease tyrants rather than to fight against them.

The only way that regime change could happen at this time is if Tehran is foolish enough to shoot down an American airplane with 176 people on board or to commit another terror attack of similar magnitude. While the Europeans may be satisfied to receive an apology and financial compensation for the victims’ families, Trump would not react that way. He would view it to be an act of war and would then clamp down upon the mullah’s regime in full force, should Tehran treat any American target how they treated the Ukrainian airplane.