UAE is funding ports and military bases in an area already frequented by forces of the United States, Japan, France, Germany, China, and others, like reported by defenseone.com.

The twin bomb blasts that tore through two Christian churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday marked the latest episode in the Islamic State militant group’s (ISIS) violent campaign against the country’s Coptic minority, like reported by newsweek.com.

The attacks on a church in the Nile Delta town of Tanta and a cathedral in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria came as churches were packed with worshippers marking the beginning of the Easter week.

In Tanta at least 27 people were killed and 78 injured as the first bomb exploded inside St George’s Church. Hours later a second bomber detonated an explosive device as he rushed towards St Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, killing at least 17 and wounding 48.

At least 44 died in the two separate bombings, the worst attack on Egypt’s Copts in decades. In the aftermath of the explosions, ISIS’ Egyptian affiliate—known as Sinai Province—claimed responsibility for the attacks, naming the bombers via its Amaq news agency.

In the wake of the attacks, many in Egypt’s Coptic community have remained defiant,saying they will not flee their communities.

Marcos, an Egyptian monk from the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, who declined to provide his last name for security reasons, told Newsweek on April 10 that Coptic Christians have always stayed in the country despite attacks.

“No matter what happened in Egypt, we never left our land, we never left our home,” he said. “We were sure then that we will stay, and we are sure now that we will stay. Nothing will force us to leave.”

The origins of ISIS in Egypt

The forerunner to the Islamic State’s Sinai Province was Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (ABM), which first emerged in 2011 when it claimed responsibility for a cross border attack launched from the Sinai on Israel.

According to the U.S.’ counter terrorism guide, a government directory of listed terror groups, AMB’s primary goal was the “destruction of Israel, the establishment of an Islamic Emirate and the implementation of Sharia in the Sinai Peninsula.” Jack Kennedy, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Intelligence, tells Newsweek ABM grew out of militant Bedouin tribes operating in the Sinai, monopolizing smuggling networks, most likely over the Egyptian frontier into Gaza.

“It’s very likely that most of the founding members of the group, as a cohesive Salafi jihadist group, met and were radicalized in Egypt’s prisons before January 2011,” he says.

Pledging allegiance to ISIS

By 2013, when Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi was ousted as leader, the group had already pivoted away from attacks on Israel to targeting the Egyptian security forces. The shift resulted in a spike in Egyptian troop casualties.

In November 2014, ABM pledged allegiance to the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and became known as Sinai Province.

The government of Egyptian President and former General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has imposed a widespread media blackout on the Islamist insurgency. However, Sinai Province made headlines internationally following the downing of Metrojet Flight 9268 i n O c t o b e r 2 0 1 5. The crash resulted in the deaths of 224 mostly Russian tourists.

Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the blast through its leader, Abu Osama al-Masri, according to contemporary media reports. Sinai Province was also able to use an extensive ISIS propaganda network to spread its message when a picture of the bomb appeared in the jihadis’ propaganda magazine Dabiq.

Targeting Christians and stoking sectarian tension

In recent months Sinai Province has stoked sectarian tensions by increasingly targeting civilians and religious minorities. In December, the group bombed a chapel attached to Cairo’s St Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of Egypt’s Christian Coptic minority, killing 28 people.

According to Reuters since January 200 families from the Coptic minority have fled their homes in the Sinai. The exodus followed a series of brutal attacks when a list of Christians in the peninsula and an incitement to kill them was circulated by ISIS. Copts comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, making them the largest Christian minority in the Middle East.

“Focusing on targeting Christians is most likely a strategic decision on behalf of their leadership to create the situation of real sectarian conflict in Egypt,” Kennedy explains. “With the deployment of military forces to supplement the police and the re-imposition of a state of emergency, the idea would be to provoke sustained protest from Christians.”

Sinai Province has not only looked to divide between Egypt’s majority Muslim and Christian communities. On March 29 the group decapitated two elderly men accused of practicing witchcraft and apostasy, posting a video of the execution on social media. The language used in the video indicates the two men were most likely executed for their adherence to Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam.

The Qatari Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), like reported by al-monitor.com, on March 14 issued the 2016 results of the Arab Index, its annual survey of Arab public opinion. The center dispatched 840 Doha-based researchers to Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Palestine to conduct polls last Sept. 7-22 on various issues, including how Palestinians view the foreign policies adopted by Middle Eastern and international powers. According to the survey, Palestinians have a negative impression of Iranian policy in the region, especially in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya, and of its stance toward the Palestinian cause.

Ahmad Hussein, a Palestinian researcher at ACRPS, told Al-Monitor, “The survey showed that Palestinians have a negative view toward Iran, which contributes to the region’s crises and fuels sectarian and ethnic disputes in order to play a more effective, influential role. Seventy percent of Palestinians believe Iranian policy toward the Arab region is negative.”

Hussein also said, “These figures mean that the Palestinians do not really believe in the credibility of the Iranian discourse on Palestine. Seventy-two percent of them believe that Iran is exploiting the crises in the region to expand its influence and seek a wider role, while 65% reject the idea that Iran supports a democratic shift in the Arab countries.”

In short, it seems, a large segment of Palestinians is unconvinced of true Iranian support of the Palestinian cause, as they believe such a stance flies in the face of Tehran’s policies toward their fellow Arab Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Remarkably, Palestinians still think badly of Iran’s policies in the region, although Tehran’s stated positions appear to be supportive of the Palestinian cause. For instance, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Feb. 21 that supporting the Palestinian resistance is a duty for all Muslims, because it has succeeded in undermining Israeli efforts against the Palestinians. He added that Iran’s stance is based on principle and does not favor one Palestinian faction over the other, as demonstrated in Tehran’s foreign diplomatic discourse and its financial and military support of Palestinian factions.

Hazem Qassem, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, “Hamas is assessing its relations with regional countries, including Iran, to mobilize regional and international positions in support of the Palestinian people and to strengthen its steadfastness on its territories as well as reinforce the resistance. The movement is trying to steer clear of the sectarian considerations that divide the Islamic nation by refraining from interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and avoiding taking sides.”

Hamas seems to be aware that it is not on the best of terms with some Arab states, namely Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which is why it might seem to be holding on to its relationship with Iran, which continues to provide it financial and military support despite the movement not always agreeing with Iran’s policy in the region — for instance, in Syria.

Hussein Ruyuran, a political science professor at the University of Tehran with close ties to Iranian decision-making circles, told Al-Monitor, “This survey is inaccurate, because it ignores the fact that Iran is ideologically committed to the Palestinian cause and does not use it as a political tool. Iran continues to support Palestinian factions regardless of the policy it adopts toward other regional issues. This survey was conducted as sectarian polarization is at its peak.”

Ruyuran added, “Palestinians see themselves as closer to Sunni countries, such as Turkey, which have failed to provide the slightest [military] support, than to Shiite Iran, which supplied them with a military arsenal. Palestinian factions appear to be embarrassed about communicating with Iran, given the sensitivity of the sectarian situation. Hamas, as a religious movement, may be divided over the Iranian military and financial support. The military leadership wants this support to continue and increase, but its political leadership has other considerations, due to sectarian tension, and does not want to anger Arab and Islamic Sunni nations, especially Gulf countries, by maintaining relations with Iran. Meanwhile, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], as a left-wing organization that is not religiously oriented, welcomes cooperation with Iran without any sectarian reservations. So the problem lies with the Palestinians, not Iran.”

Kayed al-Ghoul, a member of the PFLP’s political bureau, told Al-Monitor, “Our relationship with Iran is based on its support of the Palestinian cause and because we are against turning the conflict into a sectarian one. We agree with Iran that the common enemy is Israel, and this is why Iran supports the resistance and refrains from interfering with Palestinian affairs and affecting our positions. When we see faulty Iranian policies in the region, we have the courage to say so, but at the same time, we believe some Arab countries — no need to mention names — want to make Iran an enemy of Arabs instead of Israel.”

Nonetheless, relations between the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and Iran are not at their best. Tensions escalated in August 2016 when President Mahmoud Abbas met with Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi in Paris. The meeting drew harsh responses from Tehran. In a more recent sign of tensions, Anwar Zakaria, assistant undersecretary at the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Education Ministry, said in a March 25 press statement that his ministry does not recognize degrees issued by Iranian universities in the absence of official relations with the Education Ministry in Tehran. The undersecretary of the Hamas-affiliated Education Ministry in Gaza, Ziad Thabet, confirmed the PA’s decision in a press statement on the same day, but without providing reasons.

A Palestinian official close to Abbas told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Iran continues to support Palestinian factions, both on the military and financial levels, regardless of any negative assessment of its regional policies on the Palestinians’ part. This support helps Iran to achieve its political interests in the region, in terms of confronting Arab countries, and shows the Arab public opinion that Iran continues to back the Palestinians regardless of sectarian polarization between Sunnis and Shiites.”

Although Iranian leaders might not appreciate the Palestinians’ negative assessment of their policies, they do not necessarily need to change them, because they assume Palestinian factions want and need its financial and military support. On the other hand, Tehran is anxious to support the Palestinians, as its assistance could earn it goodwill among Arabs, given the number of Arabs who see Iran as targeting Sunni Arabs in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iranian support for the Palestinians is thus a mutual interest, not necessarily a strategic alliance.

Amid battlefield setbacks, Sinai jihadists carrying out terror attacks in ‘an attempt to regain the narrative, boost morale,’ analysts say, like reported by timesofisrael.com

The twin bombings of churches in Egypt suggest that Islamic State group jihadists are lashing out as they find themselves coming under increasing pressure in Iraq and Syria, analysts say.

The group’s Egyptian affiliate which claimed Sunday’s attacks in the Nile Delta cities of Tanta and Alexandria has been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, where it has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

But IS has been unable to seize population centers there, unlike its early gains in Iraq and Syria, and it has also lost top militants to Egyptian military strikes in recent months.

The jihadists have attacked Egyptian Coptic Christians before, but their campaign against the minority picked up in December with a Cairo church bombing that killed 29 people.

In Sinai, IS militants killed seven Copts in January and February, forcing dozens of Christian families to flee the peninsula that borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

“IS and its supporters online have been methodically introducing more radical sectarian concepts to Egyptian jihadists since the December bombing,” said Mokhtar Awad, a research fellow with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

The December bombing in a church adjacent to the Coptic papal seat marked a shift in IS tactics.

“It was not until December 2016 when the Islamic State began a systematic campaign to target Coptic Christians in Egypt,” said Jantzen Garnett, an expert on the jihadists with the Navanti Group analytics company.

“As the Islamic State is squeezed in Iraq and Syria it often conducts spectacular attacks elsewhere in an attempt to regain the narrative, boost morale and win recruits,” he said.

In Iraq and Syria, where the group proclaimed its “caliphate” in 2014 as it swept across northern Iraq, IS has faced consecutive defeats over the past year and is on the verge of losing control of Iraq’s second city Mosul.

In a video released in February, IS attacked Christians as “polytheists” and promised there would be further attacks.

After Sunday’s bombings in Tanta and Alexandria, the group said it had deployed two Egyptian suicide bombers against the “crusaders.”

A defiant President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi reacted by declaring a three-month state of emergency.

The Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, have been attacked by Islamists for years, more so after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The Coptic Church was accused by the Islamists of supporting Morsi’s overthrow which led to a bloody crackdown on Islamists, although Muslim clerics and politicians also backed his ouster.

Even before Morsi was toppled, jihadists had targeted the Christians, most notably in a 2011 New Year bombing of a church in Alexandria which police blamed on a group linked to Al-Qaeda.

The Islamic State group’s “sectarian attacks fuel those ideologically inclined to support the group, while showing it’s still ‘expanding’ despite battlefield setbacks,” said Zack Gold, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Center’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

The three church attacks in December and now April also suggest an expanded presence of jihadist cells west of the Suez Canal separating the Sinai proper from the rest of Egypt.

Following the December bombing, Sisi said members of the jihadist cell who carried it out had been caught, but others remained on the run.

“The Islamic State has struggled, with constant setbacks, to establish a sizable presence on the Egyptian mainland over the preceding years. These church bombings indicate they have a growing presence on the mainland,” said Garnett.

The IS affiliate’s predecessor in Egypt, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, had carried out several attacks targeting the police on the mainland before pledging allegiance to IS in November 2014.

And several IS bombings and shootings took place in Cairo, also targeting policemen, before the December church bombing.

Police arrested several cells and in November 2015 announced they had killed a top IS jihadist, Ashraf al-Gharably, in a Cairo shootout.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri recently issued an urgent and alarming appeal in connection with the impact of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, like reported by ahram.org.eg. He warned that his country was approaching the “point of collapse” due to the pressures of hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees and that tensions between them and Lebanese could erupt into turmoil.

In a press conference with foreign journalists in Beirut, the Lebanese prime minister said that the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon had reached “the peak” and that “tensions” between Lebanese and Syrians could escalate to “civil unrest”. He added, in what appeared a veiled ultimatum, “we do not want to pursue actions taken by other countries that opened their borders to let the Syrians into Europe.” This was a reference to Turkey that now hosts some three million Syrian refugees.

The significance of this message does not only stem from the fact that it was delivered by the prime minister. Al-Hariri is also the president of the Future Movement, the largest Sunni political current which, by virtue of its religious and ideological make up, is the Lebanese political grouping that most sympathises with the refugees and the least likely to use them as a card in domestic squabbles.

The UN High Commission for Refugees lists one million registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which is equivalent to 20 per cent of the Lebanese population. It estimates that the actual number of refugees in the country (including unregistered ones and those who resided in the country before the Syrian crisis erupted) now stands at 1.5 million.

The map of Syrian refugees in the region in 2017 bears out a number of observations. Most notably, there has been a marked decline in the numbers of new refugees, the numbers of registrations and the numbers of registered marriages and births. These are among the major changes that have resulted from the resettlement processes in three countries, according to the “Regional Refugee & Resilience Plan 2017-2018” devised by UN organisations and NGOs operating in the region.

The organisations participating in this plan have launched an appeal for $4.69 billion for 2017. Of this, $2.62 billion would be allocated to the care and assistance of refugees and the remaining $2.07 billion would be allocated to support host countries.

The hoped for funding target is seen as “optimistic”. By 30 November 2016, organisers succeeded in obtaining $2.54 billion, or only 56 per cent of the projected funding requirement for that year. The plan, which covers five countries (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey), engages the efforts of more than 240 governmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs, donor agencies and private sector organisations. Of the five countries, Lebanon is earmarked for the largest amount of funding: About $2 billion, of which $131 million is to be allocated for humanitarian assistance for refugees and $903,000 to enhancing the resilience of host communities. The funding targets a number of needs, such as protection, food security, education, health and nutrition, basic needs, shelter, water and wastewater disposal.

UN High Commission for Refugees statistics indicate that Syrian refugees from the war have exceeded five million. Most of these currently reside in Syria’s neighbouring countries and they make up the single largest group of the world’s 21 million refugees. These alarming figures have spurred the UNHCR to renew its call to international agencies to augment their efforts to assist the refugees and their host countries.

The UN report on the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan lists Turkey as the largest refugee host country, with 2.9 million registered Syrian refugees. Less than 10 per cent of these live in camps while the remainder are distributed among Turkish cities. Jordan has 657,000 Syrian refugees registered with the UN, but the Jordanian government maintains that there are actually around 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, residing in either in the Zaatari and Al-Azraq camps or in private homes.

In Lebanon, the situation is far from easy. This tiny country hosts by far the largest number of refugees in terms of their ratio to the host population. Now that the number of refugees has climbed to 1.5 million, there is one refugee to every four Lebanese citizens. According to official estimates, the Syrian refugees cost the government between $15-18 billion from the outset of the Syrian civil war to the end of 2015. The repercussions of the refugee crisis affect every aspect of life from the economy, education, security, to healthcare, communal relations and social relations.

Before setting off to take part in a conference on Syria that was held in Brussels on 5 April, Al-Hariri said that he would ask the international community to augment its financial support for Lebanon in order to prevent it from reaching the precipice. He indicated that he would present the Brussels summit with a seven-year programme according to which the international community would commit to paying $10,000 to $12,000 dollars for every refugee through investment in infrastructure in Lebanon.

The Lebanese government has stated that Lebanon needed eight to 10 billion dollars of investment over the next three years in order to maintain and upgrade currently existing infrastructure and to invest in new projects to compensate for the attrition caused by the heavy influx of Syrian refugees. According to the most recent figures in this regard, Energy and Water Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said in his latest press conference that Syrian refugees consume 490 megawatts of electricity, “thus depriving the Lebanese from a five-hour feed, which is costing the state treasury $330 million”.

In like manner, the Ministry of Labour revealed that one of the consequences of the Syrian refugee crisis was that Lebanese workers were being replaced by Syrians which, in turn, has caused unemployment to skyrocket to 25 per cent of which 36 per cent were young people and 47 per cent university graduates.

On the other hand, Lebanese sources generally tend to overlook the positive role played by Syrian refugees. Syrian manpower helps turn the cogs of the Lebanese economy and the Syrians generally work in jobs that the Lebanese do not. As Liza Abu Khaled of UNHCR put it, “the Lebanese government allows Syrians to work in three sectors: Environment, construction and agriculture. In these sectors there is no direct competition with Lebanese labour. At least, the refugees have been able to find work in these sectors in order to ensure an income for their families.”

The internationally recognized government wields little power and international support is fading. If nothing changes, further armed escalation is inevitable, like reported by chathamhouse.org

A year ago, Fayez al-Serraj, prime minister of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), along with seven members of the Presidential Council, entered Tripoli on a naval frigate. That it was perceived as a victory for Serraj to simply enter the city that is the nominal seat of his government underlined the challenges he faced.

Twelve months on, little has changed. The GNA has little authority and limited legitimacy in the eyes of many Libyans, and is dependent on a group of Tripolitanian militias for its protection. A corresponding void in international engagement has contributed to a rise in conflict between armed groups, provided an opportunity for Russia to step in and emboldened the competing Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar in the east.

While the GNA may persevere in the interim, it is clear that, in its current form, it is doing little more than papering over the cracks. The longer the international vacuum persists, the greater the danger of further military escalation.

Few successes

The GNA has few achievements to which it can point. In international circles, the removal of ISIS from Sirte certainly received good press. Yet, locally, such successes are far outweighed by the GNA’s failure to provide services to an increasingly frustrated and weary public.

A key reason for this has been the strained relationship between the GNA and key state institutions: the GNA has struggled to agree budgets and spending plans with Libya’s Central Bank, while the National Oil Company has continued to deal with both the GNA and the eastern-based House of Representatives in order to avoid taking sides. Last week, the company’s chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, admonished the GNA for seeking to close the oil ministry and to take over some of the National Oil Company’s role. That battle is ongoing.

The GNA’s attempts to deliver results have also been impacted by its contested legal status. Despite being recognized by the international community, the GNA has not been recognized by the House of Representatives, meaning that the GNA has not technically been ratified as Libya’s executive body.  An agreement that Serraj signed with the EU to stem the flow of migrants to Europe was rejected by a Tripoli court, which held that the GNA has no legal standing. Libya currently finds itself with no representative body that has a clear legal status, as the mandate of the House of Representatives has expired.

The above failings, along with the continuing conflict across the country, have deeply impacted Libya’s economy. Inflation is rampant, estimated at between 30-40 per cent. Government subsidies on basic goods such as bread, rice, sugar and flour have collapsed. Amid a deepening liquidity crisis, many Libyans are struggling in a way that they are not accustomed to in the oil-rich state. Crime is rampant, and militia tit-for-tat battles are making the situation worse. In January, as a result of militia politicking, an electricity blackout extended for 900 kilometres, from the Tunisian border in the west to Ajdabiya in the east. It was the largest such blackout in living memory.

Military escalation

Conflicts between armed groups have escalated in 2017. In the east, Khalifa Haftar and the LNA continue to press forward following the recapture of the ports of Es-Sider and Ras Lanuf, after briefly losing them to an Islamist militia. The ports are a major asset: 60 per cent of Libya’s oil and gas transits through them. Brutal LNA campaigns in Benghazi and Derna also continue – videos have emerged of the LNA exhuming the bodies of Islamist leaders to parade them through the streets.

In March, Misratan militias aligned with Khalifa Ghwell – who seeks a government of his own – were ousted from Tripoli by local militias after days of heavy fighting. This has contributed towards a power struggle within Misrata itself between hardliners who, among other things, advocate returning to Tripoli in force to reinstate Ghwell, and others who are broadly supportive of the GNA.  A Misratan offensive on Tripoli could make life for the GNA untenable.

Void in the international community

These worrying developments are taking place as a void has emerged within the international community. The mandate of the UN special representative to Libya, Martin Kobler, will soon expire.    No official announcement has been made regarding his replacement, and there are rumours that Russia has vetoed the latest candidate, Richard Wilcox, leaving Kobler as a lame duck.

There has also been a retrenchment in US policy towards Libya since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, whose administration’s views on Libya are unclear. The Obama administration’s special envoy has not been replaced, nor have many other senior positions within the State Department. The absence of a clear lead from Washington has led the US to step back from its role as a coordinator of the international response in Libya.

The EU and European states appear to have little desire to pick up the mantle left by US and UN disengagement. Meanwhile, the apparent failure of an initiative by the neighbouring states of Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia means that there is currently no official open political dialogue between eastern and western Libya.

This vacuum has provided an opportunity for Russia to increase its engagement. Moscow thus far appears to be pursuing a broad spectrum of engagement, promising political and military support to Haftar’s forces in the east, while also pursuing investment opportunities with state institutions in Tripoli.

What this means for the GNA’s future

Haftar, who was excluded from the UN-led process, will no doubt believe that the prevailing tide of international opinion is breaking in his favour, as he anticipates a convergence in US and Russian policy over the support of strongmen who hold anti-Islamist credentials. Haftar’s refusal to meet with Serraj in February is perhaps indicative of his increasing confidence and does not bode well for the restart of a political process.

Without strong international engagement and commitment, other powerful actors may also conclude that they are better served trying to improve their position on the ground than making a deal. This is a path to further violence and instability.

chathamhouse.org

Russia may find that regaining superpower status carries its own costs, like reported by hotair.com — although that may not be quite as much a revelation as Colin Clarke suggests. Writing in Politico, the Rand Corporation counterterrorism expert acknowledges that it is still too soon to be sure that today’s attack on the St. Petersburg mass-transit system was conducted by a radical Islamist terror network. However, Russia’s increasing interventionism against ISIS in Syria and now in Libya has begun a shift in targeting for such terror groups away from the US and toward Vladimir Putin’s regime:

Russia is fast replacing the United States as the No. 1 enemy of al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other Sunni jihadist groups motivated by violent and puritanical Salafist ideology.

This shift is rooted in recent Russian actions in the Middle East—including its escalating intervention in Syria and its moves toward intervention in Libya with the recent deployment of special forces to an air base in Egypt—that have drawn the ire of militant Sunnis worldwide and elevated Russia as the jihadists’ top target. And if the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Syria collapses and foreign fighters, an estimated 2,400 of whom are from Russia, attempt to return home and fix their sights on the Kremlin, the situation could dramatically worsen for Moscow.

Terrorist groups have made their changing priorities clear. In an ISIS video titled “Soon Very Soon Blood Will Spill Like an Ocean,” an ISIS fighter threatens Russian leader Vladimir Putin directly, citing the country’s intervention in Syria and its growing alliance with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Iran and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah as proof that Moscow is the chief proponent of a growing Shiite axis throughout the Middle East. Forty other Syrian rebel groups have concurred, pointedly saying that “any occupation force to our beloved country is a legitimate target.”

To some extent, though, this depends on how exactly one defines “other Sunni jihadist groups.” If it includes those operating in Chechnya, and to smaller extents in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and other semi-autonomous republics in the northern Caucasus, then Russia has been a number-one target all along. In Chechnya alone, armed conflict between Russians and either nationalist or Islamist Chechens goes back to 1785. In more recent years, Chechen separatists have been responsible for a number of bloody terrorist attacks, including the 2010 bombings of the Moscow metro, the atrocities in Beslan in 2004, the 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater, and a 2011 bombing of a Moscow airport. Total civilian deaths in just these incidents exceed six hundred in total over fifteen years, plus a few dozen of the terrorists, and sporadic fighting continues in Chechnya to this day.

Clarke focuses specifically on ISIS, of course, excluding Russia’s internal conflicts in the Caucasus. Russian attacks on ISIS positions have begun to pick up, and Putin has clearly made Bashar al-Assad’s survival as dictator a high priority. That does make Russia a bigger target for ISIS and perhaps for other Sunni radicals, but the question will be how long that threat lasts. ISIS has a unique position among jihadi terror networks in that it holds significant territory — which it is presently losing — and its legitimacy depends on its ability to survive.

If Raqqa falls to Assad’s forces, the so-called caliphate will lose its supposedly divine credibility, and the remnants might not be terribly interested in waging any kind of war in the future that doesn’t involve nationality to some extent. A few of the militants may come to Chechnya to boost the Islamists still waging a guerilla war in the Caucasus, but that’s a threat that Russia already understands. The risk-reward calculation for Putin probably falls heavily onto the interventionist column, especially to have Assad in place as a client in the Middle East and force a seat at the table.

Some are already postulating that Putin might use today’s terror attacks to consolidate and expand his power, and indulging in even deeper conspiracy-theory thinking, according to the Daily Beast’s Anna Nemtsova:

Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, Russians have heard about hundreds of terrorist attacks—bombed apartments, cars, buildings, trains, and airplanes.

Putin has taken advantage of these so frequently to consolidate his power that people often tend, with no proof, to believe conspiracy theories suggesting the involvement of Russia’s special services or various powerful clans behind the attacks. …

Some blamed the tragedy on Russia’s involvement in Syria, others on the poor work of the FSB, the state security service. “Authorities have found out how to distract people’s attention from protests,” a blogger, Daria Zhukova, said in her post on Republic.ru website. …

On Monday, people in Moscow could feel the pain of victims and families in Saint Petersburg. But at the fashionable Jean-Jacques Café, one young man asked a friend, “I wonder who are they going to blame for this now.”

To which his friend responded, “I always wonder, whoever kills people, why they do not blow up government buildings instead of targeting completely innocent metro passengers.”

That’s an easy question to answer. Governments around the world began hardening security at their own facilities decades ago, which makes it more difficult for terror plotters to succeed. Terrorists attack civilians because it’s easier to do so, and because they hope to panic the population and force the government to surrender to their demands. However, when governments have little transparency and accountability and leaders cling to power, conspiracy theories will grow and grow in the face of common sense.

Al Qaeda is making a comeback in the Middle East and North Africa by expanding its armies and infiltrating new territories, complicating President Trump’s priority of destroying the world’s other major Salafist Sunni group, the Islamic State, like reported by washingtontimes.com .

Whether al Qaeda could organize another transnational plot such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. is questionable. But it is exploring bomb-making techniques to bring down airliners as well as ways to destabilize local governments.

In recent months, the Pentagon has shifted more firepower against al Qaeda, which is trying to capitalize on Washington’s focus on the Islamic State, or ISIS. The ultraviolent group shocked the world in 2014 when it invaded Iraq and began inspiring mass slaughter in the West.

Terrorism analysts have told Congress in recent weeks that al Qaeda’s plan is to recruit quality terrorists instead of mass sign-ups. The group, founded by Osama bin Laden, is relying on a social network of mosques and financiers to select jihadis instead of the Islamic State’s flashy internet media productions.

The Trump administration is reacting. The Pentagon announced Thursday that Mr. Trump has approved an expansion of “precision strikes” on al-Shabab, al Qaeda’s persistent franchise that is trying to overthrow the federal government in Somalia.

In January, Mr. Trump approved a major special operations raid on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. It marked a rare on-the-ground confrontation with a group dedicated to attacking the U.S. homeland and bringing down airliners. U.S. military officials, who learned much about AQAP’s fighting style in that raid, have signaled that more ground strikes are planned.

Soon, Secretary Tillerson noted, the Coalition’s efforts will enter a new phase, defined by transition from major military operations to stabilization, like reported by voa.gov

In his address to the recent Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delineated the Coalition’s military successes against the Islamic State, including killing tens of thousands of ISIS fighters, and liberating 62 percent of ISIS-occupied land in Iraq, and thirty percent in Syria.

He praised the efforts of Coalition partners on the ground, including Turkish forces for pushing ISIS off the Turkey-Syria border; the Libyan government-aligned fighters for routing ISIS in Sirte; the Iraqi Security Forces who, with the cooperation of the Kurdish Peshmerga, are retaking the key ISIS stronghold of Mosul. He spoke of the courage of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, noting the commitment he has shown to ensure that people are cared for after the battles, and hailing the unprecedented cooperation between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government as a key reason for the progress seen against ISIS.

Soon, Secretary Tillerson noted, the Coalition’s efforts will enter a new phase, defined by transition from major military operations to stabilization. In this transition, the Coalition “will continue to clear landmines and return water and electricity – the basic elements that permit people to return to their homes.” He added that the Coalition “will pursue regional diplomatic solutions for the underlying political and sectarian disputes that helped ISIS to flourish,” and “will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to affected communities as necessary.”

Secretary Tillerson noted that a “successful stabilization phase will set the stage for a successful normalization phase” where “local leaders and local governments will take on the process of restoring their communities…with our support. The development of a rejuvenated civil society in these places will lead to…the emergence of stability and peace where there was once chaos and suffering.”

But, Mr. Tillerson warned, none of this will happen automatically. He asked each country in the Coalition to examine how it can best support these vital stabilization efforts “and deal the final blow to ISIS.”

Finally Mr. Tillerson emphasized that to stay ahead of a global outbreak of ISIS-related terrorism the Coalition will have to combat the terrorists’ perverse ideological message; persist with in-country counterterrorism and law enforcement operations; share intelligence among nations; and “break ISIS’s ability to spread its message and recruit new followers on line.”

“Most of all,” said Secretary of State Tillerson, “now is the time to strengthen our shared commitment to security and invest in a fight in which we all have a stake.”

Russia’s intervention in Libya is designed to surround Europe in a “grand game” of geostrategy, Italy’s former military chief has said like reported by euobserver.com .

Luigi Binelli Mantelli, who led Italy’s armed forces from 2013 to 2015, told EUobserver that Russia’s attempt to gain a foothold in Libya was about bigger issues than oil, migrants, or terrorists.