War & Conflict Archive

WARRI, Nigeria — It takes two hours by boat to get to Deibu, an isolated outpost of about 17,000 people in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. The town is cut off from civilization by the River Nun and a thick mangrove forest, and first-time visitors who make the journey are struck by the poverty they find — a stretch of rickety mud houses, with canoes lying by the riverside. Deibu is trapped in another age. Children and adults bath naked in the Nun. There is no electricity service or plumbing. The village’s only sign of modernity is a battered health center, a […]

If you had never looked at the Middle East, you might find it strange that a bank robbery spiraled into a raging battle between Lebanese government forces and a radical Islamic band of fighters based in a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving at least 100 dead and countless injured. The fighting, of course, has very little to do with the robbery that spawned the furious clashes. The battle between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army offers a look at the deadly kaleidoscope of Middle Eastern conflicts, some of them local on the surface, but all deeply interrelated. Among the many pieces […]

A week ago, when almost no media organization was paying close attention to the emerging disaster in the Gaza strip, we wrote about the ominous spiral of violence tearing through the Palestinian-controlled territory, as rival militias, gangs, religious extremists and common criminals turned the area into a free-for-all of terror. Since then, the Palestinian-on-Palestinian fighting has only intensified, creating a crisis that many veteran observers describe as the worst they have ever seen. Gazans, running for their lives from the street battles between armed factions, are now openly saying life was better under the hated Israeli occupation. Israel withdrew its […]

OAXACA, Mexico — The grim images of tear gas and street battles that were streaming out of Oaxaca late last year nearly dissuaded Spanish-language student Hermann Ingjaldsson from coming to the southern Mexican state, where a teachers’ strike had descended into a revolt against the governor. “I looked it up on YouTube and it didn’t look good,” the native of Iceland recalled one quiet evening while poring over his notes. At the urging of a Mexican friend, he came anyway and found the reality entirely different from the unfavorable videos shot in the colonial city and state of the same […]

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — In a bid to quash growing dissent amidst a worsening economic and political situation, Zimbabwe´s Robert Mugabe has ordered the creation of a reserve army made up of war veterans that took part in the country’s liberation struggle in the 1970s. The move comes after thousands of junior soldiers and police deserted or resigned from the government’s security forces over the past few years, disgruntled by poor pay and working conditions, leaving Mugabe short of the manpower that is essential to the maintenance of his oppressive regime. Many have left to seek better paying jobs as private […]

When leaders of the two main rival factions in Palestinian politics signed a unity deal under Saudi auspices in February, the internal violence that had gripped the Palestinian Territories was supposed to come to an end. Instead, what came to an end was international news coverage of a crisis that has turned Palestinian society — particularly in the Gaza Strip — into a Hobbesian picture of lawlessness and despair.<<ad>>The Gaza Strip, which Israelis evacuated almost two years ago, is the scene of almost daily murders, kidnappings and shootouts, for reasons ranging from personal feuds to religious zealotry. Children are dying […]

KARZAI GOING? — Are Hamid Karzai’s days numbered as Afghanistan’s president? Knowledgeable Afghan expatriates predict Karzai will probably not last out the year. Initially named interim president at Washington’s insistence in 2001, he ran for the office virtually unopposed in Oct 2004 and was elected for a five-year term. But the Bush administration is losing confidence in his ability to take the necessary steps to halt Afghanistan’s slide back into chaos. Even if NATO forces are successful in containing the Taliban threat this summer, it’s still up to Karzai’s government to regain public confidence by cleaning up corruption, reforming the […]

If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is looking for someone in Israel willing to stand up and fight for his political survival, the only place he may find that person is staring straight into the mirror. Olmert’s approval ratings could hardly go any lower — and that was even before Monday’s release of partial results from the Winograd Commission investigation into what went wrong in Israel’s war with Lebanon last summer. Olmert’s survival looks like the longest of long shots, and yet, the road ahead looks anything but clear for his political opponents. The Commission skewered Olmert, declaring that he “bears […]

Nigerian President-elect Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua has pledged to secure the insurgent-riddled Niger Delta in an apparent bid to solidify his contested victory in last month’s election and prove his commitment to the country’s resource and revenue base. “If government must succeed in its bid to secure the country, it must secure the Niger Delta region,” said Yar’Adua Friday in one of his first official appeals as the troubled West African nation’s next elected leader. “I have given my pledge that the Niger Delta is a strategic part of this nation and will be treated as such. We will take […]