Attention to the Unseen

John F. Sopko writes: The collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, revealed what little American lives and money had purchased over 20 years there. It also laid bare a gaping disconnect between reality and what senior U.S. officials had been telling Americans for decades: that success was just around the corner. As the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction since 2012, my staff and I have audited and investigated U.S. programs and spending to rebuild…

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The New York Times reports: Russia has ground through repeated waves of soldiers in Ukraine. It lost some of its most experienced troops at the very start of the invasion, then shipped off tens of thousands of convicts without seeming to care whether they survived. Now, still desperately seeking sufficient manpower to maintain pressure on Ukraine, Russia has expanded recruitment even more. Men (and women) no longer have to be convicted of a crime — under new laws, any suspects…

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Reuters reports: The jailed leader of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, has been quoted as indicating he may be prepared to call for militants to lay down arms, after a key ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to end the group’s decades-old insurgency. Two parliamentarians from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party met Ocalan for talks on his island prison on Saturday, in the first such visit nearly in a decade. DEM requested the visit after a key…

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Anna Nemtsova writes: Far-right activists from Russia’s largest nationalist movement, Russkaya Obshchina, donned black camouflage and patrolled multiple cities last month hunting for “ethnic criminals.” They raided dormitories, parks, and construction sites in search of migrants from Central Asia, nabbing six on November 24. On social media, the activists celebrated their “joint raid with law-enforcement officials,” posting a video of themselves leading migrants in chains on their way to deportation. Russkaya Obshchina is working in concert with the Russian state…

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The New York Times reports: The Taliban were inching closer, encroaching on land that had once seemed secure, the American officer warned. Four of his men had just been killed, and he needed Afghans willing to fight back. “Who will stand up?” the officer implored a crowd of 150 Afghan elders. The people in Kunduz Province were largely supportive of the Americans and opposed to the Taliban. But recruiting police officers was slow going and, by the summer of 2009,…

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The Guardian reports: Christmas morning in Ukraine was overshadowed by a massive Russian aerial attack using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “inhuman”. “Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than a hundred attack drones,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. He said there had been hits and blackouts in several regions. “The targets are our energy. They…

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David Hearst writes: The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government thwarted an Israeli plan to divide Syria into three blocks in order to sever its ties with Iran and Hezbollah, according to regional security sources briefed about the plot. Israel planned to establish military and strategic ties with the Kurds in the northeast and the Druze in the south, leaving Assad in power in Damascus under Emirati funding and control. This would have also served to limit Turkey’s influence in Syria…

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Michael Karadjis writes: It didn’t take long: from the moment the Assad regime collapsed and the rebels entered Damascus, Israel’s massive land and air attack began. As long as all these arms depots, military airports, intelligence centres, scientific research centres, air bases, air defence systems, ammunition manufacturing facilities, “small stockpiles of chemical weapons,” and Syria’s entire naval force were safely in the hands of the Assad regime, Israel never touched them. As Syrian revolutionary commentator Rami puts it, Israel has…

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  In this episode of Centre Stage, Patrick Haenni, an author and researcher specialising in Syria, shares his expertise on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Haenni discusses HTS’s origins and ideological transformation and reveals how the armed group played a key role in achieving what no other faction could — ending the Assad regime.

Peter Pomerantsev writes: As Bashar al-Assad fell, Russian nationalist military bloggers turned on the Kremlin. “Ten years of our presence,” fumed the “Two Majors” Telegram channel to its more than one million subscribers, “dead Russian soldiers, billions of spent roubles and thousands of tonnes of ammunition, they must be compensated somehow.” Some didn’t shy away from lambasting Vladimir Putin. “The adventure in Syria, initiated by Putin personally, seems to be coming to an end. And it ends ignominiously, like all…

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