1. Surf instructors help Candace Chestnut, of Los Angeles, ride a wave for her first time as she takes lessons. 2. Nicole Mitchell, of Charlotte, N.C., celebrates with fellow beginners after riding a wave. 3. Surf instructors Mike Bennett, left, and Shanden Brutsch, right, cheer on Cassandra Winston as she rides her first wave.
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Mali’s military government has sought to calm anger over a blockade by Islamist militants on major highways where lorry drivers have been facing ambushes and arson attacks.
In a rare acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation affecting the landlocked country, Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maïga has said measures are under way to improve security on the routes.
The blockade – a potentially serious escalation of Mali’s jihadist insurgency – is particularly affecting the supply of fuel, which could cripple the country.
The Sahel region of West Africa is known as the epicentre of global terrorism, accounting for more than 50% of all terrorism-related deaths.
Several analysts say the aim of the al-Qaeda-linked militants is to impose a blockade of the capital, Bamako.
The blockade appears to have started with the kidnapping and subsequent release of six Senegalese lorry drivers along the Dakar-Bamako corridor in early September.
This is not a new tactic by al-Qaeda’s Sahel affiliate – Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) – but the scale is increasingly ambitious.
They have imposed a blockade on two key locations: the Kayes region – which serves as the gateway for all food supplies entering from Senegal by road and train, and Nioro-du-Sahel – which sits on the main route linking Mali to Mauritania.
Reports say Islamist fighters have erected checkpoints to restrict the flow of goods and extort “taxes” from traders.
They are said to have torched fuel tankers, lorries and buses, abducted foreign drivers and attacked convoys carrying fuel imports from Senegal and Mauritania.
Entire villages have reportedly been brought to economic standstill, with markets shuttered, transport halted and public services disrupted.
Suspected JNIM militants have also ambushed fuel lorries from Ivory Coast in Bougouni, in Mali’s southern Sikasso region. Several lorries were torched.
“Economic asphyxiation” is the militants’ goal, Mamadou Bodian of Senegal’s Cheikh Anta Diop University told the BBC.
He and others point to a strategic shift by the militants, who no longer rely solely on military confrontation to assert territorial control.
Analysts fear that, if successfully implemented, the embargo announced by JNIM on Kayes and Nioro-du-Sahel could paralyse western Mali.
The Malian army initially downplayed the blockade, with spokesman Col Souleymane Dembélé dismissing reports of a siege as an “information war orchestrated by foreign media”.
Footage circulating on social media of besieged vehicles on the Dakar-Bamako corridor had been taken out of context, he insisted. ”The video of the bus being set on fire dates from April and has no connection with the so-called blockade.”
According to the army spokesman, “no systemic interruption of transport has been observed” in western Mali and the real challenge facing people in the Kayes region is “the rainy season and not the actions of terrorist groups”.
Col Dembélé also characterised JNIM’s increased activity as “the last gasps of an enemy at bay and in retreat”. It is a refrain often used by Malian officials since the junta seized power five years ago.
Last week, the army said it had conducted an airstrike on a JNIM camp in Mousafa, in Kayes, killing “several dozen militants” and destroying a site allegedly used for logistics and planning.
Reinforcements were sent to Kayes and Nioro-du-Sahel, it said, with the military announcing “hunting and destruction operations” along major roads and a “large-scale offensive” on the Diéma-Nioro corridor.
State media reported that hostages were freed during the operations, but did not say how many.
Such efforts by the army do not appear to have lessened locals’ fears nor the disruption to their lives. Residents report that militant checkpoints remain in place, while transport companies have suspended operations and lorry drivers continue to face intimidation.
Kayes is said to account for approximately 80% of the country’s gold production, and is also deemed Mali’s “gateway to Senegal”. It is a logistics hub where international trade routes converge.
Mali is a landlocked country heavily dependent on neighbouring ports for fuel, food and manufactured goods, so control of Kayes is essential.
The blockade not only disrupts local life, but directly threatens Bamako’s economic stability.
“The Kayes region has become a major strategic target for JNIM, which considers it a vital space,” says the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute.
“The jihadists intend to disrupt the country’s supplies, to destabilise, or even suffocate the Malian economy, isolate the capital Bamako and increase economic pressure on the Malian transitional regime,” it says.
Map
The blockade also signals the geographic expansion of JNIM’s insurgency.
Traditionally, the group’s operations have been concentrated in northern and central Mali – in Mopti, Segou and Timbuktu. However, JNIM has in recent years made significant inroads into southern Mali, including Sikasso and Koulikoro regions.
By turning its attention to Kayes, the group is not only widening its footprint but threatening to encircle Bamako.
Since 2012, Mali has been in the grip of a profound security crisis fuelled by violence from groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organisation, as well as other armed militia.
Local and international media warn that JNIM’s recent isolation of parts of southern Mali could pave the way for similar incursions into neighbouring coastal countries.
The crisis underscores the limits of Mali’s reliance on military force, supported by Russian Africa Corps mercenaries, as the Wagner Group is now known, whose role in operations is not officially acknowledged.
By disrupting trade routes from Senegal and Mauritania, JNIM has shown it can project influence westward, raising fears of an expansion into those countries.
The Union of Senegalese Truckers (URS) blamed militants and described the recent abductions of lorry drivers as a threat to regional trade.
Mali is Senegal’s main African trade partner, accounting for more than $1.4bn (£1bn) in exports last year. The Bamako-Kayes route carries fuel, cement, foodstuffs and manufactured goods critical to both economies.
There is a risk that what began as a tactical disruption may evolve into a prolonged siege, eroding confidence in Malian state institutions and exposing its fragility.
JNIM’s “choice to target buses and tankers is not insignificant – it aims to strike at the heart of Mali’s social and economic mobility”, Bamada.net reported last week.
More than a local flare-up, the siege of Kayes is a warning sign that the jihadist insurgency in Mali has entered a new phase with the repercussions of economic sabotage reaching well beyond Mali’s borders.
[Getty Images/BBC]
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Dakar, Senegal / Madrid, Spain – The Senegalese government deployed a special counterterrorism unit, created, equipped, and trained with funding from the European Union, to violently suppress recent pro-democracy protests, a joint investigation between Al Jazeera and porCausa Foundation reveals.
Since 2021, the trial of popular and controversial opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has led to demonstrations across the West African nation, in which dozens have been killed. Al Jazeera and porCausa obtained visual evidence, Spanish government contracts, a confidential evaluation report, and testimonies from multiple sources suggesting that the EU-funded Rapid Action Surveillance and Intervention Group, also known as GAR-SI, was used to violently crush those protests.
In one video, security personnel in the same type of armoured vehicles the EU bought for GAR-SI Senegal are seen firing tear gas at a protest caravan organised by Sonko last May. Al Jazeera verified that the incident happened in the southern Senegalese village of Mampatim, about 50km (31 miles) from Kolda, in the Casamance region.
The EU-funded elite units were instead meant to be based in Senegal’s border areas with Mali to fight cross-border crime.
GAR-SI Sahel was a regional project lasting between 2016 and 2023 and funded with 75 million euros ($81.3m) from the EU’s Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF for Africa), a pot of development funding dedicated to addressing the root causes of migration in Africa.
The programme was implemented by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), a development agency belonging to Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. GAR-SI units were created across the region, in countries like Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, “as a prerequisite for their sustainable socio-economic development”.
The Senegalese 300-strong unit, created in 2017, cost more than 7 million euros ($7.6m at the current exchange rate) and was aimed at creating a special intervention unit in the town of Kidira, on the border of Mali, to protect Senegal from potential incursions by armed groups and cross-border crimes, including migrant smuggling.
Modelled after Spanish units that fought against the separatist movement Basque Homeland and Liberty, also known by the Spanish initials ETA, GAR-SI Senegal has received technical training and mentoring from the Spanish Civil Guard as well as French, Italian and Portuguese security forces.
After the completion of the project, at the request of all stakeholders, the EU delegation in Senegal continued with a second phase using another funding mechanism, according to one Spanish and one Senegalese police source familiar with the matter. About 4.5 million euros ($4.9m) was earmarked for a second 250-strong GAR-SI Senegal unit near the town of Saraya, close to the border with Guinea and Mali.
A second unit was also created in Mali but for other countries, especially Chad, the project was considered to be a “failure”, according to the former Senegalese police official, who said the EU lost money by paying for equipment that was not appropriate for use.
Deux blindés de la gendarmerie suivent le convoi du président Ousmane SONKO 🇸🇳 et tirent des grenades lacrymogènes aux foules qui tentent d’arrêter le convoi pour l’accompagner.#caravanedelaliberté pic.twitter.com/2QKlkUJjIh
— Ⓜ️ister Bakhdad2️⃣.0️⃣🇸🇳🇨🇦 (@BakhdadO) May 27, 2023
An analysis of the vehicles captured in the Mampatim video shows that they fit with the URO SUV Vamtac ST5, a Spanish model made by Galicia-based heavy-duty manufacturer Urovesa. The same car model was delivered in the presence of the EU ambassador to Senegal in April 2019 as part of an aid package to increase GAR-SI Senegal’s capabilities to fight cross-border crime. The unit also received drones, sixteen 4×4 Toyota pick-up vehicles, an ambulance, 12 motorcycles, and four trucks, but it is unclear whether these were also deployed during the protests.
Internal FIIAPP contracts seen by Al Jazeera and porCausa also mention Vamtac armoured vehicles gifted to the Senegalese gendarmerie as part of the GAR-SI project in 2022.
The resources, initially provided for the crime unit, were de facto integrated into the territorial commands and used by Senegalese security forces, according to a Spanish police source working in Senegal.
A former senior Senegalese police officer also confirmed the use of the GAR-SI unit during pro-democracy protests in Senegal. When shown the evidence, human rights groups were alarmed.
“These units seem to be used to repress human rights instead of fighting terrorism or surveilling the border,” said Ousmane Diallo, a researcher with Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa bureau. “It’s a serious allegation as the Senegalese gendarmerie has been involved in repressing human rights and the right to protest since 2021.”
Al Jazeera and porCausa obtained the 67-page final evaluation report of the GAR-SI project from 2022, which makes clear in different parts that in Senegal, GAR-SI functions differently from other countries where the unit is present.
The report states that the unit is sometimes deployed on joint missions together with other police units, such as the Surveillance and Intervention Squadron, or ESI in the French initials, of the Senegalese Gendarmerie, to carry out a series of missions for “internal security”.
The confidential document stresses that the project lacks human rights safeguards and that there is no trace of any written strategy elaboration or communication within the police hierarchy, with commands for operations outside of border areas being given informally and orally.
Al Jazeera and porCausa reached out to the Senegalese Ministry of Interior and Public Security but did not receive an answer before publication. In its response, the EU Commission said it had no information on the units Senegalese authorities deployed in the demonstrations.
“The EU has consistently called on Senegalese authorities to investigate any disproportionate use of force against peaceful demonstrations and expects appropriate follow-up,” it said. The EU spokesperson also said the framework of GAR-SI was “very specific and clearly defined in its scope and interventions”, adding that equipment or funding for it “should be used in cross-border areas to fight organised crime and increase protection for the local population”.
The Spanish foreign and interior ministries denied, in a joint statement, the involvement of the elite unit in the protests. “The Ministry of the Interior and the Civil Guard confirm that there is no evidence of the use by the Senegalese authorities of units formed within the framework of the GAR-SI project in the aforementioned actions.”
The statement added that it did not provide GAR-SI with security training “in the context of mass public demonstrations or protests” and that the project agreement forbids Senegal to “make any use of materials and equipment in a way that deviates from the objective of the [GAR-SI] project”.
As several court cases mounted against Sonko, among other things, charges of corrupting a minor and libel, the politician mobilised his supporters, who have alleged that the suits are a plot by incumbent Macky Sall to flatten the opposition ahead of the presidential election.
This led to riots and a crackdown by the government in March 2021 and in May and June 2023. Protests returned in February 2024 when Sall announced that he would postpone the election, which was supposed to happen on February 25. The courts declared the move unconstitutional, leaving the country in limbo as to when the election will happen.
At least 60 people died since the first protests in 2021 as a result of live ammunition fired by the Senegalese security forces or by agitators, called “nervis” in Senegal, paid by the government to come to protests, according to an Amnesty International estimate. No one has been prosecuted to date.
Amid the continued social unrest, irregular migration also went on. As of August 2023, one in three irregular arrivals to the Canary Islands in Spain were Senegalese.
Diallo, the researcher with Amnesty International, said all partners of EU-funded projects have a responsibility to ensure that the programmes they fund do not contribute to human rights violations, such as lethal repression of peaceful protests.
But if European authorities were aware of the rights violations committed in Senegal, they did not show it. At the end of 2023, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska visited Senegal to strengthen the cooperation against irregular migration, while the EU and Senegal signed their latest agreement on development aid that would help Senegalese authorities intercept departures from the country.
This happened despite the project becoming a source of controversy in Europe.
Last year, an evaluation report commissioned by the European Commission revealed significant mismanagement by the head of the team implementing the GAR-SI Sahel regional project — Francisco Espinosa Navas, the Spanish civil guard-general.
The report identified unjustified expenses totalling at least 12 million euros ($13m) and errors in the choice of protective equipment, which led to further expenses. The report also noted that neither FIIAPP nor the European Commission raised these irregularities with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
The fraud case was part of a wider scandal in Spain that revealed a widespread corruption scheme, known as the “Mediador” case, allegedly involving General Espinosa Navas in extortion, preferential treatment in public contracts, and other illicit activities.
The corruption scheme allegedly offered businessmen and entrepreneurs preferential treatment in exchange for procurement of public contracts and extorted them for favourable inspections and access to European aid funds. The internal evaluation report mentions that, in Senegal, too much equipment was acquired.
“The design and implementation of this project was not focused on people but on suppliers, companies to take advantage of it,” one external consultant familiar with the project, told Al Jazeera and porCausa anonymously.
This story is a joint investigation between Al Jazeera and PorCausa Foundation.
Dahomey, a documentary by Franco-Senegalese director Mati Diop probing the thorny issues surrounding Europe’s return of looted antiquities to Africa, has won the Berlin International Film Festival’s top prize.
Kenyan-Mexican Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o announced the seven-member panel’s choice for the Golden Bear award at a gala ceremony in the German capital Saturday.
Diop said the prize “not only honours me but the entire visible and invisible community that the film represents”.
Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said the documentary “confronts an issue that has been the forefront of many people’s minds, not just in the film world but also across Europe.
“DDahomeyconcentrates on the Benin bronzes and the struggle to return those bronzes. The whole principle of restitution, that is what the director Mati Diop referred to in accepting the prize, the Golden Bear at this festival,” Kane said.
South Korean arthouse favourite Hong Sang-soo captured the runner-up Grand Jury Prize for, A Traveller’s Needs, his third collaboration with French screen legend Isabelle Huppert.
Hong, a frequent guest at the festival, thanked the jury, joking, “I don’t know what you saw in this film.”
French auteur Bruno Dumont accepted the third-place Jury Prize for, The Empire, an intergalactic battle of good and evil set in a French fishing village.
Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias won best director for, Pepe, his enigmatic docudrama conjuring the ghost of a hippopotamus owned by the late Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar.
Marvel movie star Sebastian Stan picked up the best performance Silver Bear for his appearance in the US satire, A Different Man.
Stan plays an actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease causing disfiguring tumours, who is cured with a groundbreaking medical treatment.
The Romanian American star called it “a story that’s not only about acceptance, identity and self-truth but about disfigurement and disability – a subject matter that’s been long overlooked by our own bias”.
The United Kingdom’s Emily Watson clinched the best supporting performance Silver Bear for her turn as a cruel mother superior in, Small Things Like These.
The film, starring Cillian Murphy, is about one of modern Ireland’s biggest scandals: the Magdalene laundries network of Roman Catholic penitentiary workhouses for “fallen women”.
She paid tribute to the “thousands and thousands of young women whose lives were devastated by the collusion between the Catholic church and the state in Ireland”.
German writer-director Matthias Glasner took the Silver Bear for best screenplay for his semi-autobiographical tragicomedy, Dying. The three-hour tour de force features some of the country’s top actors depicting a dysfunctional family.
The Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution went to cinematographer Martin Gschlacht for the chilling Austrian historical horror movie, The Devil’s Bath. It tells the tale of depressed women in the 18th century who murdered in order to be executed.
A separate Berlinale Documentary Award went to a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective for, No Other Land, about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“In accepting the prize, the two men most involved in this film – one Israeli, one Palestinian – both spoke about the need for a ceasefire immediately, and that is a thought picked up by many other people – some recipients of awards, [and] some people presenting awards,” Kane said.
Cu Li Never Cries, by Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan won the best first feature prize. The film tells the story of a woman who returns to Vietnam from Germany with the ashes of her estranged husband.
Best short film went to, An Odd Turn, by Argentina’s Francisco Lezama about a museum security guard who predicts a surge in the dollar’s value with a pendulum.
The Berlinale, as the festival is known, ranks with Cannes and Venice among Europe’s top cinema showcases.
Last year, another documentary took home the Golden Bear, France’s, On the Adamant, about a floating day-care centre for people with psychiatric problems.
UN migration agency says 38 refugees and migrants rescued and 63 others believed to have died.
Several people have been found dead and 38 others rescued from a boat off Cape Verde, authorities said as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that dozens more people were missing and feared dead.
More than 60 people are believed to have died when a migrant boat that left Senegal in July capsized off Cape Verde, the IOM said on Wednesday.
Sixty-three people are thought to have died, while the 38 survivors included four children aged 12 to 16, IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli told the AFP news agency.
The fishing boat left Senegal a month ago, according to media reports in Cape Verde, an island nation about 620km (385 miles) off the West African coast.
Senegal’s foreign ministry said late on Tuesday that 38 people, including a citizen of Guinea-Bissau, were rescued from the boat.
The coast guard said the total number of survivors and dead was 48. The local morgue said it had received seven dead bodies.
The vessel was spotted on Monday almost 320km (200 miles) from the island of Sal by a Spanish fishing boat, which alerted Cape Verde authorities, police said.
“We must open our arms and welcome the living and bury the dead with dignity,” said Cape Verdean Health Minister Filomena Goncalves, as quoted by the Inforpress news agency.
The Spanish migration advocacy group Walking Borders said the vessel was a large fishing boat, called a pirogue, which had left Senegal on July 10 with more than 100 refugees and migrants on board.
Families in Fass Boye, a seaside town 145km (90 miles) north of the capital Dakar, had contacted Walking Borders on July 20 after ten days without hearing from loved ones on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzón told the Associated Press news agency.
Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the local fishermen’s association, said two of his nephews were missing. “They wanted to go to Spain,” Boye said.
Jose Rui Moreira, a health official in Sal, said seven survivors needed to be taken to hospital, the AFP news agency reported.
Cape Verde lies on the maritime migration route to the Spanish Canary Islands – a gateway to the European Union.
Thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing poverty and war risk their lives to make the dangerous journey each year.
They often travel in modest boats or motorised canoes supplied by smugglers, who charge a fee for the journey.
In January, rescue teams in Cape Verde saved about 90 refugees and migrants adrift in a canoe, while two others on board died.
They were from Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone.
Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko faces charges of fomenting insurrection as interior ministry says his PASTEF party has been dissolved.
Senegal’s interior ministry has dissolved the political party of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko for rallying supporters into stoking unrest during violent protests last month, as demonstrators clashed with police in the capital Dakar.
According to a decree signed by Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome, the government accused the party leaders of “frequently calling on its supporters to insurrectional movements, which has led to serious consequences, including loss of life, many wounded, as well as acts of looting of public and private property”.
“The latest are the serious disturbances to public order recorded during the first week of June 2023, after those of March 2021,” the decree said.
The dissolution of the Patriots of Senegal (PASTEF) party was the latest move in a long-running tussle between President Macky Sall’s ruling party and Sonko’s PASTEF, whose supporters say that Sall has used trumped-up charges to sideline his popular opponent ahead of an election in February.
There was no immediate comment from PASTEF.
Demonstrators took to the streets of Dakar once again on Monday as Sonko was remanded in custody on charges that include plotting an insurrection.
The new charges include undermining state security, criminal association with a “terrorist” body, disseminating false news and theft.
“I have just been unjustly placed in custody,” Sonko wrote on Facebook on Monday.
“If the Senegalese people, for whom I have always fought, abdicate and decide to leave me in the hands of Macky Sall’s regime, I will submit, as always, to divine will,” he said.
“It’s a farce,” Cire Cledor Ly, one of Sonko’s lawyers, told reporters outside the courthouse on Monday.
“It’s a plot that was formed, thought out, planned and executed.”
Sonko on Monday continued a hunger strike he began a day earlier, his lawyers said.
They said there was no limit to his detention time as the new charges are criminal.
“The judge can retain him until the case is heard”, Babacar Ndiaye, one of the lawyers, said.
Sonko was arrested on Friday after claiming on social media that security forces had been filming him outside his house and that he had snatched one of the phones to ask them to delete the video.
On Monday, authorities announced they were restricting mobile internet access due to “hateful and subversive” messages on social media.
Sonko had called, a day earlier, on Senegalese people to “stand up” and “resist… oppression”.
The internet was restricted for six days during the unrest in early June.
In a post on Twitter, which is being rebranded as X, Amnesty International denounced the internet restrictions, calling them an “attack on freedom of information”.
Sonko’s sentencing in absentia to two years in prison last month in a moral corruption case sparked deadly clashes that killed at least 16 people, the government said. But Amnesty International said the number was higher at 24, and Soko’s PASTEF party said 30 people were killed.
A former civil servant, Sonko rose to prominence in the 2019 presidential election, coming third in the polls.
He has portrayed Sall as a would-be dictator, while the president’s supporters say Sonko has sown instability.
Sall in early July eased tensions in the normally stable West African nation by announcing he would not seek a controversial third term, following months of ambiguity and speculation about his intentions.
New charges follow opposition leader’s arrest on Friday and are not related to an alleged rape case that sparked deadly riots in June.
Senegal’s opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has been charged with plotting an insurrection and other new offences, according to the country’s public prosecutor.
The announcement on Saturday comes weeks after Sonko, 49, was convicted on a separate charge of immoral behaviour and sentenced to two years in prison in a move that sparked deadly riots across the country.
The new charges follow the detention of Sonko – who has been serving his sentence at home – for questioning at a police court in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, on Friday.
He remains in custody.
Abdou Karim Diop, Senegal’s public prosecutor, told reporters the new charges stem from comments Sonko made and rallies he held as well as other episodes since 2021, including an incident at his home before his arrest on Friday.
In addition to fomenting insurrection, the new charges include undermining state security, acts aimed at jeopardising public security and creating serious political unrest, criminal association with a terrorist body and theft.
“This arrest has nothing to do with the [moral corruption] proceedings, for which he was tried in absentia,” Diop said.
There was no immediate comment from Sonko’s legal team.
His arrest on Friday followed a scuffle with security forces stationed outside his home, who he claimed were filming him without permission.
In June, the opposition leader was acquitted on charges of raping a woman who worked at a massage parlour and making death threats against her. But he was convicted on a lighter sentence of corrupting young people, which includes using one’s position of power to have sex with people under 21 years old.
Corrupting youth is a criminal offence in Senegal which is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to more than $6,000.
The conviction led to clashes across the country between Sonko’s supporters and police in which at least 16 people were killed and dozens wounded.
Sonko placed third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is popular with the country’s youth. His supporters maintain the charges against him are part of a government effort to derail his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko has portrayed President Macky Sall as a would-be dictator, while the incumbent leader’s supporters say the opposition politician has sown instability.
Sall in early July eased tensions in the West African nation by announcing he would not seek a controversial third mandate following months of ambiguity and speculation about his intentions.
Vladimir Putin said he does not reject the idea of peace talks over Ukraine, but the Russian president added that there could be no cease-fire while Ukrainian forces are “on the offensive.”
Speaking after meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg, Putin told a press conference that African and Chinese peace initiatives could serve as a basis for ending the war in Ukraine, but are “impossible to implement” at the moment.
“The Ukrainian army is on the offensive, they are attacking, they are implementing a large-scale strategic offensive operation,” Putin said, according to media reports. “We cannot cease fire when we are under attack,” he said.
“We did not reject them,” Putin said, referring to the peace initiatives. “In order for this process to begin, there needs to be agreement on both sides,” the Russian leader said of the possibility of peace talks.
African leaders meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg last week issued a direct appeal for Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022.
“This war must end. And it can only end on the basis of justice and reason,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, foreign minister of Chad and current African Union Commission chairman, told Putin at the Russia-Africa summit.
Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso said an African peace plan “deserves the closest attention.”
“It mustn’t be underestimated,” Nguesso said. “We once again urgently call for the restoration of peace in Europe.”
Senegal’s President Macky Sall also called for “a de-escalation to help create calm,” while South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he hoped that “constructive engagement and negotiation” could end the conflict.
Varg Folkman
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Fredde Tchibinda uses artistic makeup to enhance and celebrate women who are making a difference in Senegal.
In Senegal, Fredde Tchibinda uses creative makeup as a powerful and imaginative way to portray strong African women.
In her studio and out in the streets of Dakar, she designs and creates striking portraits that enhance and celebrate women’s strength and confidence. Her subjects include eco-feminists and women protecting Dakar’s street children, and her work focuses on the issues that concern African women.
Her stunning creations offer a sense of power and optimism for the next generation.
Ata Messan Koffi is a Togolese filmmaker who has produced and directed several short and feature length films, both documentary and fiction. Through his production company he supports African filmmakers and a commitment to elevating the ‘”view from within” in African storytelling.
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal’s government temporarily suspended mobile phone data on Sunday as the country reels from days of deadly clashes between police and supporters of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.
The ministry of communication, telecommunications and digital economy said that because of the diffusion of “subversive messages in a context of public disorder in certain localities,” cellphone internet data would be suspended during certain time periods.
The statement comes after days of deadly clashes throughout the West African nation between Sonko’s supporters and police. The official death toll is unclear. The government says that 15 people, including two members of the security forces, have been killed, while the opposition says 19 people have died.
The clashes first broke out on Thursday, after Sonko was convicted of corrupting youth but acquitted on charges of raping a woman who worked at a massage parlor and making death threats against her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to two years in prison. His lawyer said that a warrant hadn’t yet been issued for his arrest.
Sonko came third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is popular with the country’s youth. His supporters maintain that his legal troubles are part of a government effort to derail his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko is considered to be President Macky Sall’s main competition and has urged Sall to state publicly that he won’t seek a third term in office. Sonko hasn’t been seen or heard from since the verdict.
The international community has called on Senegal’s government to resolve the tensions.
The government had already suspended access to some social media sites, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, which it said was being used to incite violence.
At a news conference on Saturday evening, the government said it would take all necessary measures to secure the country.
“I would like to reassure the Senegalese people that whatever attacks we have, the state will face them,” Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said. Around 500 people have been arrested across the country, including those belonging to political parties as well as those who are just trying to scare people, he said.
Rights groups have condemned the government crackdown, which it says has included arbitrary arrests.
The number of people killed after days of clashes between Senegalese police and supporters of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has now risen to 15, including two security officers, the government said on Saturday.
Clashes continued in pockets of the city Friday evening with demonstrators throwing rocks, burning cars and damaging supermarkets as police fired tear gas and the government deployed the military in tanks.
SEYLLOU via Getty Images
Sonko was convicted Thursday of corrupting youth but acquitted on charges of raping a woman who worked at a massage parlor and making death threats against her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to two years in prison. His lawyer said a warrant hadn’t been issued yet for his arrest.
Sonko came in third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is popular with the country’s youth. His supporters maintain his legal troubles are part of a government effort to derail his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko is considered President Macky Sall’s main competition and has urged Sall to state publicly that he won’t seek a third term in office.
The international community has called on Senegal’s government to resolve the tensions. France’s ministry for Europe and foreign affairs said it was “extremely concerned by the violence” and called for a resolution to this crisis, in keeping with Senegal’s long democratic tradition.
Rights groups have condemned the government crackdown, which has included arbitrary arrests and restrictions on social media. Some social media sites used by demonstrators to incite violence, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have been suspended, for nearly two days.
Senegalese are blaming the government for the violence and the loss of lives.
One woman, Seynabou Diop, told The Associated Press on Saturday that her 21-year-old son, Khadim, was killed in the protests, shot by a bullet to the chest.
“I feel deep pain. What’s happening is hard. Our children are dying. I never thought I’d have to go through this,” she said.
This was the first time her son, a disciplined and kind mechanic, had joined in the protests, rushing out of the house as soon as he heard Sonko was convicted, she said.
“I think Macky Sall is responsible. If he’d talked to the Senegalese people, especially young people, maybe we wouldn’t have all these problems,” said Diop. The Associated Press cannot verify the cause of death. The family said an autopsy was underway.
Corrupting young people, which includes using one’s position of power to have sex with people under the age of 21, is a criminal offense in Senegal, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $6,000.
JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images
Under Senegalese law, Sonko’s conviction would bar him from running in next year’s election, said Bamba Cisse, another defense lawyer. However, the government said that Sonko could ask for a retrial once he was imprisoned. It was unclear when he would be taken into custody.
If violence continues, it could threaten the country’s institutions, say analysts.
“Never in their worst forms of nightmare (would) Senegalese have thought of witnessing the prevailing forms of apocalyptic and irrational violence,” said Alioune Tine, founder of Afrikajom Center, a West African think tank.
“The most shared feeling about the current situation is fear, stress, exhaustion and helplessness. Thus what the people are now seeking for is peace,” he said.
The West African country has been seen as a bastion of democratic stability in the region.
Sonko hasn’t been heard from or seen since the verdict. In a statement Friday, his PASTEF-Patriots party called on Senegalese to “amplify and intensify the constitutional resistance” until President Sall leaves office.
JOHN WESSELS via Getty Images
Government spokesman Abdou Karim Fofana said the damage caused by months of demonstrations had cost the country millions of dollars. He argued the protesters themselves posed a threat to democracy.
“These calls (to protest), it’s a bit like the anti-republican nature of all these movements that hide behind social networks and don’t believe in the foundations of democracy, which are elections, freedom of expression, but also the resources that our (legal) system offers,” Fofana said.
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Clashes between police and supporters of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko left nine people dead, the government said Friday, with authorities issuing a blanket ban on the use of several social media platforms in the aftermath of the violence.
The deaths occurred mainly in the capital, Dakar, and the city of Ziguinchor in the south, where Sonko lives and serves as mayor, Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said in a statement.
Some social media sites used by demonstrators to incite violence, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have been suspended, he said.
“The state of Senegal has taken every measure to guarantee the safety of people and property. We are going to reinforce security everywhere in the country,” Diome said. On Friday, the government deployed the military to parts of the city as clashes continued between police and Sonko supporters.
Sonko was convicted Thursday of corrupting youth but acquitted on charges of raping a woman who worked at a massage parlor and making death threats against her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to two years in prison. His lawyer said a warrant hadn’t been issued yet for his arrest.
Sonko came in third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is popular with the country’s youth. His supporters maintain his legal troubles are part of a government effort to derail his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko is considered President Macky Sall’s main competition and has urged Sall to state publicly that he won’t seek a third term in office.
Since the verdict was announced, clashes have erupted throughout the country, with protesters throwing rocks, burning vehicles and in some places erecting barricades while police fired tear gas. Associated Press reporters saw plumes of black smoke and tear gas being fired throughout the city.
The clashes forced the closure of the main university in Dakar. On Friday, Associated Press reporters watched students streaming out carrying luggage on their heads, walking past the shells of burnt-out cars in the university compound.
“I blame the students for the vandalism. As for the situation in the country, I blame the government,” said Saliou Bewe, a 25-year-old master’s student.
Bewe said it was the second time the university had closed because of protests related to Sonko. In 2021, at least 14 people were killed during clashes when authorities arrested Sonko for disturbing public order on the way to his court hearing. This time, the student said, it was much worse.
“Buses have been damaged, the administration, too. The classrooms have been damaged. There was a lot of vandalism and that’s deplorable,” he said. He doubts he’ll be able to sit his exams scheduled to take place in 10 days’ time.
Security forces patrolled the streets Friday and stood guard outside some supermarkets and shops, anticipating more unrest. Tight security remained around Sonko’s house with police preventing anyone from getting close to the premises. Sonko has not been heard from since the verdict. However, his PASTEF-Patriots party has called for people to take to the streets in protest.
Rights groups have condemned the government crackdown, which has included arbitrary arrests and restrictions on social media.
“These restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and information constitute arbitrary measures contrary to international law, and cannot be justified by security reasons,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
France’s ministry for Europe and foreign affairs said it was “extremely concerned by the violence” and called for a resolution to this crisis, in keeping with Senegal’s long democratic tradition.
Corrupting young people, which includes using one’s position of power to have sex with people under the age of 21, is a criminal offense in Senegal, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $6,000.
Under Senegalese law, Sonko’s conviction would bar him from running in next year’s election, said Bamba Cisse, another defense lawyer. However, the government said that Sonko could ask for a retrial once he was imprisoned. It was unclear when he would be taken into custody.
“The court decision and the prospect of Sall’s bid for a third term in the election next year will fuel fierce criticism around erosion of judicial independence and democratic backsliding” in Senegal, said Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at global risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
Government spokesman Abdou Karim Fofana said the damage caused by months of demonstrations had cost the country millions of dollars. He argued the protesters themselves posed a threat to democracy.
“These calls (to protest), it’s a bit like the anti-republican nature of all these movements that hide behind social networks and don’t believe in the foundations of democracy, which are elections, freedom of expression, but also the resources that our (legal) system offers,” Fofana said.
————
Associated Press reporter Angela Charlton in Paris, France contributed
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — At least 40 people were killed and dozens injured in a bus crash in central Senegal, the country’s president said Sunday.
President Macky Sall said in a tweet that the accident happened in Gnivy village, in the Kaffrine region, at about 3:30 a.m.
“I am deeply saddened by the tragic road accident today in Gniby causing 40 deaths and many serious injuries. I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” said Sall.
He declared three days of mourning starting Monday and said he will hold an inter-ministerial council to discuss road safety measures.
CHEIKH DIENG via Getty Images
Public prosecutor Cheikh Dieng said the crash happened on National Road No. 1 when a public bus punctured a tire and veered across the road, colliding with another bus coming from the opposite direction. At least 78 people are injured some of them seriously, he said.
Images of the crash on social media show the damaged buses rammed into each other and a trail of debris along the road.
Motor accidents happen regularly in the West African nation due to poor roads, bad cars and drivers not adhering to the rules, say locals.
In 2017, at least 25 people were killed when two buses also crashed. Many of those people were heading toward the central town of Touba for the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
CNN
—
At least 40 people were killed Sunday and many others seriously injured in a bus crash in central Senegal, according to the country’s president.
“I am deeply saddened by today’s tragic road accident in Gniby, where 40 people died and many were seriously injured. I send my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish the injured a speedy recovery,” President Macky Sall said in a tweet.
The incident involved two buses that collided with one another, according to Radiodiffusion Télévision Sénégalaise (RTS), the country’s public broadcaster.
The western African nation will observe three days of national mourning for the victims, starting on January 9, the president announced.
The reason for the crash is as yet unknown. CNN has reached out to the Senegalese Transport Ministry for comment.
Dakar will also call an inter-ministerial council on January 9 to discuss “firm measures” to ensure transport safety, according to Sall.
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BERLIN — On a balmy September evening last year, an Azeri man carrying a Russian passport crossed the border from northern Cyprus into southern Cyprus. He traveled light: a pistol, a handful of bullets and a silencer.
It was going to be the perfect hit job.
Then, just as the man was about to step into a rental car and carry out his mission — which prosecutors say was to gun down five Jewish businessmen, including an Israeli billionaire — the police surrounded him.
The failed attack was just one of at least a dozen in Europe in recent years, some successful, others not, that have involved what security officials call “soft” targets, involving murder, abduction, or both. The operations were broadly similar in conception, typically relying on local hired guns. The most significant connection, intelligence officials say, is that the attacks were commissioned by the same contractor: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In Cyprus, authorities believe Iran, which blames Israel for a series of assassinations of nuclear specialists working on the Iranian nuclear program, was trying to signal that it could strike back where Israel least expects it.
“This is a regime that bases its rule on intimidation and violence and espouses violence as a legitimate measure,” David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said in rare public remarks in September, describing what he said was a recent uptick in violent plots. “It is not spontaneous. It is planned, systematic, state terrorism — strategic terrorism.”
He left out one important detail: It’s working.
That success has come in large part because Europe — the staging ground for most Iranian operations in recent years — has been afraid to make Tehran pay. Since 2015, Iran has carried out about a dozen operations in Europe, killing at least three people and abducting several others, security officials say.
“The Europeans have not just been soft on the Islamic Republic, they’ve been cooperating with them, working with them, legitimizing the killers,” Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American author and women’s rights activist said, highlighting the continuing willingness of European heads of state to meet with Iran’s leaders.
Alinejad, one of the most outspoken critics of the regime, understands better than most just how far Iran’s leadership is willing to go after narrowly escaping both a kidnapping and assassination attempt.
“If the Islamic Republic doesn’t receive any punishment, is there any reason for them to stop taking hostages or kidnapping or killing?” she said, and then answered: “No.”
Assassination has been the sharpest instrument in the policy toolbox ever since Brutus and his co-conspirators stabbed Julius Caesar repeatedly. Over the millennia, it’s also proved risky, often triggering disastrous unintended consequences (see the Roman Empire after Caesar’s killing or Europe after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo).
And yet, for both rogue states like Iran, Russia and North Korea, and democracies such as the United States and Israel — the attraction of solving a problem by removing it often proves irresistible.
Even so, there’s a fundamental difference between the two spheres: In the West, assassination remains a last resort (think Osama bin Laden); in authoritarian states, it’s the first (who can forget the 2017 assassination by nerve agent of Kim Jong-nam, the playboy half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, upon his arrival in Kuala Lumpur?). For rogue states, even if the murder plots are thwarted, the regimes still win by instilling fear in their enemies’ hearts and minds.
That helps explain the recent frequency. Over the course of a few months last year, Iran undertook a flurry of attacks from Latin America to Africa. In Colombia, police arrested two men in Bogotá on suspicion they were plotting to assassinate a group of Americans and a former Israeli intelligence officer for $100,000; a similar scene played out in Africa, as authorities in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal arrested five men on suspicion they were planning attacks on Israeli targets, including tourists on safari; in February of this year, Turkish police disrupted an intricate Iranian plot to kill a 75-year-old Turkish-Israeli who owns a local aerospace company; and in November, authorities in Georgia said they foiled a plan hatched by Iran’s Quds Force to murder a 62-year-old Israeli-Georgian businessman in Tbilisi.
Whether such operations succeed or not, the countries behind them can be sure of one thing: They won’t be made to pay for trying. Over the years, the Russian and Iranian regimes have eliminated countless dissidents, traitors and assorted other enemies (real and perceived) on the streets of Paris, Berlin and even Washington, often in broad daylight. Others have been quietly abducted and sent home, where they faced sham trials and were then hanged for treason.
While there’s no shortage of criticism in the West in the wake of these crimes, there are rarely real consequences. That’s especially true in Europe, where leaders have looked the other way in the face of a variety of abuses in the hopes of reviving a deal to rein in Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and renewing business ties.
Unlike the U.S. and Israel, which have taken a hard line on Iran ever since the mullahs came to power in 1979, Europe has been more open to the regime. Many EU officials make no secret of their ennui with America’s hard-line stance vis-à-vis Iran.
“Iran wants to wipe out Israel, nothing new about that,” the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told POLITICO in 2019 when he was still Spanish foreign minister. “You have to live with it.”
There’s also nothing new about Iran’s love of assassination.
Indeed, many scholars trace the word “assassin” to Hasan-i Sabbah, a 12th-century Persian missionary who founded the “Order of Assassins,” a brutal force known for quietly eliminating adversaries.
Hasan’s spirit lived on in the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the hardline cleric who led Iran’s Islamic revolution and took power in 1979. One of his first victims as supreme leader was Shahriar Shafiq, a former captain in the Iranian navy and the nephew of the country’s exiled shah. He was shot twice in the head in December 1979 by a masked gunman outside his mother’s home on Rue Pergolèse in Paris’ fashionable 16th arrondissement.
In the years that followed, Iranian death squads took out members and supporters of the shah and other opponents across Europe, from France to Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In most instances, the culprits were never caught. Not that the authorities really needed to look.
In 1989, for example, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, a leader of Iran’s Kurdish minority who supported autonomy for his people, was gunned down along with two associates by Iranian assassins in an apartment in Vienna.
The gunmen took refuge in the Iranian embassy. They were allowed to leave Austria after Iran’s ambassador to Vienna hinted to the government that Austrians in his country might be in danger if the killers were arrested. One of the men alleged to have participated in the Vienna operation would later become one of his country’s most prominent figures: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president from 2005 until 2013.
Not even the bad publicity surrounding that case tempered the regime’s killing spree. In the years that followed, the body count only increased. Some of the murders were intentionally gruesome in order to send a clear message.
Fereydoun Farrokhzad, for example, a dissident Iranian popstar who found exile in Germany, was killed in his home in Bonn in 1992. The killers cut off his genitals, his tongue and beheaded him.
His slaying was just one of dozens in what came to be known as Iran’s “chain murders,” a decade-long killing spree in which the government targeted artists and dissidents at home and abroad. Public outcry over the murder of a trio of prominent writers in 1998, including a husband and wife, forced the regime hard-liners behind the killings to retreat. But only for a time.
Then, as now, the dictatorship’s rationale for such killings has been to protect itself.
“The highest priority of the Iranian regime is internal stability,” a Western intelligence source said. “The regime views its opponents inside and outside Iran as a significant threat to this stability.”
Much of that paranoia is rooted in the Islamic Republic’s own history. Before returning to Iran in 1979, Khomeini spent nearly 15 years in exile, including in Paris, an experience that etched the power of exile into the Islamic Republic’s mythology. In other words, if Khomeini managed to lead a revolution from abroad, the regime’s enemies could too.
Given Europe’s proximity to Iran, the presence of many Iranian exiles there and the often-magnanimous view of some EU governments toward Tehran, Europe is a natural staging ground for the Islamic Republic’s terror.
The regime’s intelligence service, known as MOIS, has built operational networks across the Continent trained to abduct and murder through a variety of means, Western intelligence officials say.
As anti-regime protests have erupted in Iran with increasing regularity since 2009, the pace of foreign operations aimed at eliminating those the regime accuses of stoking the unrest has increased.
While several of the smaller-scale assassinations — such as the 2015 hit in the Netherlands on Iranian exile Mohammad-Reza Kolahi — have succeeded, Tehran’s more ambitious operations have gone awry.
The most prominent example involved a 2018 plot to blow up the annual Paris meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an alliance of exile groups seeking to oust the regime. Among those attending the gathering, which attracted tens of thousands, was Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer.
Following a tip from American intelligence, European authorities foiled the plot, arresting six, including a Vienna-based Iranian diplomat who delivered a detonation device and bombmaking equipment to an Iranian couple tasked with carrying out an attack on the rally. Authorities observed the handover at a Pizza Hut in Luxembourg and subsequently arrested the diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, on the German autobahn as he sped back to Vienna, where he enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
Assadi was convicted on terror charges in Belgium last year and sentenced to 20 years is prison. He may not even serve two.
The diplomat’s conviction marked the first time an Iranian operative had been held accountable for his actions by a European court since the Islamic revolution. But Belgium’s courage didn’t last long.
In February, Iran arrested Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele on trumped-up espionage charges and placed him into solitary confinement at the infamous Evin prison in Tehran. Vandecasteele headed the Iran office of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group.
Following reports that Vandecasteele’s health was deteriorating and tearful public pleas from his family, the Belgian government — ignoring warnings from Washington and other governments that it was inviting further kidnappings — relented and laid the groundwork for an exchange to trade Assadi for Vandecasteele. The swap could happen any day.
“Right now, French, Swedish, German, U.K., U.S., Belgian citizens, all innocents, are in Iranian prisons,” said Alinejad, the Iranian women’s rights campaigner.
“They are being used like bargaining chips,” she said. “It works.”
Even so, the messiness surrounding the Assadi case might explain why most of Iran’s recent operations have been carried out by small-time criminals who usually have no idea who they’re working for. The crew in last year’s Cyprus attack, for example, included several Pakistani delivery boys. While that gives Iran plausible deniability if the perpetrators get caught, it also increases the likelihood that the operations will fail.
“It’s very amateur, but an amateur can be difficult to trace,” one intelligence official said. “They’re also dispensable. They get caught, no one cares.”
Iranian intelligence has had more success in luring dissidents away from Europe to friendly third countries where they are arrested and then sent back to Iran. That’s what happened to Ruhollah Zam, a journalist critical of the regime who had been living in Paris. The circumstances surrounding his abduction remain murky, but what is known is that someone convinced him to travel to Iraq in 2019, where he was arrested and extradited to Iran. He was convicted for agitating against the regime and hanged in December of 2020.
One could be forgiven for thinking that negotiations between Iran and world powers over renewing its dormant nuclear accord (which offered Tehran sanctions relief in return for supervision of its nuclear program) would have tamed its covert killing program. In fact, the opposite occurred.
In July of 2021, U.S. authorities exposed a plot by Iranian operatives to kidnap Alinejad from her home in Brooklyn as part of an elaborate plan that involved taking her by speedboat to a tanker in New York Harbor before spiriting her off to Venezuela, an Iranian ally, and then on to the Islamic Republic.
A year later, police disrupted what the FBI believed was an attempt to assassinate Alinejad, arresting a man with an assault rifle and more than 60 rounds of ammunition who had knocked on her door.
American authorities also say Tehran planned to avenge the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of its feared paramilitary Quds Force who was the target of a U.S. drone strike in 2020, by seeking to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State, among other officials.
Through it all, neither the U.S. nor Europe gave up hope for a nuclear deal.
“From the point of view of the Iranians, this is proof that it is possible to separate and maintain a civilized discourse on the nuclear agreement with a deceptive Western appearance, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to plan terrorist acts against senior American officials and citizens,” Barnea, the Mossad chief said. “This artificial separation will continue for as long as the world allows it to.”
Some hope the growing outrage in Western societies over Iran’s crackdown on peaceful protestors could be the spark that convinces Europe to get tough on Iran. But Europe’s handling of its other favorite rogue actor — Russia — suggests otherwise.
Long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, much less its all-out war against Ukraine, Moscow, similar to Iran, undertook an aggressive campaign against its enemies abroad and made little effort to hide it.
Russian police investigators stand near the body of killed Russian opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov | Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
The most prominent victim was Alexander Litvinenko. A former KGB officer like Vladimir Putin, Litvinenko had defected to the U.K., where he joined other exiles opposed to Putin. In 2006, he was poisoned in London by Russian intelligence with polonium-210, a radioactive isotope that investigators concluded was mixed into his tea. The daring operation signaled Moscow’s return to the Soviet-era practice of artful assassination.
Litvinenko died a painful death within weeks, but not before he blamed Putin for killing him, calling the Russian president “barbaric.”
“You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price,” Litvinenko said from his deathbed.
In the end, however, the only one who really paid a price was Litvinenko. Putin continued as before and despite deep tensions in the U.K.’s relationship with Russia over the assassination, it did nothing to halt the transformation of the British capital into what has come to be known as “Londongrad,” a playground and second home for Russia’s Kremlin-backed oligarchs, who critics say use the British financial and legal systems to hide and launder their money.
Litvinenko’s killing was remarkable both for its brutality and audacity. If Putin was willing to take out an enemy on British soil with a radioactive element, what else was he capable of?
It didn’t take long to find out. In the months and years that followed, the bodies started to pile up. Critical journalists, political opponents and irksome oligarchs in the prime of life began dropping like flies.
Europe didn’t blink.
Angela Merkel, then German chancellor, visited Putin in his vacation residence in Sochi just weeks after the murders of Litvinenko and investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and said … nothing.
Even after there was no denying Putin’s campaign to eradicate anyone who challenged him, European leaders kept coming in the hope of deepening economic ties.
Neither the assassination of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemtsov just steps away from the Kremlin in 2015, nor the poisoning of a KGB defector and his daughter in the U.K. in 2018 and of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 with nerve agents disabused European leaders of the notion that Putin was someone they could do business with and, more importantly, control.
Just how comfortable Russia felt about using Europe as a killing field became clear in the summer of 2019. Around noon on a sunny August day, a Russian assassin approached Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen with Georgian nationality, and shot him twice in the head with a 9mm pistol. The murder took place in a park located just a few hundred meters from Germany’s interior ministry and several witnesses saw the killer flee. He was nabbed within minutes as he was changing his clothes and trying to dispose of his weapon and bike in a nearby canal.
It later emerged that Khangoshvili, a Chechen fighter who had sought asylum in Germany, was on a Russian kill list. Russian authorities considered him a terrorist and accused him of participating in a 2010 attack on the Moscow subway that killed nearly 40 people.
In December of 2019, Putin denied involvement in Khangoshvili’s killing. Sort of. Sitting next to French President Emmanuel Macron, Merkel and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following a round of talks aimed at resolving the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian referred to him as a “very barbaric man with blood on his hands.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Putin said. “Those are opaque criminal structures where anything can happen.”
Early on October 19 of last year, Berlin police discovered a dead man on the sidewalk outside the Russian embassy. He was identified as Kirill Zhalo, a junior diplomat at the embassy. He was also the son of General Major Alexey Zhalo, the deputy head of a covert division in Russia’s FSB security service in Moscow that ordered Khangoshvili’s killing. Western intelligence officials believe that Kirill Zhalo, who arrived in Berlin just weeks before the hit on the Chechen, was involved in the operation and was held responsible for its exposure.
The Russian embassy called his death “a tragic accident,” suggesting he had committed suicide by jumping out of a window. Russia refused to allow German authorities to perform an autopsy (such permission is required under diplomatic protocols) and sent his body back to Moscow.
Less than two months later, the Russian hitman who killed Khangoshvili, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Russia recently tried to negotiate his release, floating the possibility of exchanging American basketball player Brittney Griner and another U.S. citizen they have in custody. Washington rejected the idea.
The war in Ukraine offers profound lessons about the inherent risks of coddling dictators.
Though Germany, with its thirst for Russian gas, is often criticized in that regard, it was far from alone in Europe. Europe’s insistence on giving Putin the benefit of the doubt over the years in the face of his crimes convinced him that he would face few consequences in the West for his invasion of Ukraine. That’s turned out to be wrong; but who could blame the Russian leader for thinking it?
Iran presents Europe with an opportunity to learn from that history and confront Tehran before it’s too late. But there are few signs it’s prepared to really get tough. EU officials say they are “considering” following Washington’s lead and designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a vast military organization that also controls much of the Iran’s economy, as a terror organization. Last week, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spearheaded an effort at the United Nations to launch a formal investigation into Iran’s brutal crackdown against the ongoing protests in the country.
Yet even as the regime in Tehran snuffs out enemies and races to fulfil its goal of building both nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach any point on the Continent, some EU leaders appear blind to the wider context as they pursue the elusive renewal of the nuclear accord.
“It is still there,” Borrell said recently of the deal he has taken a leading role in trying to resurrect. “It has nothing to do with other issues, which certainly concern us.”
In other words, let the killing continue.
Matthew Karnitschnig
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World Cup 2022 in Qatar: The wait is almost over for the world’s biggest sporting event. Fans eagerly waiting for the FIFA World Cup 2022, which would kick off on November 20 and culminate on December 18, can now count the remaining hours at their fingertips. Qatar is the first country in the Middle East country, and second in Asia, after Japan and South Korea, to host the prestigious sporting event.
Also, for the first time in its 92-year history, the tournament is taking place in November and December rather than in the middle of the year as Qatar is one of the hottest nations in the world.
Qatar: The host
The selection of Qatar as the host country of the 2022 World Cup was done in 2010. As per reports, the country has spent a whopping $300 billion on the tournament’s preparations. It has developed highways, hotels, recreation areas, and six new football stadiums and upgraded two along with training sites at an estimated cost of up to $10 billion to accommodate world-class players. The stadiums where the matches will be played are Al Bayt Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium, Al Thumama Stadium, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Lusail Stadium, Ras Abu Aboud Stadium, Education City Stadium, and Al Janoub Stadium, to hold the tournament. With 80,000 seats, Lusail Iconic Stadium is the largest stadium of the upcoming world cup.
Also read: Who will win the 2022 FIFA World Cup? Brazil is the favourite, Messi may score most goals
Qatar’s investment has caught everyone’s eye as it is much higher as compared to other hosts. Picture this: Russia spent $11.6 billion spent for the FIFA World Cup in 2018, Brazil invested $15 billion in 2014, South Africa shelled out $3.6 billion in 2010. Before that, Germany spent $4.3 billion in 2006, Japan $7 billion in 2002, France $2.3 billion in 1998, and the US $500 million in 1994.
Besides, the host country was in the middle of many controversies starting from the ban of beer sales inside the stadiums, its strict rules on homosexuality, and lastly, serious abuse and mistreatment of migrant workers who built the tournament’s infrastructure.
Match details
Thirty-two countries will be taking part in football’s biggest event. This tournament will kick start with a Group A match between hosts Qatar and Ecuador on November 20. The opening game will be played at the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, while the final match takes place on December 18 at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail.
Groups and leagues
The 32 countries have been divided into eight groups with four teams each. There will be group matches, followed by knockout matches, quarterfinals, semifinals and the final to crown the champions on December 18.
The groups are:
GROUP A: Qatar (hosts), Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands.
GROUP B: England, Iran, United States, Wales.
GROUP C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland.
GROUP D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia.
GROUP E: Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan.
GROUP F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia.
GROUP G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon.
GROUP H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea.
Ticket prices
Pricing on tickets depends on a variety of factors such as who is playing, the stage of the tournament, and more. As per FIFA, nearly three million tickets have been sold across the eight stadiums in Qatar. The tournament is expected to deliver record revenue for the organising body, much more than what it had earned ($5.4 billion) in Russia. The total ticket revenue is estimated to be about $1 billion, as per news reports.
There are 4 categories in the tickets:
Category 1 is the highest-priced ticket and is located in prime areas within the stadium.
Category 2 and Category 3 are tickets that are placed in seating areas within the stadium that offer a less optimal view of the action.
Category 4 is tickets within the stadium that are reserved exclusively for residents of Qatar.
The estimated base ticket prices are as follows:
| Match | Cat. 1 | Cat. 2 | Cat. 3 | Cat. 4 |
| Opening Match | $618 | $440 | $302 | $55 |
| Group Matches | $220 | $165 | $69 | $11 |
| Round of 16 | $275 | $206 | $96 | $19 |
| Quarterfinals Matches | $426 | $288 | $206 | $82 |
| Semifinals Matches | $956 | $659 | $357 | $137 |
| Third-Place Match | $426 | $302 | $206 | $82 |
| Final Match | $1607 | $1003 | $604 | $206 |
Tournament format
The tournament will start off with group-stage matches, where only the top two teams from each of the eight groups survive. Following this, 16 group-stage teams will advance to the single-game knockout stages — Round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals, and final — where the winner moves on and the loser goes home.
The knockout matches, if end without any results, will be decided on extra time, penalty kicks, sudden death methods, if necessary, to determine the victor.
Schedule:
Group stage: Nov. 20-Dec. 2
Round of 16: Dec. 3-6
Quarterfinals: Dec. 9-10
Semifinals: Dec. 13-14
Third-place match: Dec. 17
Final: Dec. 18
