Briefing Room 26.06.26

Welcome back to the briefing room the weekly show that aims to remind you of all the other stuff happening in the news you know the stuff that maybe didn't make the headlines i'm simon and this week we're checking in on syria where a year and a half on from the collapse of the assad regime things are looking less stable than at any recent point as islamic

State unleashes a wave of attacks after that we're pivoting to africa to broadly analyze current u.s strategy there and the ways that different parts of the trump administration appear to be working at cross purposes and finally we'll be traveling across the atlantic ocean to honduras where gang violence is spiking despite a promise government crackdown as

Always thank you so much for subscribing it's thanks to viewers like you that we're able to offer these videos on more obscure and nerdy topics i like it in conflicts that too many outlets are just comfortable to ignore now let's have a look at those attacks rocking syria shall we a wave of islamic state attacks in syria first up we travel as syria where

After a few months of relative quiet the islamic state has launched a wave of recent attacks while the international media remains focused on sanctions and targeted assassinations of the islamic state leadership events of the last several weeks have only confirmed that on the ground the organization continues to rebuild its strength first let's talk about

The story that you're most likely to have seen in the last few days when it comes to the islamic state in syria the wednesday announcement by the united states that u.s centcom killed a senior islamic state leader in an airstrike on friday the 19th of june on that day u.s centcom targeted ali hussein al-olawi a high-ranking member of the jihadist franchise

That spans syria and iraq although not a particularly relevant player in the global islamic state network the announcement came two days after another american action against the group this time when the u.s treasury announced new sanctions against key designated islamic state facilitators and networks according to the treasury the sanctions hit quote three

Individuals and six entities across europe the middle east and west africa who enable isis to move funds among its regional affiliates in that sense it was another ordinary week in the fight against the islamic state between high-profile killings and action within the financial regulatory space but on the ground in syria the news across the last few weeks

Has told a very different story it started with an attack on a command headquarters of the syrian internal security forces in the city of raqqar in that attack a pair of islamic state suicide bombers tried to storm the facility killing one member of syrian state security services and wounding three others the assailants were eventually surrounded and killed

In the islamic state claimed credit for the attack where they also alleged that despite america's recent military withdrawal from the country u.s troops were still present at the base in question days later a different jihadist cell in west hasakhar stormed a military bus carrying soldiers wounding 10 men in the process the ambush mirrored a similar attack

In the same area a month earlier in which two soldiers have been killed by that time the islamic state had also claimed credit for two other attacks one an ambush against an oil tanker near manbij and another against the head of the palace of justice in a damascus suburb called babila then on sunday the group took responsibility for an attack near manbij

That led to the deaths of two soldiers in an ambush that took place under unclear circumstances.

The same cell behind the Manbij attack is believed to have been responsible for three other recent strikes. That's five Islamic State attacks across four provinces in just a matter of days, continuing before and after the death of the senior leader who was targeted by the US.

In multiple locations, those attacks were carried out by known Islamic State cells that have persisted in their operations, even after publicly claiming credit for previous killings, but who have thus far escaped any retribution from Syrian security forces.

Going on at that same time, we've got strikes and sanctions from Washington, meaningful in their own right, but announcements that tell a very different story relative to what's happening on the ground. Now, we should be very clear here about the case for relative optimism.

This wave of Islamic State strikes is still a long-term security improvement for Syria compared to the situation, say, a decade ago.

But as anybody watching this episode already knows, Syria has gone through seismic changes over the span of the last decade, and the comparisons that really matter are the ones we draw from late 2024 and onward, after the fall of the Assad regime.

Since that time, the Islamic State has stayed mostly dormant, but the group is known for quietly growing its strength behind the scenes, recruiting, building connections with other franchises abroad, stockpiling weapons and supplies, and preparing for future escalation.

After the initial post-transition period, the Islamic State entered a clear identified escalation period starting in February, when the group declared a new phase of operations targeting Syria's transitional government.

But the recent wave of attacks is so serious not just because it represents the group starting to ramp up again, but because it's going to be a moment of truth for Damascus after a series of changes that have degraded the Syrian security landscape.

We've mentioned one of those changes already, the US withdrawal from Syria, which was formally completed on the 16th of April.

Around that same time, Syria reached an agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, granting the federal government control over northern Syria and handing off counterinsurgency responsibilities to Damascus.

That transition coincided with jailbreaks in Islamic State detention facilities, the rapid depopulation of camps that held Islamic State family members, and other extremely worrying signs that the Islamic State was gathering its strength in the shadows. Now the group is launching what appears to be a set of probing attacks.

Low-grade ambushes and suicide attacks distributed across several sensitive areas at once, carried out by individual cells, that don't risk compromising the movement if they were to be wiped out.

Islamic State containment has been failing in Syria for a little while now, and this wave of attacks is going to create an opportunity for Damascus to take back control. But it's also a test of whether Damascus is even capable.

Before we move on, we'd be remiss not to mention another growing security issue in Syria, with the potential to either distract Damascus from its anti-Islamic state operations or fuse with the Islamic State situation to destabilize the country more broadly.

The newest problem has appeared in the southern Suweda government, where an armed group linked to a cleric with close ties to Israel, the Hikmat al-Hijri, recently announced that it plans to carry out a military offensive against nearby villagers under syrian government control suweda has become an increasingly important hub for the production and shipment

Of the drug captagon it's home to a growing secessionist movement and its local government and druz population being turned into a semi-compliant proxy force for israel in a growing syrian showdown against turkey the primary backer of the transitional government now by the time this episode is released hostilities in sueda may already be underway again less

Than a year after clashes in 2025 that left more than a thousand civilians dead if fighting starts again expect the islamic state to take full advantage next let's turn to the horn of africa where we're going to try and make sense of a story that's been playing itself out across the last two months there in the shadow of the war in iran the united states has

Been engaged in a series of diplomatic maneuvers that have global onlookers scratching their heads in an optimistic read the trump administration is somehow managing to reach across all sorts of regional divides and exert pressure on basically every major player in the african horn all at once in a pessimistic read well there is no strategy and whatever's

Happening now can be better understood as diplomatic nonsense the first bit of news the court horn experts attention was an april report that the united states was considering a diplomatic reset with the nation of eritrea according to those reports the u.s was considering lifting sanctions against the reclusive governments which it first instituted in 2021

As a penalty for eritrean atrocities during the tigre war in ethiopia to be clear eritrea has not been held accountable for those atrocities nor for its intense repression of its own people and nor does it appear that accountability is part of washington's plan but washington is hardly alone canada and the european union appeared to be interested in warming

Ties too at the time the move was read partly as an attempt to engage the eritrean economy partly as a matter of red sea security and partly as a warning to ethiopia not to return to war with eritrea in the near future but then in mid-june the u.s announced targeted visa restrictions against members of the tigray people's liberation front the regional

Government in tigray where hardliners recently seized control and reinstated their pre-war command over the region for the u.s to sanction the tplf now is a weird move the tplf are closely linked to eritrea and are in a sense an eritrean proxy force despite the fact that the two were on opposite sides of the tigray war african horn power dynamics are wild

Don't worry about that for today the tplf has recently been threatened with a major ethiopian military buildup and both the tplf and adis ababa seem to agree that war is on the horizon with eritrea likely to be drawn in as a warring party so after warming to eritrea and seeming to try and deter ethiopia the u.s is now sanctioning the ethiopian breakaway

Group that seems to be the most important part of eritrea's deterrence but the story gets weirder place all this in broader context and america's involvement here would seem to go against the interests of its closest middle eastern ally israel who america was still fighting alongside in iran at the time of the reports on eritrean reconciliation israel and

Ethiopia have gotten quite cosy you the last few years behind the scenes largely because of the influence of the uae eritrea meanwhile is backed by ethiopia's arch-rival egypt led by a president who trump was extolling at the g7 in mid-june at almost exactly the same time that the u.s was sanctioning eritrea's proxy allies or egypt's grand proxy if you will

In the tplf making things all the weirder trump's decision to boost eritrea and thus benefit egypt put trump in the middle of a growing union between egypt saudi arabia a handful of other nations in turkey that's the same nation that israel is entering a new proxy conflict against in places like lebanon and syria but if all of that isn't already heads big

Enough don't worry there's more in somalia the united states recently carried out a wave of airstrikes against al-shabab alongside the somali federal government in what seemed to be a tacit sign of support for hassan sheikh muhammad somalia's embattled president who's trying to overstay his mandate hsm is a good friend to the turkey egypt saudi coalition

That we already mentioned but that was a weird stance for trump to take because again israel is on the opposite side of the slow burning somali crisis in support of breakaway somaliland stranger still the u.s already has an ongoing security partnership with another somali autonomous region putland which has been making clear that it's willing to violently

Oppose mogadishu in the near future then there's sudan where in a very unusual move of the western world countries are actually starting to pay attention to what's happening in the civil war there on the 22nd of june the u.s issued an urgent warning over the siege of the city of el obeid or sudan's paramilitary rapid support forces amassing in advance of a

Likely attack to be clear it is very important that world nations are sounding the alarm over el obeid given that it's likely to be a mirror of what happened in el fascia last year where the rsf slaughtered several tens of thousands of innocent sudanese civilians in the span of just a few days in actions that amounted genocide but as important as it is for

The us and other countries to be pressuring the rsf to back down it's highly unusual for the us to take this much of an interest especially because the rsf depends on support from the united arab emirates which is in turn growing even closer with israel than it ever has before so right now the us is both warming ties with eritrea and punishing its proxy

While supporting israel and the emirates in the middle east but seemingly working against both of their proxies while kind of aligning with turkey saudi arabia egypt and other countries but also maintaining and enhancing long-standing ties with their regional foes as what all this means well perhaps it's a u.s attempt to lay down the law and tie all sides to

The influence of a global superpower that intends to push for peace stability and an end to ongoing or emerging conflicts or perhaps it's just chaos plain and simple with this white house one never knows although we certainly hope that peace will prevail in the end gang violence in honduras for our final story today we turn our attention to the central

American nation of honduras where a gang crisis as bad as any in latin america has been ravaging the country and it seems like things are about to get a lot worse in late may gunmen killed 25 people across the country including 20 people in trio in cologne department a community leader told the afp that the people killed were members of a local gang that

Controlled the plantation however the local press indicated that the armed group had fired indiscriminately on farm workers this is an important distinction because it is the difference between two gangs fighting for territory and a gang attacking innocent workers if it's the former then it would fall into a broader pattern of violence that has been

Happening for decades across the region where gangs try to control the large african palm plantations in the area using the money they earn for recruitment and to buy weapons if it's the latter then it could be more than just another senseless attack by gangs trying to take over farmland agrarian platform a national group pushing for farmers rights has long

Accused the authorities of allowing criminal groups to act on behalf of big agricultural corporations to evict peasants from their fields while this might sound far-fetched it would be par for the course in honduras where police corruption is endemic and journalists of unearthed evidence of the police working with street gangs regardless of the reason the

Outcome was the same may was the deadliest month for cologne since 2018. and the rest of the country hasn't fair much better on the same day as the trio attack the los agueta gang killed five police officers from the anti-gang task force dipamco during an operation in corinto cortez department according to the conflict monitoring group akhled there was a 60

Increase in the number of deaths from organized crime in may alone this spike is happening as the government of president nastri astrufa has ramping up efforts to fight the gangs a few days before the attacks the honduran parliament approved a set of reforms to the criminal code that among other things toughened the sentences for extortion a key source of

Income for the gangs allowed the government to define gangs as terrorist groups and expanded the role of the military and public security tasks and speaking of the military after the debamco officers were killed in cortez the government disbanded the task force and replaced it with the national crime agency or anc an interagency unit led by the military that

Would be responsible for unifying and overseeing all anti-gang activities carried out by the various state agencies the ancu would also have the support of the u.s as part of its broader efforts to combat narco trafficking in latin america as far as also signaled a willingness to embrace technology to fight the gangs confirming that honduras would buy drones

From ukraine following a meeting with zelensky while all of this sounds like a solid plan security experts are unsure whether it will work ackled noted that an increasingly militarized response to crime was unlikely to stem the wave of violence investigative journalist joe humberto suazo was a lot more scathing in his assessment writing in america's

Quarterly magazine he said that as for a security agenda was more a set of signals than a fully defined strategy and while that may sound harsh the truth is that in the six months as for has been in office despite his stuff on crime approach levels of violence have gone up dramatically culminating in the massacres in cologne and cortez departments however

The government would probably point to the fact that they recently arrested carlos molina a gang leader who goes by the name the black cat to be the mastermind behind the colon massacre but this is just one person even if a significant one according to most reports six people were involved in these attacks and only one other person has been arrested because

Of the increased violence the government has considered reinstating a state of emergency put in place by the administration of former president hiya mara castro which was lifted when asfora took office that state of emergency which lasted for more than three years was part of a raft of measures castro put in place that she claimed dramatically reduced the

Homicide rate from 38 100 000 in 2021 to 23.2 in 2025 the lowest in more than three decades and it wasn't just homicides that went down data from agled showed that during the first three years and 10 months of castro's time in office violence from organized crime decreased by 27 compared to the same period under a predecessor you'll notice that we said

Castro claimed that her measures reduced the violence this is because according to most experts the decrease in violence occurred not because of the state of emergency or anything else that castro's government did but because of a change in gang tactics after ms-13 eliminated its rivals and consolidated its power it became focused more on business than on

Killing so if asfora's government chooses to implement the state of emergency they might not get the results they're hoping for which would be a tragedy for the honduran people after all they are the ones who have to live in fear as the gangs continue to wreak havoc across the country thank you for watching