WarFronts Weekly 1.23.2026: Friday Blitz.

23.01.2026

Instability Feeds Political Crisis in Guatemala:

Guatemala is under a state of emergency this week, after government forces initiated anti-gang crackdowns across the Central American nation. With police granted emergency powers , Guatemalan authorities appear poised to begin armed anti-gang operations in major cities, in a move that’s likely to inflame the nation’s broader political turmoil.

The country’s most recent crisis began last Saturday, when inmates rioted at three separate prisons near-simultaneously, took dozens of prison guards hostage, and demanded that the government reinstate privileges that had recently been withdrawn from imprisoned gang leaders.

A day later, Guatemalan police regained control over all three prisons, freeing the hostage guards with no fatalities. Across the country, however, gangsters on the streets responded violently, with no fewer than ten police officers killed nationwide over the course of the day. One particular gang, Barrio 18 , appears to be playing an outsize role in coordinating the violence.

By Wednesday , soldiers and well-armed police units began to comb neighborhoods across Guatemala, especially in the Zone 18 district north of the nation’s capital, from which Barrio 18 draws its name. On that day, the nation’s president, Bernardo Arevalo, announced that nearly 300 people had already been detained in the crackdowns.

Gang violence is a known and rising problem across Guatemala, and one that Arevalo has attempted to suppress before. But, hamstrung by staunch conservative opposition , Arevalo has been unable to reform Guatemala as promised. Gangs are believed to participate in endemic bribery of state officials and other high-level corruption , and control many of the nation’s prisons outright.

Guatemala is now the third Latin American nation to declare a state of emergency to combat gang violence, and one of many , including El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, and more, that have engaged in large-scale crackdowns—albeit with varying outcomes.

But because Arevalo is already working from a disadvantaged position , unlike a popular strongman like El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, it’s not clear that Arevalo can harness the political support necessary to sustain his response. Instead, well-entrenched elites may turn the situation against Arevalo , similar to how other attempted crackdowns have backfired on Latin American leaders whose hold on power was relatively weak.

Around the World:

Syria’s security crisis continued to escalate this week, after Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reached a new truce, and promptly broke that truce within just hours. According to the Syrian government, SDF forces launched a drone strike on Wednesday that killed seven Syrian soldiers, with other Syrian troops dying in skirmishes around SDF-held territory. The SDF denied the accusation, and claimed that Syrian troops had launched new attacks in multiple areas. Damascus has threatened an all-out assault on the two largest cities under SDF control, if the SDF does not abide by the conditions of this week’s ceasefire agreement.

Also in Syria, the US military began a series of transfers of Islamic State prisoners into Iraqi custody, in a process that may ultimately involve the relocation of up to 7,000 detainees. The transfers come after more than 100 ISIS fighters escaped a prison during battles between the SDF and the Syrian Army, and the two sides engaged in firefights at other ISIS detention facilities in the region.

In comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump explicitly ruled out the use of force to seize the island territory of Greenland, called off an expected set of tariffs against NATO members opposed to a US takeover, and claimed that a forthcoming deal will end the ongoing dispute over the territory. Per Trump, Arctic-adjacent NATO members can instead facilitate US missile-defense coverage in Greenland, consistent with Trump’s “Golden Dome” initiative, as well as critical minerals extraction, while ensuring that the island is kept safe from Russian and Chinese intrusion. Details on the deal have yet to emerge, but a NATO spokesperson indicated that several NATO member states will work toward its implementation.

The central Sudanese city of El-Obeid came under repeat drone assaults this week, in the latest signal that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have the city in their sights. The city is the capital of Sudan’s North Kordofan State, where the RSF have made substantial progress over the last month, and appear on track to replicate mass atrocities like those observed in El-Fasher. The RSF’s operations do face some risk of faltering , not because of the group’s own tactical missteps, but because of growing limitations on the movement of Emirati aircraft that ferry much-needed arms shipments to RSF fighters.

Iranian state television announced the nation’s first official death toll from its recent wave of protests, placing total fatalities at 3,117, although it blamed the United States and other foreign actors for the mass deaths. That number is believed to be a severe undercount, with high estimates by international rights groups rising above ten thousand. Also in Iran, hackers managed to disrupt state TV broadcasts on Monday, displaying footage of exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi and urging security forces to avoid harming Iranian civilians.

A weekend attack in western Niger left at least thirty-one people dead and four others in critical condition, according to local student organizations in the Tillaberi region. While the perpetrators of the attack have not been formally identified, locals told the global press that the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS) was responsible.

A Boko Haram attack in Nigeria left at least eight soldiers dead and more than fifty wounded on Wednesday, in an ambush that saw Boko Haram use both motorcycles and heavy armored vehicles. After more than a decade of insurgent warfare, Boko Haram has captured substantial military equipment, and is fighting back against a recent Nigerian clearing operation in the country’s northeast.

Also in Nigeria, five soldiers and a police officer were killed in a militant ambush in the country’s northeastern Zamfara State on Monday. Those troops had been attempting to respond to a militant attack, but were ambushed by unknown perpetrators, most likely fighting groups collectively known as bandits. In the country’s central Plateau State, seven people were killed in an overnight attack on a mining site, most likely by nomadic herding groups. In better news for the nation’s military, its troops freed sixty-two of over 160 hostages taken by armed gangs from churches this week.

A car bomb in southern Yemen failed to kill Hamdy Shoukry, a prominent Saudi-backed militant leader, on Wednesday, according to local sources. Shoukry is a key commander of Yemen’s Giants Brigades, and is not known to have been injured in the attack on his motorcade, although three individuals were confirmed dead and six wounded.

Days after South Sudanese opposition forces called for an offensive on the nation’s capital city of Juba, South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir dismissed his interior minister , Angelina Teny, from his fracturing unity government. Teny is a key opposition figure and the wife of Riek Machar, the detained opposition leader who served as First Vice President of the nation till his 2025 arrest on charges of treason.

Ugandan military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba (covered by WarFronts here ) proudly provided a grim update on Uganda’s post-election repression. According to Kainerugaba, Ugandan authorities had killed thirty opposition supporters since the election, detained thousands more, and is now hunting down additional dissidents.

The United States seized a Venezuelan-linked oil tanker in the Caribbean this Tuesday, in its seventh tanker seizure since the start of its operations against the now-former Maduro regime. The tanker in question, the Panama-flagged MV Sagitta , was alleged to be part of the shadow fleet that Venezuela has used to sustain oil exports despite heavy sanctions.

The UK approved the construction of a massive Chinese embassy in central London this Tuesday, despite criticism of the Chinese proposal from across Britain’s political spectrum. Opponents fear that the embassy will facilitate Chinese surveillance, espionage, and intimidation of its own dissident population abroad, both in the UK and across Western Europe. The proposed site for the embassy also sits near vital underground fiber-optic cables, connecting the city’s two main financial districts in a constant exchange of data.

Saudi, Turkish, and other regional diplomats arrived in Somalia’s Las Anod region this week, in what appears to be a signal of support for anti-Somaliland fighting factions on territory that breakaway Somaliland claims as its own. Other reports suggest that Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt may seek to jointly build a military base in the area.

Portuguese police arrested thirty-seven alleged members of an ultra-right, neo-Nazi group across the country on Tuesday, in the latest crackdowns against an organization known as 1143. Portugal has conducted expanding operations against far-right groups in the last year, and, in June, arrested several alleged neo-Nazis who were accused of trying to create an armed militia.

The European Commission may seek to allow Ukraine to join the European Union on an unusually short timeline as part of a peace deal with Russia, according to EU officials. Ukraine’s membership would be temporarily limited, in a probationary phase that would see Ukraine technically join the bloc by or before 2027 despite institutional hurdles.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will call snap elections for February 8, after dissolving parliament today in an attempt to gain control over Japan’s lower house of parliament. If successful, the vote will allow Takaichi to carry out defense reforms including a near-doubling of the country’s year-over-year military spending.

A press release from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday indicated that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Qatar will all join Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to govern post-war Gaza. The decision reflects growing regional security alignment between many Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, and was also notable because Riyadh issued its statement jointly with its regional rival, the United Arab Emirates.

Also this week, India announced that it will enhance its strategic and trade relationship with the UAE, likely in reaction to the new and growing alignment between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. According to India, the nation hopes to double bilateral trade with the UAE by 2032, and will enter into a new strategic partnership with the Gulf nation.

Peru’s recently elevated president, Jose Jeri, is facing scrutiny over meetings with a Chinese businessman in the country’s latest political scandal. Jeri is expected to step down in April, passing control to the winner of Peru’s upcoming g presidential elections; his successor will be Peru’s ninth president in under a decade.

This week, Reuters revealed new information on the United States’ recent capture of Nicolas Maduro, indicating that the US had been in contact with Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, for months prior to Maduro’s capture. Cabello is a hardliner who exerts firm control over Venezuela’s internal security apparatus, its intelligence services, its police, and its militias, but has reportedly kept open lines of communication with Washington despite publicly calling for resistance.

Elsewhere in Venezuela, interim President Delcy Rodriguez has installed loyalists into critical positions across the Venezuelan government, including at the head of the nation’s counterintelligence service. The moves appear to be an attempt to thwart a challenge from Cabello, and protect Rodriguez from internal action by other Maduro loyalists.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the formation of a new component of Ukraine’s air defenses this week, in an experimental step to deal with the latest changes to Russia’s methods of drone warfare. The new component will leverage interceptor drones deployed by small, mobile groups of soldiers, who will also be equipped with anti-air weaponry.

Poland will transfer up to nine additional copies of the MiG-29 to Ukraine soon, adding to the fleet of MiG-29s that have been sent to Ukraine in recent months. Front-line reports suggest that the new MiG-29s have been particularly helpful to Ukraine, as opposed to the copies Ukraine possessed at the start of the war, which were less technologically advanced than Poland’s refurbished models.

The Czech government prevented the transfer of four light L-159 combat jets to Ukraine, days after the nation’s president proposed sending the jets to Kyiv to assist in shooting down incoming drones and other munitions. The L-159 would be a major boost to anti-drone aerial assets, with the job mostly left to helicopter gunners and prop-plane pilots today.

Colombia announced the investment of roughly $1.7 billion into an anti-drone defense system this week, with the aim of countering armed insurgent groups that have been active across the country for over half a century. Details on the project have yet to be disclosed, but insurgent drone attacks remain a serious problem in Colombia today.