Hundreds were killed by Islamic State in ‘massacre’ in Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor

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An attack by Islamic State on the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor has left 85 civilians and 50 government troops dead, with state media denouncing it a “massacre”. If confirmed, it would be one of the highest tolls for a single day in Syria’s nearly five-year war. It is said that most of those killed in day-long attacks on Deir el-Zour Saturday were elderly people, women and children. The killings were some of the worsts carried out by the extremist group, which controls a large portion of Syria and Iraq.

According to the SOHR, the advance puts ISIS in control of around 60% of Deir ez-Zor city, the capital of the province of the same name in an oil rich region bordering Iraq. The fighters carried out several suicide bombings against regime forces in Deir ez-Zor and seized control of Al-Baghaliyeh and other areas. The regime troops were also locked in fierce clashes with ISIS in Aleppo province, with at least 16 jihadis killed after a failed attack on a government position near the town of Al-Bab.

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/17/dozens-killed-by-islamic-state-in-massacre-in-syrian-city-of-deir-ezzor

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/17/activists-say-isis-militants-kill-scores-in-eastern-syrian-city.html

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/01/17/islamic-state-kidnaps-400-civilians-in-syrian-city-of-deir-al-zo/21298450/

 

 

The illegal drug trade in Southeast Asia: Growing or Slowing?

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Everyone today seems to have some Idea of the drug trade south of the US border or perhaps Afghanistan. However, If you were asked about where the drug trade in Southeast Asia is going? If you replied with a sense of complete confusion, you would be totally forgiven. A changing political climate in two of the major countries in the region, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Thailand both seem to strangely and contradictorily give both a boon and bust to the trade of Narcotics in the region. In the case of Myanmar the situation seems to at least nominally improving on the face of things. A new move towards democracy hopefully means more involvement by the international community in curbing Myanmar’s narcotics problem. Even on a smaller level, the people seem to be taking the action of fighting illegal drugs into their own hands. However the many reforms the government in Myanmar have been taking to create a more liberal-democratic state seem to be aiding the drug trade as the numbers of methamphetamines being shipped out of Myanmar to neighboring Thailand have increased, seemingly with the help of military units trying to achieve ceasefires with multiple ethnic resistance groups.  The expansion of production among these various groups looks to exacerbate the problems, much to the disdain of Myanmar’s neighbors. Most of these drugs then find their way to Thailand where political changes don’t really sit right. The current leader of the military Junta that controls Thailand (which took control in a coup in 2014), General Prayuth Chan-ocha, shows strong indications of illegal activities and corruption. In the General’s defense, corruption in Thai security forces stemming from the drug trade, looks to be a common occurrence with little sign of slowing,  especially as the Junta struggles to revert back to democracy. The end results seems to keep the infamous “Golden Triangle” region of drug production and trafficking alive and well for years to come.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/myanmar-clamps-down-on/2538980.html

http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/nay-pyi-taw/19116-anti-drug-vigilantes-turn-to-the-nld.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/as-burma-reforms-its-narcotics-trade-might-be-worsening/253279/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/world/asia/reporting-on-life-death-and-corruption-in-southeast-asia.html?_r=0

The Afghan Opium Trade: The Taliban and the Government

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Although almost nearly two years ago, the capture and indictment of a Mullah Abdul Rashid Baluch once the Taliban shadow governor of the ‘Nimruz Province’, has cast a serious light on the evolution and rapidly changing nature of insurgency and its connections with the opium trade in Afghanistan.  Mullah Rashid who was captured after an Afghan special forces team descended on his convoy in July 2014 seizing nearly a metric ton of opium along with other light machine guns, assault rifles and munitions seems to have been just a glimpse of the Taliban’s further involvement in the production and distribution of drugs in and from Afghanistan.  Likewise,  increasingly more senior Taliban leaders are becoming involved directly in the illicit drug trade,  which has made it more difficult to distinguish the group from a drug cartel.  Even the most recent figure to claim leadership of the Taliban–Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, has seemingly deepening ties and a personal investment in the opium trade; where as head of the tribal Ishaqzai drug trafficking organization, he bought off fellow Taliban dissenters using his own sizable fortune in order to secure his position as leader of the Taliban.

Helmand Province poppy harvestThis recent change in the nature and involvement of the Taliban in the heroin trade has also raised serious concerns in the international community, where the United Nations warned that the Taliban’s increasing involvement in drug trafficking “has real consequences for peace and security in Afghanistan, as it encourages those within the Taliban movement who have the greatest economic incentives to oppose any meaningful process of reconciliation with the new government.”  Notably this increasing Taliban involvement in drug smuggling has stemmed from the sheer profitability of the drug trade compared to other illegal operations such as the smuggling of precious gems and lumber.  Additionally, the lack of income from traditional donors in the Persian Gulf has ultimately forced the Taliban to become more self-reliant financially, which has undoubtedly pushed them more into the smuggling of opium.

However, the large financial incentives of the opium trade do not stop with the Taliban. In the district of Garmsir, Afghani poppy cultivation has become so lucrative that local government officials have imposed a tax on poppy farmers in order to raise revenue for the state.  This tax, similar to what the Taliban does to poppy farmers that it controls, casts an unwanted shadow on the U.S. attempts to establish counter-narcotics programs which have cost more than $8.4 billion over the past fourteen years in efforts to combat the increasing poppy production in Afghanistan which boasts roughly 780 square miles of opium growing operations.

Kabul Opium Trade  Overall it seems that with rising levels of heroin use both in the Afghanistan and in the U.S., the increasingly closer ties between the Taliban, Afghani state officials and their respective opium production and trafficking can only lead to more instability, violence and greater turmoil in the future; and when it comes to establishing a legitimate and stable system of governance in Afghanistan, much work is yet to be done.