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Charred vehicles in Balochistan province, Pakistan, following separatist militant attacks.
The Balochistan backstory: Pakistan’s festering rebellion
At least 70 people are dead after a wave of attacks in Pakistan claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army.
The who? Well, let’s start with where:Balochistan. A sprawling, mountainous province in Southwest Pakistan that borders Iran, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Sea. It’s home to about 15 million people, a plurality of whom are Balochis, a Persian ethnic group. Despite huge natural resource wealth, which Pakistan and others have exploited, Balochistan is extremely poor. This has fueled tensions with the Pakistani government for decades.
The Baloch Liberation Army began its struggle for independence around 2000, launching terror attacks against the central government and non-Baloch communities in Balochistan.
Pakistan and the US consider the BLA a terrorist group, and Pakistan accuses India, Iran, and Afghanistan of supporting it. The group is believed to fund itself through smuggling and donations from the Baloch diaspora.
In recent years, the BLA has begun attacking the citizens and interests of China, which in 2015 took control of the province’s port at Gwadar as part of a $65 billion China-Pakistan economic corridor project.
A recent rise in BLA violence compounds the headache for a Pakistani government that took over a country in crisis following heavily disputed elections in February.Candles are placed at a makeshift memorial near the former PMC Wagner Center, associated with the founder of the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin, in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Wagner and Russia’s next moves
Russia has confirmed the identities of the 10 people who died in a plane crash last Wednesday northwest of Moscow. They included Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, as well key associates Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov.
The question now turns to what happens to Wagner forces and the group’s clients, particularly African nations that are of strategic importance to Russia. Can President Vladimir Putin pick up where Prigozhin left off?
Experts note the personalized nature of Prigozhin’s leadership with both his fighters and his clients, as well as his ability to pull together “disparate entities and people.” Those entities included the leadership of Mali, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, and most recently, Niger. All are battling insurgent groups, including Islamic extremists, and in Mali, the militants have reportedly doubled their territorial control this past year. In Niger, the junta seeking to consolidate power after a recent coup had reached out to Wagner, but no relationship had yet been established.
Some predict that other Russian military operatives, such as Redut and Convoy, could fill the gap. Others note how the Russians have vowed to honor Wagner’s contracts in Mali and CAR. Meanwhile, the Republican Front, which is aligned with the leaders in CAR, confirmed its continued support for Russia and Wagner late last week. So it looks like Russia intends to continue leveraging Wagner in its bid to gain more influence on the continent.
It’s less clear what will happen in Burkina Faso and Niger, so we’ll be watching to see how junta leaders in those countries – and how Wagner’s men – respond to Prigozhin’s death.
Three-year-old Ukrainian refugee Karolina from Nikopol looks through a fence on the platform at a train station in Poland.
Hard Numbers: US to take in 100K refugees, cost of living surges in Russia, North Korea tests ICBM, polio scare hits Malawi, militants surrender in Nigeria
100,000: The Biden administration announced Thursday that the US will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and others fleeing Russian aggression. This will happen over the “long term” and therefore will not require raising the annual refugee cap.
14: Amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the cost of living has risen 14% in Russia over the past week. Diapers and staples such as tea, coffee, and onions have risen at the quickest rate. Inflation is expected to continue rising as the ruble takes a massive hit from Western sanctions.
5: North Korea has tested a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in five years. Japan said that the ICBM landed within its exclusive economic zone and reached an extremely high altitude level. Kim Jong Un could be trying to get attention as G7 leaders, distracted by Ukraine, meet in Europe.
23 million: After an outbreak of wild polio was found in Malawi for the first time in 30 years, around 23 million children under age five in southern Africa will be offered vaccinations against the disease. This comes two years after Africa was declared free of wild polio, which ravaged the continent for decades.
7,000: Nigerian media say that 7,000 Islamic State and Boko Haram fighters have surrendered in the country’s northeast over the past week amid an ongoing effort by authorities to quash the militant groups. More than 350,000 Nigerians have been killed in attacks by terror groups over the past decade.Indonesian agency freezes bank accounts related to outlawed hardline group FPI
(THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Indonesia's anti-money laundering agency has temporarily frozen bank accounts belonging to the recently outlawed Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and its affiliated groups on suspicion of money laundering.
2 militants linked to Philippine church blast shot dead
JAKARTA • Two Indonesian militants linked to a church blast in the Philippines in 2019 have been shot dead by police, the authorities said yesterday, as officers arrested scores of radicals who support the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group.
7 suspected Abu Sayyaf militants killed in clash
MANILA • Seven suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group were killed in a clash with government troops near a remote island in the Philippines' southern province of Sulu before dawn on Tuesday, the military said.
Indonesian woman planning suicide attack arrested in Philippines: Military
MANILA (AFP) - An Indonesian woman suspected of planning a suicide bomb attack in the southern Philippines was arrested Saturday (Oct 10) in a pre-dawn raid, the military said.
Philippine security forces on 'alert' for reprisals after arresting Abu Sayyaf militant
MANILA (AFP) - Philippine security forces were on alert Saturday (Aug 15) for possible reprisal attacks after arresting a key leader of an Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS)-linked militant group accused of kidnapping and beheading several foreigners.