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Around 300 Chinese extremists were fighting with the Islamic State after traveling to Turkey

Chinese man was "arrested, tried and shot dead" in Syria in late September by the Islamic State after he became disillusioned with jihad and attempted to return to Turkey to attend university

"Another two Chinese militants were beheaded in late December in Iraq, along with 11 others from six countries. The Islamic State charged them with treason and accused them of trying to escape

Islamic State, which has seized parts of northern and eastern Syria

killed hundreds off the battlefield since the end of June, when it declared a caliphate.

Chinese officials blame separatists from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for carrying out attacks in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people. But they are vague about how many people from China are fighting in the Middle Eas

China was opposed to "all forms of terrorism"

"China is willing to work with the international community to combat terrorist forces, including ETIM, and safeguard global peace, security and stability," Hong said.

Human rights advocates say economic marginalization of Uighurs and curbs on their culture and religion are the main causes of ethnic violence in Xinjiang and around China that has killed hundreds of people in recent years. China denies these assertions.

hina has criticized the Turkish government for offering shelter to Uighur refugees who have fled through southeast Asia, saying it creates a global security risk.

The Islamic State has killed three Chinese militants who joined its ranks in Syria and Iraq and later attempted to flee

China has expressed concern about the rise of the Islamic State, nervous about the effect it could have on its Xinjiang region, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Those from the west are naive and lack imagination, they are chasing a fictional dream, and they often have barely any knowledge of what Islam is.”

The book aspiring Isis militants most commonly ordered online before taking off to Syria was Islam for Dummies, she said.

“What Isis has done, and they have exceed al-Qaida in this, is take really spectacular control of the narrative of their organisation while sharing that story through masterful use of all mechanisms of the media,” she said

propaganda and recruitment videos spreading the jihadi message w

Ten years ago, it was difficult to access and acquire videos like the beheadings we have seen unless you were part of an inner circle, but now this material is mainstream, you can access it just by opening Twitter,”

“If you are a young person with limited imagination, a limited sense of self, and you are uninclined to engage with your neighbours, friends and a pluralistic society, you are very easily seduced. You’re like a blank canvas.”

Differentiating between Islam and Islamism

Islamism promotes explicit totalitarianism and the belief that Islam historically had incredible global and geopolitical glory that should be restored through violence, jihadism and barbarity

Egypt’s leadership has grown frustrated with US admonitions and criticisms of its governance record, and from Cairo’s perspective, bewildering discussions of conditions on US military aid

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is hardly ready to ditch his country’s long-standing ties to the United States, the prospect of Russian arms and assistance could prove a useful complement to what some in Cairo consider more uncertain US support, especially as Egypt faces an ongoing terrorist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

Naumkin adds th

Russia also considers Egypt an ally in its efforts to broker a political settlement in Syria

as a result of the Russian president’s visit to Cairo, the parties might agree to pool their forces in the context of a Syrian settlement.

It might be understandable for some analysts to dismiss the Moscow conference, given the diplomatic false starts over four years in a conflict that has left more than 150,000 dead, 7.6 million displaced, 3.2 million refugees, 12.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance and at least 680,000 injured, according to the United Nations.

Syrian opposition figures were not allowed to participate in the Jan. 26-29 Moscow conference as representatives of opposition parties, such as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (SOC), the leading umbrella group based in Turkey

The absence of the SOC and other representatives of the external opposition no doubt limited the potential impact of the conference,

Participants agreed to an 11-point list of “Moscow Principles” and a four-point “Appeal to the International Community” affirming the need to fight terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS), rejecting outside interference and calling for increased humanitarian aid, while agreeing to meet again in a month’s time.

acknowledged the possibility for other organizations to play a role in future talks

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vigorously supported the law, claiming its passage is essential in defending democracy

 “Success tempted the AKP, prompting it to revert back to its Islamism and initiate a much more ambitious narrative of building a new regional order, and even a new global order. Meanwhile, Erdogan turned into an unquestionable leader who is not limited by facts and creates his own facts, as envisioned by his Islamist ideology and extraordinary intuition. In the eyes of his hard-core supporters, he is not a mere political leader who formulates pragmatic policies. He is a total leader who redefines everything.”

risen sharply from a few thousand … a decade ago to more than 25,000 today

The report said just two countries had drawn more than 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group

ited the “high number” of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa which it did not name. The groups had also found recruits from Britain and Australia.

A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering violent foreign terrorist fighters across the world

while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it was possible that some may be traumatised by what they saw and need psychological help, and that others may be recruited by criminal networks.

The number of countries the fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to more than 100 today — more than half the countries in the world

foreign fighters who travelled to Syria and Iraq were living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists”, as was the case in Afghanistan in the 199

an urgent global security problem” that needed to be tackled on many fronts and had no easy solution

With globalised travel, it said, the chance of a person from any country becoming a victim of a foreign terrorist attack was growing “particularly with attacks targeting hotels, public spaces and venues

It said the most effective policy was to prevent the radicalisation, recruitment and travel of would-be fighters.

In terms of sheer devastation, Syria today is worse off than Germany at the end of World War II

ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.

In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems

It is good to do the planning now, because on day one we will be ready,”

The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund

As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.

Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year

The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists

It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.

Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio

We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power

Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back

The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.

Today, however, the city’s water and power supply are under the control of the Islamic State

Across Syria, more than one-third of the population is displaced.

A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.

Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling

The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc

They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea

If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.

At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion

Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.

“You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”

Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee

“It belongs to no one,” Mackic says. “What does Bruce Lee mean to me?

is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.

“You are being democratic without the consequences of all the hullabaloo of formal democratization

A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.

Venezuela is one of the world's largest oil exporters, but thanks to economic mismanagement it was already finding it difficult to pay its way even before the oil price started falling.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and Opec's most influential member, could support global oil prices by cutting back its own production, but there is little sign it wants to do this.

There could be two reasons - to try to instil some discipline among fellow Opec oil producers, and perhaps to put the US's burgeoning shale oil and gas industry under pressure.

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to be around $85 in the longer term, it has deep pockets with a reserve fund of some $700bn - so can withstand lower prices for some time.

were to force some higher cost producers

In the 1980s the country did cut production significantly in a bid to boost prices, but it had little effect and it also badly affected the Saudi economy.

Saudi Arabia, Gulf producers such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have also amassed considerable foreign currency reserves, which means that they could run deficits for several years if necessary.

Islamic State, capturing oil wells. It is estimated it is making about $3m a day through black market sales - and undercutting market prices by selling at a significant discount - around $30-60 a barrel.

"The growth of oil production in North America, particularly in the US, has been staggering," says Columbia University's Jason Bordoff.

It has been this growth in US energy production, where gas and oil is extracted from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing or fracking, that has been one of the main drivers of lower oil prices.

"Shale has essentially severed the linkage between geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, and oil price and equities," says Seth Kleinman, head of energy strategy at Citi.

With Europe's flagging economies characterised by low inflation and weak growth, any benefits of lower prices would be welcomed by beleaguered governments. A 10% fall in oil prices should lead to a 0.1% increase in economic output, say some. In general consumers benefit through lower energy prices, but eventually low oil prices do erode the conditions that brought them about.