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Afghan forces killed 10 fighters who claimed to be part of Islamic State on Sunday

growing numbers of disgruntled Taliban fighters have joined the militant group that has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq

significance is not so much a function of its intrinsic capacities in the area but of its potential to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rall

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report to the Security Council on Afghanistan said a handful of Taliban commanders had declared allegiance to Islamic State and that an increasing number were seeking funding or cooperation with Islamic State.

The radical Islamist group has declared a caliphate in the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. A U.S.-led alliance has been targeting Islamic State with air strikes in Iraq and Syria for some six month

Militants loyal to Islamic State have also been exploiting chaos in Libya, while Boko Haram, which is seeking to carve an Islamist emirate out of northeastern Nigeria, has pledged its allegiance to Islamic State

"an alignment of circumstances that could be conducive to fostering peace talks" between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Officials said last month the Afghan Taliban has signaled it is willing to open peace talks.

continues a frank dialogue with the Taliban on humanitarian access and on human right

The Observatory, which monitors the conflict from the UK, also said jets from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s air forcebombed the camp on Saturday

called the crisis in Yarmouk “an affront to the humanity of all of us, a source of universal shame”.

He said Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the camp, which had previously been besieged by Assad’s forces, were already suffering from starvation and disease

Their main target was Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, an anti-Assad militia of Syrians and Palestinians from the camp.

Reuters that Isis fighters had killed 21 people including fighters and civilians since Friday

The evacuation of the camp had been made harder as Isis snipers were shooting refugees as they tried to leave the camp.

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.

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.”

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.

A UN commission of inquiry,

Western powers,

said it could only have been carried out by Syria's government.

regime and its ally Russia blamed rebels.

More than 3 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict,

A further 6.5 million people, 50% of them children, are believed to be internally displaced within Syria,

the total numbe

half the country's population.

rebel groups are also deeply divided

most prominent is the moderate National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support,

support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement.

The Sunni-dominated oppositio

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states along with the US, UK and France.

rise of radical Islamist militia in rebel ranks and the arrival of Sunni jihadists from across the world has led to a marked cooling of international and regional backing.

The Misrata alliance — operating under the banner Libya Dawn — is now said to be in de facto control of the entire capital after their opponents abandoned their positions.

The old General National Congress reconvened in Tripoli on Monday following calls from the Misrata alliance and voted to disband Libya's interim government, while the new House of Representatives, based in Tobruk, has branded those in control of the capital "terrorist groups and outlaws".

analysts fear Libya could become an arena for a battle between regional rivals, as countries such as the UAE and Egypt attempt to crush the threat from Islamist fighters backed by Qatar.

after the previous Islamist-dominated parliament refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new assembly elected

conducted by the two US allies without the knowledge of the US.

"outside interference" in Libya, which they said "exacerbates current divisions and undermines Libya's democratic transition."

power vacuum that allowed rival militias to thrive

US officials told the New York Times that the UAE had provided the military aircraft and crews for two sets of air strikes

"It's clear there is a proxy war in Libya between Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Algeria on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other side,"

the country needs "real engagement from the international community" to defeat the Islamist militias.

Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing

energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources

suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated

China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."

, why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?

, the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit

Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing

, the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU

China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light

will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources

Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism

. Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.

recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin

. Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer

Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang

There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term

According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.

the Middle East was not the focus of the talks between the two leaders

roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries

seems to allow the two parties to seek further coordination in their actions

Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.

brutality and aggression of the Islamic State, he still whitewashes the brutality and aggression of established states Syria, Russia and Iran, and still ignores the need for grand strategy to deal with them

We must, therefore, take Iran, Russia and Syria, and the collusion between them, seriously.

potentially, an even greater threat to the “free world” than ISIS. Because they are terror sponsors and supporters, WMD in their control means WMD out of control, susceptible to being sold or given to fanatics who are willing to work for their cause

working with the Iranian, Russian and Syrian regimes to address Middle Eastern problems and fight ISIS is a sure way to alienate Middle Eastern moderates and traditional partner

Russia’s staunch support of Syria and Iran; its ruthless aggression in Ukraine; and its expansionist designs in Eastern Europe, should make containing Russia an American foreign policy priority

Instead, much of the White House plan for combating ISIS plays right into Syrian, Iranian and Russian hands, for it revolves around their plans –which include allowing Assad to stay in power, legitimizing Russian-sponsored “peace conferences” that buy Assad time and raise Putin’s stature, accommodating the Iranian nuclear program, and giving Iran the lead in the battle against ISIS and in the Levant.

the United States has been mostly passive, while Russia, Iran and its proxies, and al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, have seized the day.

opened the door to extremist groups eager to hijack the Syrian revolt and/or defend the Syrian regime

Iran and Russia have worked stolidly to protect Assad and capitalize on the chao

While the Obama administration justified its unwillingness to give meaningful aid to Syrian rebels with fear of helping extremists within rebel ranks, that stance allowed extremism within Syria to metastasize

development so serious that it now requires a military respons

Russia provided cover for Syria in the UN, and supplied many of the very weapons Assad uses to massacre civilian

the administration has endorsed yet more Russia-sponsored “peace talks”

President Obama and Secretary Kerry have backed even further away from demands that Assad leave, while even the goal of a transitional government which characterized the previous talks has been dropped

The United Arab Emirates launched a series of airstrikes from Egyptian bases against Islamist-allied militias fighting in Tripoli over the summer. And Egyptian forces have actively aided anti-Islamist military units fighting around Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Western diplomats familiar with intelligence reports say that Egyptian special forces have participated in raids near the airport in Benghazi, Libya, as well as at a camp near the Libyan stronghold of Derna, with mixed results.

Each side in Libya’s conflict now claims its own government — one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk. The anti-Islamist government in Tobruk includes the headquarters of a recently elected Parliament, although it operates with little visibility and the number of lawmakers attending its sessions has been difficult to assess.

The Islamist-allied government in Tripoli contends that a recent Supreme Court decision invalidated the election of the Parliament in Tobruk. The government in Tobruk argues that the court was intimidated by the threat of militias in Tripoli.

n March, Mollet received new authority to act against the rebellion in Algeria from parliament's Special Powers Law, passed in a 455 to 76 vote.

The FLN tightened its organization and began focusing on terrorism in the cities, mainly Algiers.

By 1 January 1957 the French had 308,000 soldiers in Algeria. On 28 January 1957 the UN was scheduled to debate the Algerian question, and for that day the FLN scheduled a one-week Muslim work stoppage in Algiers.

The French showed low ranking guerrillas they had captured documents describing other guerrillas as working for the French, and then they released these guerrillas. Some of those released fell for the trick, resulting in purging within the FLN.

The French military made itself dominant across much of Algeria.

To escape the military, thousands of Algerians fled to Tunisia or Morocco and joined the FLN there.

On July 3, Algeria became officially independent. Meanwhile another big migration was underway. Around 800,000 of those in Algeria of European descent – an overwhelming majority – were moving to Europe.