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Prime minister Thini resigns. Government control is difficult with resistance groups refusing to disarm after they ousted Qadafi. Islamist linked militia take Tripoli.

The Tripoli based anti-Islamist militia government has fired its Prime Minister for incompetence.

Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS

Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS

Description of Baghdad's Battle against ISIS

Turkey is now providing a safe haven for Syrian refugees in addition to Jordan's efforts. Turkish officials are trying to build a coalition to back a secure strip of territory for safe passage of refugees. There seems to be some significant disagreement between Turkey and the Kurdish militia.

A Russian news report from Zvezda (Star) channel, including interviews with pro-Syrian army militia commanders. The video is all in Russian but includes English subtitles and takes an interesting look at the system of tunnels various groups are using in this conflict. I chose this because it was a another look at the current conflict from a Russian channel but without the extreme propaganda one finds in the Russia Today articles.

As was mentioned in my bookmarks last week, fighting in some parts of Libya between ISIS militants and militia groups is an ongoing struggle. This article puts a human side to those who become trapped in places that ISIS attempts to overrun. Thankfully, one of these militia groups was able to push ISIS out of this city, allowing for a heartbreaking look at the fear of those that were for a brief moment, trapped in ISIS territory.

The Hezbollah movement in Iraq said the new deployment of US marines is a plot to help IS terrorists. The shiite group added that if these troops are not withdrawn, Hezbollah will treat them as IS forces

"The chief of Libya's new UN-backed government has reached Tripoli, defying threats from city militias, to proclaim a new order for the conflict-ravaged country in a move that could eventually pave the way for international forces to provide troops and air support."

Three Libyan oil ports that have been closed for over a year are set to reopen, now that a unity government has arrived in Tripoli, militia leaders said, a rare positive sign for an oil sector that has been under siege.

ISIS has taken over a refugee camp near Damascus, the Syrian capital. They say they are targeting opposition forces living in the camps. ISIS is making it nearly impossible to evacuate those inside the camp and the UN has called this a major "humanitarian crisis."

This message shows how everyone around the world, not just government, is concerned about the Syrian crisis. 

BBC discusses the effect of IS and the current political state of Libya.

Thsi article explores the state of Christians in Syria. Patriarch Gregorios and Bishop Ibrahim add to this discussion.

This article basically lays out the faults in US intervention in Libya during the fall of Gaddafi and condemns the US officials for their lack of hindsight in their agenda. The US claimed that they could not "turn a blind eye" to atrocities and human right violations in other countries and to intervene in Libya was a matter of upholding "universal values." After the successful ousting of Gaddafi, the US hypocritically turned their back on the country as a whole, leaving them to pick up the pieces and re-build themselves in the midst of socio-political and economic chaos. The US claims that military intervention is sometimes necessary to address human right violations, but in the case of Libya more violations have occurred as a result of a fallen regime rather than because of its reign. The author basically says that the US should have predicted that short-term intervention strategies achieves nothing without years of sustained support for rebuilding the civil institutions. 

Any doubts that Libya has pivoted to a proxy war have been eliminated with the recent bombings outside UAE and Egyptian embassies as a backlash against their role in the regional "tug of war" on Thursday.  

This article basically highlights the significance of Libyan oil fields in terms of the international community. Chaos in Libya not only affects the eastern region, but all OPEC members and importers of crude oil across the globe. After the recent attacks on Sharara, the biggest field in Libya, production has significantly slowed down. Libya's elected parliament assures the global community that they will resume normal outputs soon, but as the country deepens further into civil war, international actors remain skeptical.

As their sole source of income the control over oil policy and revenue proves to be a huge factor in which government will gain control over the greater Libya. Thinni, the prime minister recognized by the international community, has assured OPEC members that oil revenues are deposited into the Libyan Bank, which then transfers them to the central bank. While this may be true, OPEC members are worried that the continuation of Islamist militant aims for political autonomy through the occupation and attacks on oil ports. BPD have already become a fifth of what they maintained just one year ago.