Donald Trump said the USA might take over Gaza once Palestinians leave. No one in the Middle East can accept such a proposal because it would increase instability in the region.
A key piece in the so-called "axis of resistance" built in recent decades by Iran has fallen. Russia loses its most important Arab ally in the Middle East. The future of Syria, uncertain. Risk of regional war.
Russia is fighting a “holy war” against the evil embodied by a coalition of Nazis, Islamists, Westerners and the LGBT community, according to a narrative promoted, among others, by the Moscow Patriarchate. The thesis regarding a “fight between Good and Evil”, which includes this narrative as well, transpires also in disinformation narratives, fake news and conspiracy theories promoted by Russia in the West and in Romania.
Ukraine has been accused of being responsible for the terrorist attack in Moscow. Originally published on Telegram, the thesis was developed by Vladimir Putin and his close siloviki, the current and former head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov and Nikolai Patrushev, both ex-KGB, like Putin. The narrative rids the Russian authorities of all responsibility, plays well into the rhetoric about the Ukrainian-Western aggression and can be used to escalate the war. Arguments in its defense include falsehoods and an older conspiracy theory.
The leader of a far-right party in Hungary has laid claim to Transcarpathia, shortly after the AUR party in Romania lodged a similar claim to Northern Bukovina. The thesis is typical of Russian propaganda.
The US and the UK have bombed targets in Yemen. The operation, aimed at deterring further attacks by the Houthi militia in the Red Sea, could cause an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” is an ultimatum and a death threat to the collective West. Many of those hailing and sharing it are the very people al-Qaeda would hunt.
Attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite groups have fueled concerns about an escalation of the war in Gaza. Iran doesn't seem to want a war, but a miscalculation could escalate the situation.
The war pitting Israel against Hamas could produce long-lasting effects, from a resurge of Islamist terrorism and compromising any hope of reconciliation between Israel and Arab countries, to the destabilization of the entire Middle East.
Russia has claimed for years that Ukraine has biological laboratories and says its attack was meant to destroy those labs. The narrative was also included in the disinformation about the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
The (Pro)Russians claim that Ukraine will cause a nuclear incident. The narrative is meant to undermine support for Kiev and has been promoted in Eastern Europe as well.
The war was launched to neutralize Iraq’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) – which did not exist. It also sought to replace Saddam Hussein’s neo-Stalinist regime with a liberal democracy close to the United States. After twenty years and a series of serious mistakes, instead of a liberal democracy, Iraq got a rather authoritarian regime, despite the existence of political pluralism and free elections. The number one power that determines Baghdad’s policy-making is Iran, America’s biggest adversary in the region.
The war in Iraq started with a campaign against Saddam Hussein’s army and ended with the defeat of the Islamic State. In-between these milestones, the Sunnis and Shiites staged insurrections and started a civil war. Thousands of suicide bomb attacks were carried out during this period while battles left whole cities destroyed. Veridica presents the milestones of one of the most devastating conflicts in the Middle East.
Russia launched its “special military operation” in the early hours of February 24. The scale and direction of the Russian attack show that Moscow was planning a blietzkrieg that would end with the beheading of the Ukrainian leadership and at least the seizing of the entire Black Sea coast to open the way to Transnistria. However, the Ukrainian resistance overturned Moscow's plans, and the conflict became a long-lasting one, in which both camps have scored successes, but also failures. Veridica presents 10 of the main moments of this war.
The war in Ukraine, sovereigntist rhetoric and conspiracy theories regarding the so-called sanitary dictatorship were the topics of scores of disinformation narratives and fake news published in Romania in 2022. They were promoted by/on various media outlets (România liberă, Național, Activenews, GoldFM, gândește.org etc.) as well as on social media by controversial figures such as Sorin Roșca Stănescu, Cosmin Gușă, Diana Șoșoacă and Adrian Severin.
Rich Western countries with important markets are a major stake for China. Chinese companies are also present, to a lesser extent, in Central and Eastern Europe. But is this region a stake in itself for Beijing, or just a “stop” on the New Silk Road to the West? How extensive are bilateral relations and to what extent are they influenced by the West? Veridica collaborators in the region – Bulgaria, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine – have tried to answer these questions.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was the ideologue of the Al-Qaida network, whose leadership he took over after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri was one of the most prominent terrorist leaders killed in the past two decades, but his death is unlikely to have a significant impact the jihadist movement.
Outside Russia, Moscow’s representatives and supporters tried to mark Victory Day in ex-Soviet and ex-communist countries, but in most cases, their actions were overshadowed by protest actions against Russia’s acts of aggression or demonstrations of solidarity with Ukraine. Veridica’s contributors in ex-Soviet and ex-communist states have closely followed May 9 celebrations.
May 9 will be different than usual: celebrating it could be seen as a celebration of Russia’s aggression. While waiting for the events in Moscow and elsewhere to unfold, Veridica has set out to find out what May 9 may still mean in the former USSR and ex-communist countries, as reported by its correspondents in those countries.
Even if Washington did return to the nuclear agreement and thus managed to ensure that Iran won’t be manufacturing an atomic bomb, odds are its main allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia will not be happy with the result. For these states, Iran continues to be perceived as a threat.
NATO's refusal to accept Russia's latest demands against the background of the crisis in Ukraine has heightened fears that Moscow is preparing for war. It is a possible scenario, but one that would be extremely costly for Russia, even if it wins the fighting on the ground.
The United States is pulling out from Iraq in December. This is the second time the Americans are withdrawing from this country. In their wake remains a fragile state, where Washington’s enemies have a big say.
Events this week in Iraq, Lebanon and two European countries were a stark reminder that we still need to pay attention to the Middle East
This war among Muslim extremists might seem peculiar. Their ideologies are strikingly similar. Most of their fighters originate from the same region and share the same cultural and ethnic background. Their number one enemy is the West, embodied by the United States, whose withdrawal from Afghanistan is perceived by many as a defeat. Rather, their rivalry is more nuanced and has to do with their divergent worldviews and their distinctive approach to religion and jihad. Their dispute is also highly political, as they both fight for supremacy and prestige. Finally, their clash reflects the old rivalry between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
September 11, 2001 was the bloodiest landmark in the global jihad proclaimed by Osama bin Laden and his allies against the United States. Terrorists launched the attack in the name of liberating the holy sites which they claimed had been occupied by “crusaders” and “Zionists.” 9/11 convinced the Americans they had to hunt down jihadis all over the world. After 20 years and several wars, spanning from Central Asia and the Middle East to Africa, the global jihad continues.
The United States made three big mistakes in Afghanistan - two before 9/11, and the third after invading the country. One every decade since the 1980s.
On August 30, late at night, the United States completed all operations to withdraw from Afghanistan, bringing an end to the longest war in its history.
The Taliban have conquered Afghanistan again, almost 20 years after they were chased away by a US intervention. How was this possible and, especially, what awaits us?
A new election campaign is underway in Moldova, the third in 2 years. In essence, as in most of the elections that have taken place since Moldova gained independence, what we see today is a confrontation between the so-called "Eastern and Western vectors". Russia openly supports the Eastern vector; The West promises funding for the reforms promised by the Western vector. The election campaign, like most campaigns in recent years, is marked by an abundance of fake news and disinformation, usually launched by the left wing and the media affiliated with the Socialists or the Kremlin. The authors of the false narratives, however, seem to be running out of new ideas: most of them have already been used in the election campaigns that have taken place since 2016.
A Pentagon report on UFOs will be presented this month in Congress. The US Army says it has no evidence that UFOs are in fact extraterrestrial aircraft. Nor can it claim they aren’t. The army simply doesn’t know what these “unidentified aerial phenomena” are.
It is very difficult to talk a dictatorship into behaving nicely. The only way is for the regime to be somehow constrained, to be made aware that there are consequences for its behavior. The most common method is that of sanctions; the problem is that dictatorships can have a fairly high tolerance for them.
After 11 days of fighting, Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire agreement that solves nothing: it’s just a short break until the new round of clashes beings.