Islamic State Forced Out of Palmyra

The Islamic State was hit with significant losses over the weekend. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said the United States has killed several senior leaders in recent strikes, including the organization’s  top finance official and second-in-command, Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. The U.S. air campaign is “systematically eliminating” the Islamic State’s cabinet, Carter said. Also on Friday, an Islamic State suicide bomber killed dozens of people at a soccer tournament in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

In Syria, Assad regime troops backed with Russian air support cleared much of the city of Palmyra over the weekend, though fighting continues this morning on the outskirts near the prison and airport. Islamic State forces have counterattacked with car bombs targeting regime forces. Approximately 180 troops were killed retaking the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the Islamic State’s loss of the city was an encouraging sign and called for the protection of the city’s ancient ruins, a UNESCO heritage site that was severely damaged during the Islamic State’s occupation.

Arrests in Brussels Attack and Paris Plot

Several more arrests have been made in Europe as investigators work to find members of the Islamic State terrorist cell responsible for the attacks in Brussels last Tuesday. Three men who were arrested in police raids in Mechelen and Duffel were charged today with belonging to a terrorist group. Investigators are looking for help from the public to identify a man seen with the attackers at the airport, which some reports have suggested is Faycal Cheffou, a freelance journalist arrested on terrorism charges on Saturday. On Sunday, Dutch police arrested a man believed to be connected to a separate plot to attack Paris; both he and a person held by Belgian authorities have been linked to Reda Kriket, who was arrested in Paris last Thursday. Four people who were wounded in the attacks have since died, bringing the death toll to 35 people. The airport struck by two explosions will partially reopen tomorrow.

Headlines

• U.S. airstrikes killed eight suspected members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the towns of al-Hudhn and Naqeel al-Hayala, in Abyan province, according to local residents.

• The White House has declined a one-on-one meeting between President Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Turkish president’s visit to Washington this week to attend the Nuclear Security Summit; though the administration did not characterize the move as a snub, analysts see it as a response to Turkey’s recent crackdowns on press and civil society.

• The Saudi military conducted a prisoner exchange with Houthi forces in Yemen, swapping nine Saudi prisoners held in Yemen for 109 Yemeni nationals in advance of the implementation of a nationwide ceasefire and renewed peace talks set to begin next month.

• Qatari media giant Al-Jazeera announced it would be cutting 500 jobs after a management review, the majority of which will come from the company’s headquarters in Doha; the cuts are in addition to the 700 jobs lost with the closure of Al-Jazeera America.

• Mahmoud Mohammed Ahmed, who has been held by Egyptian authorities for two years for participating in street protests and wearing a shirt with an anti-torture slogan, was released on Friday after a Cairo court upheld a tribunal decision.

Arguments and Analysis

“Is ISIS Decentralizing?” (Mona Alami, MENASource)

“There is no doubt that the organization is under pressure and exhausted by the US-led coalition. Its degraded capability will force the organization to revert to its usual playbook. First, the organization will resort to terrorist campaigns against civilians whether in the West or in its so-called caliphate. The Brussels attacks aims at polarizing Western societies and triggering an indiscriminate backlash against Muslims living what it terms the ‘far abroad.’ The organization’s objective is to weaken Muslims’ identification with their countries of citizenship and reinforce the ‘us versus them’ narrative. The return of fighters to countries of origin — over 400, according to media reports — grouped in cells trained for bombing and counterintelligence operations herald the establishment of a network largely autonomous from its mother organization in Iraq and Syria. A similar strategy of terror campaigning has been applied by the organization in Iraq where the organization launched a series of attacks between February 25 and February 29.”

“Saudi Brinkmanship in Lebanon” (Benedetta Berti, Sada)

“However, any potential regional success comes with a price in Lebanon. Ironically, the biggest casualty of Saudi Arabia’s more confrontational policy toward Lebanon and Hezbollah will be its own local allies. First and foremost, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his Future Movement are placed in an especially difficult position. Recent Saudi pressure has prompted the movement to make more vitriolic attacks against Hezbollah. Yet Hariri’s posturing still falls short of satisfying Riyadh, which has signaled it will not back down until Lebanon rids itself of ‘Hezbollah interference.’ Needless to say, this is an objective Hariri cannot deliver, making him look weak and isolated at a time when his March 14 coalition is confronting new divisions over the presidential elections and Hariri himself faces declining popularity within his own community. It appears to the Lebanese that Saudi Arabia is hanging Hariri out to dry and, along with him, what is left of the political capital of the forces that spurred the 2005 Cedar Revolution.”

-J. Dana Stuster

MAHER AL MOUNES/AFP/Getty Images