AF/PAK TENSIONS OVER ISIS
Over the past several years, the Islamic State's West Asian franchise, known as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISKP, has posed a persistent challenge to local governments, including the Taliban in Kabul and the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad. Now, the arrest of a purported ISKP operative has drawn new dividing lines between the two regional neighbors. "Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, seized on the detention of Mohammad Sharifullah to assert that Pakistan, not Afghanistan, offers ISKP safe havens," writes Sahibzada Muhammad Usman in The Diplomat. "This claim, however, has been met with vehement rebuttals from Pakistani authorities, who argue that Afghanistan's lax border controls and ineffective counterterrorism strategies have allowed ISKP militants to infiltrate Pakistan, destabilizing regional security."
The fresh diplomatic tit-for-tat, Usman notes, is emblematic of deteriorating political ties between the two countries, with each blaming the other for ISKP's persistence. "For Afghanistan, deflecting blame onto Pakistan serves to bolster its image as a stable emirate capable of self-governance. For Pakistan, positioning itself as a victim of cross-border terrorism justifies its stringent border policies and appeals for international aid." The clear beneficiary, however, is ISKP – which "thrives in ungoverned spaces and diplomatic vacuums" and benefits from the "absence of a unified regional strategy" to confront it on the part of regional states. (The Diplomat, March 17, 2025)
WHAT THE PALESTINIANS ARE SAYING NOW
The campaign of terror carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023 prompted a new Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip – one that has resulted in widespread destruction and mass displacement. What Israel's military campaign has seemingly not managed to do, however, is to shift Palestinian attitudes appreciably; when tallied last Fall by reputable pollsters, the Islamist movement still retained significant support from the local populace, despite its domestic misrule and wanton aggression. Now, however, Palestinian public opinion appears to finally be turning. In late March, thousands of Palestinian protesters took to the streets in the Gaza Strip to protest Hamas over the breakdown of the multi-phase ceasefire deal that had previously been reached with Israel.
The local population indeed has a great deal to be angry about. "Gazans feel they have nothing left to lose after the long suffering — there is no food, no water, no medicine," a recent investigative report by Al-Hurra has detailed. "Even humanitarian aid, under Hamas's control, has not been distributed but rather stolen and looted, and the people of Gaza are paying the price." (MBN, March 27, 2025)
THE HOUTHIS EXPAND THEIR FOOTPRINT IN AFRICA
Over the past year-and-a-half, Yemen's Houthi rebels have become a regional scourge, utilizing their strategic location atop the Red Sea to hold maritime commerce there hostage via sporadic missile attacks. The results have been dramatic; some 90% of maritime commerce through the Bab al-Mandab, a key regional waterway, is estimated to have been diverted by skittish shippers in order to avoid the Houthi threat – resulting in longer shipping times, billions in lost revenue and hikes in commodity prices. Increasingly, however, it is becoming clear that the Houthis (as well as their sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran) are thinking beyond the Persian Gulf.
According to a new analytical report by Yemen's Mokha Center for Strategic Studies, the Houthis are intensifying their activities on the other side of the Red Sea, in eastern Africa. Specifically, the report details, the group is expanding its presence in Sudan, with whom it has a historic relationship dating back some two decades, in tandem with the warming ties between Khartoum and Tehran. In Djibouti, the Yemeni rebels are said to maintain contacts with the country's security services as well as with prominent political figures, enabling them to establish clandestine smuggling routes there. And in Somalia, rumors abound of a strategic cooperation accord recently struck between the Houthis and that country's al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab guerillas. (Al-Hadath, April 13, 2025)
IN SYRIA, AN EXTREMIST ECOSYSTEM FESTERS
The extensive cost-cutting measures implemented by the Trump administration since taking office back in January have touched a great many things, from federal bureaucratic structures to international broadcasting to foreign aid. Reorganization has also begun at the Pentagon, where new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has commenced a review and potential downsizing of many of the Department's functions. U.S. counterterrorism functions haven't yet been targeted by the new White House, but experts fear that they might be – and that the result could be a growth in grassroots militancy in contested spaces, like Syria. There, a new analysis in New Lines Magazine lays out, camps like Al-Hawl, which currently serve as detention points for Islamic State militants and their families, could soon become the epicenters of growing instability, as American attention – as well as funding for security and staff – becomes increasingly in doubt.
"This camp is a ticking time bomb," Al-Hawl's director tells New Lines. "We've received intelligence from our allies in the international coalition, led by the United States, and from the Iraqi government, that ISIS is planning something. But we don't know whether it will be an external attack or an uprising from within." (New Lines Magazine, April 8, 2025)