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Caracas, Venezuela -- Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has called for a military uprising, in a video shot at a Caracas air base showing him in front of a group of soldiers and accompanied by previously-detained activist Leopoldo Lopez. In the three-minute video shot early Tuesday, Guaido said soldiers who took to the streets would be acting to protect Venezuela's constitution. He made the comments a day before a planned anti-government rally.

"The moment is now," he said, as his political mentor Lopez and several heavily armed soldiers backed by a single armored vehicle looked on.

Lopez has been under house arrest for leading an anti-government push in 2014. He said Tuesday that he had been freed by members of the military, and reiterated Guaido's call on all Venezuelans to peacefully take to the streets.

"Today, valiant soldiers, valiant patriots, valiant supporters of the constitution, have answered our call," declared Guaido in the video. He addressed the rest of Venezuela's security services, which have thus far remained loyal to President Nicolas Maduro: "I invite you to take to the streets."

There appeared to be about two dozen troops behind Guaido in the video posted early Tuesday morning, with a couple of armored vehicles behind them.

The Trump administration was one of the first major world powers to recognize Guadio as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, shunning Maduro after a 2018 election widely deemed flawed and undemocratic saw him win another term.

Pompeo visits Venezuelan border, keeps pressure on Maduro

In spite of steady pressure from the U.S., most Latin American nations and Europe, Maduro has clung to power -- thanks in large part to support from Russia.

Jorge Rodriquez, the Maduro regime's information minister, said in a pair of tweets early Tuesday that security services were "currently confronting and deactivating a small group of military traitors" who it accused of attempting to "promote a coup against the constitution and Peace of the Republic."

"We call on the people to stay on high alert, along with the glorious Bolivarian National armed forces, to defeat the coup attempt and preserve the peace. We will win," wrote Rodriquez.

Tear gas was fired on a highway near the air base where Guaido's video was shot later on Tuesday.

President Trump and his senior aides have repeatedly warned the Maduro regime not to try and arrest or harm Guaido, hinting that such action could draw a more overt response from the U.S. Thus far American actions have remained in the diplomatic realm -- in the form of sanctions and efforts to get aid materials into economically crippled Venezuela against Maduro's wishes.

First published on April 30, 2019 / 6:57 AM

© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Science

Universe is younger and expanding faster

CBS News contributor and physicist Michio Kaku joins CBSN's Elaine Quijano to discuss a new study that says the universe is younger and expanding faster than previously thought.

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Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido calls for military uprising against Nicolas Maduro

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Caracas, Venezuela -- Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has called for a military uprising, in a video shot at a Caracas air base showing him in front of a group of soldiers and accompanied by previously-detained activist Leopoldo Lopez. In the three-minute video shot early Tuesday, Guaido said soldiers who took to the streets would be acting to protect Venezuela's constitution.

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At least eight children have died at a refugee camp in southern Syria due to a lack of access to medical care and freezing temperatures.

Rukban camp, a sprawling mass of tents on the border with Jordan, has been largely cut off from essential food and supplies for a year amid a struggle for control over the strategic area between rival powers in Syria's civil war.

The United Nations children's agency said the "manmade" crisis that has blocked the camp's 45,000 residents from receiving medical care has contributed to the death of at least eight children in the past month, most of them under four months old.

"Extreme cold and the lack of medical care, for mothers before and during birth and for new infants, have exacerbated already dire conditions for children and their families," said Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"The lives of babies continue to be cut short by health conditions that are preventable or treatable. There are no excuses for this in the 21st century. This tragic manmade loss of life must end now," he added.

Meanwhile, in eastern Syria, another seven children have died while fleeing fighting in the last Isis-held area of the country. The UN said families escaping heavy violence in the Hajin area of Deir Ez-Zor are forced to "wait in the cold for days without shelter or basic supplies".

Rukban camp lies in an area ostensibly controlled by the US military, which operates a base nearby. But access on the ground is blocked by Jordan on one side and Syrian government forces on the other. Complicating things even further are a number of armed factions operating inside, which has made securing aid deliveries extremely difficult.

Jordan closed access to aid deliveries in 2016 following a deadly cross-border attack launched from the camp, and suspects Isis sleeper cells are still present there.

The camp's residents - 80 percent of whom are women and children, according to the UN - had only been surviving on food smuggled in overground from other parts of Syria, but the Syrian army closed off those routes in October, making an already dire situation worse.

In the past year, only two aid deliveries have made their way through to the camp, the last of which was in November.

As well as closing the border to aid deliveries, Jordan only allows the most serious medical cases to cross for treatment, which has caused preventable health issues to become critical.

More than a dozen people have died of malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare in a year. Among the victims were a five-day-old boy and a four-month-old girl who were unable to enter Jordan to reach a hospital, according to Unicef.

The difficulties faced at Rukban are being felt elsewhere, too. Devastating winter weather has made life unbearable for the millions of Syrians living in camps and tents inside and outside of the country. In northern Syria and across the border in Lebanon, rains have flooded camps and snow has blanketed tents.

An estimated 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country as refugees, and 6.2 million are displaced within Syria. Half of that number are children.

Unicef's Mr Cappelaere said that more deaths are inevitable if nothing is done.

"Without reliable and accessible healthcare, protection and shelter, more children will die day in, day out in Rukban, Deir Ez-Zor and elsewhere in Syria. History will judge us for these entirely avoidable deaths," he said.

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'Manmade' crisis behind deaths of eight Syrian children in beleaguered refugee camp

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At least eight children have died at a refugee camp in southern Syria due to a lack of access to medical care and freezing temperatures. Rukban camp, a sprawling mass of tents on the border with Jordan, has been largely cut off from essential food and supplies for a year amid a struggle for control over the strategic area between rival powers in Syria's civil war.

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Me finding an applicable source   -    *rattles*

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Me finding an applicable source   -    *rattles*

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ISIS's (and related too) Religious intolerance is still a threat

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ISIS's (and related too) Religious intolerance is still a threat

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bombings of worship places

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Duterte's brutal drug war: Philippine mayor and more than a dozen others killed by police

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July 30, 2017 Philippine police fatally shot more than a dozen people, including a mayor whom President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to the drug trade, during an early morning raid Sunday. Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of the city of Ozamiz in Mindanao in southern Philippines, and at least 14 others, including his wife, joined the thousands of casualties in Duterte's brutal drug war.

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human rights activists

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© 2017 Dondi Tawatao / Reuters

(New York) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's murderous "drug war" entered its second year in 2017, resulting in the killing of more than 12,000 drug suspects, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018. Duterte has responded to increased criticism of his anti-drug campaign by impugning, harassing, and threatening critics of the government and human rights defenders.

Since the "drug war" began on June 30, 2016, Duterte and his officials have publicly reviled, humiliated and, in one instance, jailed human rights advocates. Senator Leila de Lima, the president's chief critic, has been detained since February 2017 on politically motivated drug charges in apparent retaliation for leading a Senate inquiry into the drug war killings and, early on, opening an investigation of the Davao Death Squad in Davao City, where Duterte was mayor for more than 20 years.

"President Duterte has not only resisted calls to end his brutal 'drug war,' but has used populist rhetoric to disparage the brave activists who have been investigating and denouncing his cruel campaign," said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director. "Since Duterte will never undertake a serious investigation into the 'war on drugs,' it's up to the United Nations to support an international investigation and bring the mass killings to a stop."

Since Duterte will never undertake a serious investigation into the 'war on drugs,' it's up to the United Nations to support an international investigation and bring the mass killings to a stop.

In the 643-page World Report, its 28th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth writes that political leaders willing to stand up for human rights principles showed that it is possible to limit authoritarian populist agendas. When combined with mobilized publics and effective multilateral actors, these leaders demonstrated that the rise of anti-rights governments is not inevitable.

More than 12,000 suspected drug users and dealers, mostly from poor families in urban centers across the country, are estimated to have died in the "drug war," including an estimated 4,000 during operations led by the police and the remainder by "unidentified gunmen."

In August, Duterte encouraged police attacks against human rights groups and advocates, instructing police to shoot them "if they are obstructing justice." Duterte has publicly condemned the official Commission on Human Rights, even threatening to abolish the constitutionally mandated body. He also repeatedly subjected the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, to profanity-laced ridicule for her repeated efforts to secure an official visit to the Philippines. Duterte's spokesman, Harry Roque, has accused the UN of " bullying " the Philippines about extrajudicial killings.

On social media, pro-Duterte trolls and supporters - some of them officially working for the government - have threatened violence against human rights advocates, including Human Rights Watch staff and journalists who report critically on the "drug war."

In October, Duterte responded to public outcry over the killings - particularly of children - by taking the Philippine National Police (PNP) out of the anti-drug operations. The killings declined but did not stop, and the president has said he would reinstate the police in the campaign. A Human Rights Watch investigation found that police and their agents have repeatedly carried out extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, and then falsely claimed self-defense. The police claim that several police officers implicated in these killings have been dismissed from service and are under investigation but not one has been brought to trial.

The killing of journalists remains a concern in the Philippines as well as reports of attacks on schools by government forces. Leftist activists, often accused of being communist New People's Army rebels, are targeted by the military.

The country also has a fast-growing HIV epidemic in the Asia-Pacific region, fueled by the government's poor response to the crisis. Students are bullied, harassed, and discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. In Marawi City, a predominantly Muslim part of Mindanao island, months-long fight ing between the military and ISIS-inspired local Islamist groups resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 combatants and civilians and the displacement of 400,000 residents.

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Philippines: Duterte's 'Drug War' Claims 12,000+ Lives

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(New York) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's murderous "drug war" entered its second year in 2017, resulting in the killing of more than 12,000 drug suspects, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018 . Duterte has responded to increased criticism of his anti-drug campaign by impugning, harassing, and threatening critics of the government and human rights defenders.

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Jewish leaders have reacted angrily after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte compared his anti-drug campaign to the Holocaust.

The comment - wrongly citing numbers killed by the Nazis - was inhumane and deeply offensive, they said.

Mr Duterte said he would kill as many addicts as Hitler did Jews in his crackdown on users and dealers.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews... there's three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them," he said.

Duterte's most outspoken quotes

Duterte: 'Punisher' to president

The woman who kills drug dealers for a living

Baron's daughter killed in Philippines

"What President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heart-breaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country," said World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder as he demanded an apology.

US-based Jewish group the Anti-Defamation League said the comments were "inappropriate and deeply offensive", with communications director Todd Gutnick saying it was "baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster".

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Mr Duterte owed "[Holocaust] victims an apology for his disgusting rhetoric".

'Cousin of Hitler'

Mr Duterte, who has overseen a bloody crackdown on drug users and dealers since taking office in June which has left more than 3,000 people dead, made the comments during a rambling speech in Davao, the city where as mayor he implemented a tough anti-crime policy and was accused of sanctioning death squads to kill criminals.

He told reporters he had been "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" as he lashed out critics who he said were accusing him of genocide.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews, now, there is three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them," he said.

Both figures quoted by Mr Duterte are incorrect.

Hitler actually massacred six million Jews, as well as other minorities, during the Holocaust, while the most recent figures in the Philippines - released earlier in the week - suggests the number of drug users in the country is closer to 1.8 million, just 1.8% of the overall population, according to local news website Rappler.

Mr Duterte's rambling speech continued: "At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have..." - at which point he is reported to have pointed to himself.

Mr Duterte also used the speech to once again accuse the West of hypocrisy over its criticism of his brutal crackdown.

"You US, EU. You can call me anything. But I was never into... hypocrisy like you," he said.

"There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the death of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000?"

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Jewish leaders have reacted angrily after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte compared his anti-drug campaign to the Holocaust. The comment - wrongly citing numbers killed by the Nazis - was inhumane and deeply offensive, they said. Mr Duterte said he would kill as many addicts as Hitler did Jews in his crackdown on users and dealers.

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Stranded in the remote deserts of Syria near the Jordanian border lies Rukban Camp - an unofficial tent city of over 40,000 displaced people who fled from war in Syria. What began as an informal settlement in 2014 evolved over time into a complex camp with no running water, regular food supplies or access to medical care.

"I can't explain to you how bad the situation is," Rukban resident Muhammad A'kil, 27, told The World over a smuggled satellite phone that connects to the internet for about one hour every few days. A'kil, originally from Homs, Syria, has been in limbo at the camp for four years.

"Don't call it Rukban Camp; it's a death camp."

Muhammad A'kil, 27, Rukban resident

"Don't call it Rukban Camp; it's a death camp," A'kil said.

At Rukban, babies die of cold, children of hunger, and adults from minor illnesses while waiting for Jordanian authorities to administer special passes for emergencies only. The situation was a disaster even years ago - and it's only gotten worse since the diplomatic blame game over responsibility for reaching Rukban with essential aid has heightened.

Just 15.5 miles up the road from Rukban is a US military base at al-Tanf, staffed with around 200 American soldiers and allied rebel fighters. And just across the border on the Jordanian side, United Nations aid trucks wait for the diplomatic signal to deliver the badly needed aid.

But the border gates - only two miles away from the first tent that forms Rukban - remains shut.

The aid blame game, explained

With hungry people on one side of the border, and trucks full of food on the other, it seems like an easy fix - but a complex web of negotiations between leaders of Syria, Russia, Jordan, Iran, the United States and the United Nations have stalled aid for months at a time.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Damascus is fully stocked and ready to deliver aid to Rukban, but it requires Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to grant permission to send any aid convoys.

"Anytime we talk with the UN to get the food, they say, 'There's no shortage of food or medicine or any kind of support, but we need Damascus' approval; without Damascus, we cannot move.'"

Bassam Barabandi, adviser to the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee

"Anytime we talk with the UN to get the food, they say, 'There's no shortage of food or medicine or any kind of support, but we need Damascus' approval; without Damascus, we cannot move,'" said Bassam Barabandi, an adviser to the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee who worked as career diplomat for the Syrian government in Washington until 2013.
Related: As US declares victory over ISIS, a withdrawal from Syria proves perilous
"Jordan has made it clear that they will not allow anything to come from Jordan to Syria. Iraq did the same, so the only way to get the food or humanitarian aid is from the UN office in Damascus," Barabandi said.

Jordan sealed the border after an ISIS-claimed suicide bomber struck the crossing in 2016.

The American military base at al-Tanf has an airstrip that could be used to fly in humanitarian aid, but they don't use it, Barabandi said. "America says they don't have any legal mandate to support these people, even if they are just a few miles away from them."

Yet, when Syrian and Iranian forces have entered the 34-mile perimeter around the base, American warplanes have responded with strikes - effectively putting Rukban and its residents under American protection from Assad's forces.

Al-Tanf was originally intended as a launchpad for fighting ISIS in southern Syria, and for the train-and-equip program for allied rebels, which ended in failure in 2015.

Al-Tanf was originally intended as a launchpad for fighting ISIS in southern Syria, and for the train-and-equip program for allied rebels, which ended in failure in 2015. As ISIS was beaten back from the area, al-Tanf's mission has gradually evolved to include countering Iran, and de facto protecting the people of Rukban camp.

The dusty highway that passes through Rukban leads all the way from Tehran, Iran, to the Mediterranean Sea - and while attention is on the battle to retake ISIS's last stronghold, US military officials still consider al-Tanf crucial to blocking Iranian oil- and weapons-supply lines from reaching Damascus.

Russia and the Syrian government charge that the American base at al-Tanf is blocking convoys from reaching Rukban. Assad and Russia have tolerated the base's presence on Syrian soil as part of an agreement that the US would only attack ISIS - not support any rebel attacks on government forces. But with ISIS now down - yet still not defeated - the raison d'être for an American presence at al-Tanf fades - along with Assad's patience.

"The US will remain at al-Tanf to continue the campaign against ISIS."

US military commander Sean Robertson

In his first public address in over a year, Assad reiterated promises that his forces would recapture "every inch" of the country's territory lost to ISIS, and to the rebel groups who now control the al-Tanf area with US support.

When US President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement in December promising "complete withdrawal" of American troops from Syria, Rukban residents panicked. Without US protection, there would be nothing standing in the way between them and Assad's forces.

But US military commander Sean Robertson confirmed in an email that "The US will remain at al-Tanf to continue the campaign against ISIS," declining further comment.
Related: When the US pulls out of Syria, what happens to ISIS?
"The US doesn't want to be involved in any effort that looks like rebuilding," said opposition negotiator Barabandi. "They don't want to look like they are owning anything in Syria. But if the United States wanted to help, they would help."

Rukban stands out as another bitter example of how delivering humanitarian aid can often get hampered by politics.

"When aid becomes a proxy for a political struggle, it's just much, much harder to get it to the communities who need it, because one side or the other will see it as a threat."

Jeremy Konyndyk, former director of foreign disaster assistance programs for USAID in Syria

"When aid becomes a proxy for a political struggle, it's just much, much harder to get it to the communities who need it, because one side or the other will see it as a threat," said Jeremy Konyndyk, former director of foreign disaster assistance programs for USAID in Syria during the Obama administration.

Life inside - and beyond - Rukban

Fleeing the war, many Syrians packed up their belongings hoping to reach Jordan, which has taken in more than 630,000 Syrian refugees since 2011. But as more Syrians continued to flee, it put a strain on Jordan's limited resources, and eventually, only a small number were granted refuge. The rest were turned away.

Rukban, as an improvised settlement, continued to grow, reaching up to 75,000 people at one point. People clustered according to their hometowns, essentially forming neighborhoods and Rukban evolved into a small city - but it still lacks basic infrastructure.

"Inside the settlement, you have a kind of downtown, and you can see that the people living there are trying to re-create the city life that they were part of before," said Marwa Awad, the spokeswoman for the World Food Program. Some at Rukban have jobs while others have formed committees. There is even a football league for both children and adults.

The last aid convoy reached the camp in February 2019 after complex negotiations lasting four months between the Syrian regime and elected representatives from Rukban led to a deal. To deliver the aid, the UN needed Assad's government in Damascus to agree to send the convoys and the Americans at al-Tanf had to agree to allow Syrian troops into its perimeter.

But for some, it was too late.

A'kil says his teenage cousin, gravely ill with pulmonary edema, waited in a line at the border crossing every day for two months to request permission to enter a Jordanian hospital. "The day we buried him, the permission came," he said.

Aid workers say the aid that did arrive could barely cover residents' needs through the middle of March.

When Awad went to visit Rukban along with the convoy in February, she said the conditions were worse than other places she visited in Syria.

"They had barbershops, they had restaurants, even a shawarma shop - where nobody was buying - even bread is eight times as expensive as it is in Damascus," Awad said.

Even after they received the bare essentials of food and medicine, it's a far cry from a long-term solution, Awad said.

"There is a risk of a lost generation there if these children don't get out soon enough to be incorporated back into an educational system. There are schools, but they're really the farthest from what you'd know as a school. ... It's a crisis."

Marwa Awad, World Food Program spokeswoman

"There is a risk of a lost generation there if these children don't get out soon enough to be incorporated back into an educational system. There are schools, but they're really the farthest from what you'd know as a school," Awad said. "It's a crisis."

According to UNOCHA internal data, the majority of Rukban residents - over 2,700 families - wish to return to their hometowns, which are now under the control of the Syrian government.

"But they also conveyed that they need assurances for their safety and protection both during any process of returning and in the future," a UNOCHA official in Damascus said via email.
Related: Amnesty accuses Syria of 'extermination' of thousands of prisoners
Many Syrians fear imprisonment or being conscripted into the Syrian army after Damascus placed tens of thousands of men under the age of 46 on wanted lists for deserting a second tour of mandatory military service.

"The [Assad] regime is trying to force us by feigning a welcoming face," A'kil said. "But God knows, it won't be any welcome. They will kill us."

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Blame game over aid leaves Syrian refugees stranded in desert 'death' camp

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Stranded in the remote deserts of Syria near the Jordanian border lies Rukban Camp - an unofficial tent city of over 40,000 displaced people who fled from war in Syria. What began as an informal settlement in 2014 evolved over time into a complex camp with no running water, regular food supplies or access to medical care.

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At least 29 children and newborns have died over the past two months in or on their way to the al-Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria, the World Health Organization says, as the camp struggles to deal with cold winter conditions and an influx of displaced people.

Most of the children died of hypothermia, according to a report from WHO, released Thursday.

About 23,000 people have arrived at the camp in Hasakeh province in just eight weeks, WHO says. Once made up mostly of Iraqi refugees, the camp near the Iraq-Syria border has tripled in size since December - from about 10,000 to nearly 33,000 people. Most of the new residents are Syrian women and children fleeing fighting between U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the remnants of the Islamic State.

Many arrivals spend days in unheated reception and screening areas, according to WHO, after making the journey from neighboring Deir Ez-Zor province on foot or in open-air trucks.

"We came with just the clothes on our backs," one displaced Syrian, who made a weeklong journey to the camp on foot, told NPR this month. "We slept in the desert in the rain."

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been displaced, many numerous times, during the battle to retake large swaths of the country captured by ISIS in 2014.

The surge in arrivals to al-Hol this winter comes as Kurdish and Arab forces say the fight has reached its last days, NPR's Lama al-Arian reports. Many children come to the camp separated from their parents, and authorities are working to reunite families.

Elizabeth Hoff, WHO's representative in Syria, says aid teams are struggling to cope with the "critical" situation in the camp.

"Children are dying from hypothermia as their families flee to safety," Hoff said in the report. "We are scaling up our efforts in Al Hol, but we need faster approvals to allow us [to] deliver supplies, and we need guaranteed access to both the camp and the roads leading to it."

Bureaucratic obstacles and security constraints have hampered humanitarian access to the camp, according to WHO. Shortages of health care services, tents, latrines and sanitation facilities have plagued al-Hol. The organization says it has deployed additional vaccination teams and has begun training health care workers on neonatal resuscitation.

Officials are scrambling to prepare tents and food aid for hundreds more people expected to arrive at the camp, Arian reports.

The vast majority of people at al-Hol live in tents provided by UNHCR, the U.N.'s refugee agency, according to a ReliefWeb profile released last summer. At the time - well before the influx of displaced Syrians - nearly two-thirds of residents reported inadequate shelter, including poor conditions and lack of electricity

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WHO Warns Of Dire Conditions, Deaths Of Children At Refugee Camp In Syria

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At least 29 children and newborns have died over the past two months in or on their way to the al-Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria, the World Health Organization says, as the camp struggles to deal with cold winter conditions and an influx of displaced people.

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March 3
They were given one of the most dangerous tasks in policing: Take down MS-13.

They were bankrolled by the United States and trained by FBI agents. But members of the Salvadoran police have been killed by the dozens in each of the past three years, most in attacks that investigators and experts blame on MS-13, an international street gang. At least nine officers were killed in the first month of this year.

Now, a number of El Salvador's police officers are fleeing the gang they were tasked with eliminating.

There is no list in either El Salvador or the United States of Salvadoran police officers who have fled the country. But The Washington Post has identified 15 officers in the process of being resettled as refugees by the United Nations and six officers who have either recently received asylum or have scheduled asylum hearings in U.S. immigration courts. In WhatsApp groups, police officers have begun discussing the possibility of a migrant caravan composed entirely of Salvadoran police - a caravana policial, the officers call it.

The exodus of Salvadoran police points to how the country's security forces have failed to break the stranglehold of organized crime. It also shows that among those seeking refuge in the United States during the Trump administration are some of America's closest security partners.

"These are among the most vulnerable people in El Salvador," said Julio Buendía, the director of migration at Cáritas El Salvador, a nonprofit organization that works with the United States and United Nations on refugee resettlement.

The United States has been bolstering the Salvadoran police, part of a regional strategy intended to stabilize Central America's most violent countries and reduce migration. The State Department spent at least $48 million to train police in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras from 2014 through 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The department opened a law enforcement training academy in San Salvador, where 855 Salvadoran officers were trained by the FBI and other American law enforcement agencies in those four years.

"The Salvadoran government, with U.S. government support, has made significant gains in the area of security, including reductions in homicides and every other category of violent crime measured," the State Department said in a statement issued in response to an inquiry by The Post.

Citing "privacy reasons," the department would not comment on whether it was receiving asylum or refugee applications from Salvadoran police officers.

By some measures, the U.S.-backed security efforts appeared to be showing results. In 2018, El Salvador's murder rate was 50.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was still among the highest in the world, but it was down from 60.8 per 100,000 in 2017 and 81 per 100,000 in 2016.

MS-13 was born in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, expanding as more Salvadorans arrived in the United States after fleeing the country's civil war. The group splintered, with Barrio 18 becoming a chief rival, and both groups grew in American prisons before reaching El Salvador through mass deportations. Between 2001 and 2010, the United States deported 40,429 ex-convicts to El Salvador, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

El Salvador's government adopted an " iron fist " response to the gangs, including more police operations. When that approach failed, it tried to broach a truce with the gangs in 2014. The pact quickly disintegrated and was followed by another surge in violence. It was then that the gangs began to explicitly broadcast their threats against police officers.

"If you kill a 'pig,' or a police officer, you're more respected in these gangs. That's the policy - using death as exchange currency," said Héctor Silva Ávalos, a journalist and researcher who has written a book on the Salvadoran police and has served as an expert witness at several asylum hearings for former police officers in the United States.

With salaries of $300 to $400 per month, the low-level police officers who make up the majority of the force often have no choice but to live in neighborhoods vulnerable to gangs. And so, in the vast majority of the cases, police officers are killed when they are home from work or are on leave.

In August, Manuel de Jesús Mira Díaz was killed while buying construction materials. In July, Juan de Jesús Morales Alvarado was killed while walking with his 7-year-old son on the way to school. In November, Barrera Mayén was killed after taking leave to spend time at home with his family.

The police investigated a number of the killings since 2014 and found members of the major gangs responsible.

"They have more control than we do. When we go home, we're in neighborhoods where there's one police to 100 gang members. We're easy victims," said one officer in the country's anti-gang unit, who, after being threatened by MS-13 in his home, is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

Complicating their response to the threats, Salvadoran police are also not legally allowed to take their weapons home with them.

"I bring it home anyway. I sleep with it on my waist," said a female officer, who is awaiting refugee status from the United Nations and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety. "My husband and I take turns sleeping. We know they are going to come for us."

Many units in the Salvadoran police are forbidden to wear balaclavas to conceal their identities. In anti-gang units, officers are allowed to wear such masks during operations, but they are frequently asked to testify in court, where they must show their faces and identify themselves by name while gang members look on.

In 2017, El Salvador's attorney general, Douglas Meléndez, urged the government to do more to protect off-duty police, asking the parliament to pass a "protection law" for police and soldiers that would also provide funding to protect their families. The law was never passed.

Last month, security concerns played a central role in a presidential election won by San Salvador's 37-year-old former mayor, Nayib Bukele. At least 285 people were killed in January, leading up to the vote, which many saw as the gangs' attempt to leverage their influence amid the election campaign. In a security plan leaked to the Salvadoran news media, Bukele's campaign wrote: "The expansion of these criminal groups is undeniable, as is the impact on the lives of ordinary citizens."

In response to the targeting of police officers this year, El Salvador's police chief introduced a policy: For their own protection, officers were not allowed to return to their homes. The police chief declined multiple interview requests.

Many officers, feeling unprotected by their own force, have said their only option is to leave the country.

Organizations that work with the United Nations to resettle Salvadoran refugees in the United States say they have found more and more police officers arriving unannounced at their offices. In addition to the 21 asylum seekers and refugees identified by The Post, several others have recently arrived in Spain and Mexico, according to news reports, applying for humanitarian visas or other forms of protection. Lawyers for police officers and many officers themselves say that far more officers are preparing to flee.

One of the cases that Buendía, the migration director of Cáritas, referred to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is an officer who survived two attacks while off duty. First, he was shot eight times by suspected gang members; then, two years later, he was shot four times. The officer pleaded for protection from his commander.

Buendía included a letter from the commander in the officer's refugee application. "There's nothing we can do for you," the commander wrote. "You need to protect yourself."

A police spokesman declined to comment on the letter.

In one case, concerning a police officer now applying for asylum in U.S. immigration courts, gang members threatened to kidnap the officer's child at an elementary school in rural El Salvador.

"That's not what these guys signed up for. It's one thing to be shot at on the job. It's another for your family to be targeted while you're off duty," said Emily Smith, the attorney representing the officer.

Lawyers such as Smith who are representing the officers typically try to explain to immigration judges that as former police officers, their clients would be persecuted if they were forced to return to El Salvador. But the attorneys are also aware of how narrowly U.S. asylum law can be applied, and that the courts are unlikely to grant asylum to all former officers.

"What we chose to do is focus on the specific threats facing our client," said Patrick Courtney, who last year represented a Salvadoran officer who had been physically assaulted in his home before fleeing. "We focused on his anti-gang views, on the fact that the threats were directed at him individually."

Courtney's client was granted asylum late last year. They discussed where he would live in the United States, and what he would do next. The former officer had only one goal: He wanted to join the United States military.
Read more: He waited months for asylum. Days after he was deported, he was found dead in the trunk of a car. Former mayor Nayib Bukele wins El Salvador's presidential election Entire families of asylum seekers are being returned to Mexico, leaving them in limbo Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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It's so dangerous to police MS-13 in El Salvador that officers are fleeing the country

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March 3 They were given one of the most dangerous tasks in policing: Take down MS-13. They were bankrolled by the United States and trained by FBI agents. But members of the Salvadoran police have been killed by the dozens in each of the past three years, most in attacks that investigators and experts blame on MS-13, an international street gang.

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Demonstrators gathered in Barcelona, Spain, this month to show support for the imprisoned Catalan politicians. Credit Credit Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

MADRID - It is a trial unlike any Spain has held before, over a conflict that plunged the country into a constitutional crisis and threatened to tear it apart: Leaders of the Catalan independence movement went before Spain's Supreme Court on Tuesday to face criminal charges including rebellion and violating court orders.

The trial in Madrid is likely to revive debates and stir emotions over Catalonia's botched secession attempt in 2017. The proceedings will be closely watched in Spain and in other European countries with separatist movements, like Britain and Belgium.

The trial stems from the crisis that unfolded in the fall of 2017 in Catalonia, the wealthy northeastern region of Spain, and that came to dominate Spanish politics. The Catalan regional government called a referendum on independence and pressed ahead with it even after Spanish courts and the national government declared it illegal.

In an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the vote, Madrid sent officers from the national police force to the region, who clashed in the streets with crowds numbering in the thousands. With most anti-secession voters heeding the central government's call not to take part in the referendum, the push for independence won easily but the vote's result was immediately declared null and void by Madrid.

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Some of the jailed Catalan separatist leaders, clockwise from top left: Raül Romeva, Joaquim Forn, Jordi Turull, Oriol Junqueras, Josep Rull, Jordi Sanchez, Dolors Bassa, Carme Forcadell and Jordi Cuixart. Credit Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Twelve defendants are appearing before the Supreme Court, most of them former officials of the regional government that organized the referendum and declared independence.

The most prominent is Oriol Junqueras, the former deputy leader of Catalonia and head of Esquerra Republicana, a left-wing separatist party, who could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison if he is found guilty.

One person who is not in court is Carles Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia and a longstanding secessionist, who is living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

The Spanish authorities indicted 20 Catalans in late 2017 for their roles in the drive for independence. But several of them, including Mr. Puigdemont, ignored the court summons and fled Spain, and they have successfully resisted extradition attempts to force them to face trial.

In March, Mr. Puigdemont was briefly jailed in Germany, where a court ruled that he could not be extradited to Spain for rebellion, the main charge he faces.

Of the dozen defendants now standing trial, nine have already spent more than one year in jail, after being denied bail - a situation denounced by Catalan separatists.

The separatists also argue that the defendants should stand trial in Barcelona, not Madrid, claiming that the Spanish courts are biased.

But the central government and Spanish judges have firmly defended the impartiality of Spain's judiciary. Last Thursday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez became the first Spanish head of government to visit the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, where he praised his country for its solid judicial record.

About 500 witnesses are expected to testify, including Mariano Rajoy, the conservative prime minister at the time of the separatist turmoil in 2017.

A panel of seven Supreme Court justices is presiding over the trial and one of them will then write the verdicts, which must be approved by a majority of the panel.

There is no time limit for the trial, and Carlos Lesmes, the president of the Supreme Court, who is not among those hearing the case, forecast recently that it would last about three months. The justices will then need time to reach their verdicts, so the outcomes are unlikely to be made public before late June, he predicted.

The complicated case against the Catalan separatists has been led by a judge from the Supreme Court, but other courts, in Madrid and Catalonia, are also handling separate cases linked to the upheaval in 2017.

In one, Josep Lluís Trapero, the former head of the Catalan regional police force, is due to appear before Spain's national court in Madrid to face sedition charges. In Catalonia, dozens of town mayors are under indictment for facilitating voting in the referendum.

About 20 Spanish police officers are awaiting trial in Catalonia, accused of using violence to stop citizens from voting in the referendum. In the two police cases heard so far, neither officer was found guilty of wrongdoing.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez came into office in June promising to renew dialogue with Catalonia's leadership. Credit Andrea Comas/Associated Press

The trial is taking center stage - covered live on national television and by over 600 accredited journalists - amid political deadlock and continued tensions over the future of Catalonia.

While separatism has sharply split Catalan society, it has also helped reshape the national politics of Spain.

The country's main right-wing opposition parties have recently accused Mr. Sánchez, the prime minister, of making undue concessions to Catalan separatist parties, to maintain parliamentary support for his minority Socialist government. On Sunday, tens of thousands of right-wing protesters gathered in Madrid to denounce Mr. Sánchez's handling of the Catalonia crisis and to demand his ouster.

Mr. Sánchez came into office in June, promising to renew dialogue with Catalonia's leadership, but Pablo Casado, the leader of the conservative Popular Party, recently called the prime minister a "felon" and "traitor" for "ceding to the pressure of those who want to destroy Spain."

The Supreme Court trial will provide a platform for Vox, a far-right party that made its electoral breakthrough in December, in the southern region of Andalusia. Vox's lawyers filed their own set of charges against the Catalan separatists, to reinforce those of the state prosecution, giving them a role in the trial.

In Catalonia, Quim Torra, a separatist who now leads the regional government, has a tenuous grip on power; a coalition of the two main separatist parties recently splintered. He has pledged to continue the push for independence, but has not provided a road map for that goal.

Carles Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia and a longstanding secessionist, is living in self-imposed exile in Belgium. Credit Omer Messinger/EPA, via Shutterstock

If they are found guilty, the defendants could appeal to the Constitutional Court. If that appeal fails, they could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In September, the representative of the central government in Catalonia, Teresa Cunillera, also raised the possibility that Mr. Sánchez could use his executive powers to pardon Mr. Junqueras and others, should they be found guilty. Spain's opposition parties, however, have vowed to prevent any political pardons.

There is still the possibility of yet another trial, if the Spanish authorities reactivate European arrest warrants for Mr. Puigdemont and others, and succeed in having them extradited.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: In Separatists' Trial, a Push That Shoved Spain Into a Crisis. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Catalan Separatists' Trial: How They Got Here, and What They Could Face

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MADRID - It is a trial unlike any Spain has held before, over a conflict that plunged the country into a constitutional crisis and threatened to tear it apart: Leaders of the Catalan independence movement went before Spain's Supreme Court on Tuesday to face criminal charges including rebellion and violating court orders.

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MANILA (Reuters) - Police at the helm of the Philippine war on drugs were given top posts in the national force on Thursday, indicating no let-up in a brutal crackdown that has caused international alarm, and defined Rodrigo Duterte's 21-month presidency.

The job of national police chief was given to Oscar Albayalde, a strict disciplinarian who has been in charge of Metro Manila, where the vast majority of the thousands of drugs war killings have occurred.

He was succeeded as commander of the capital police by Camilo Cascolan, the architect of the controversial operational plan of the anti-drug campaign, "Double Barrel".

About 4,100 people have been killed by police in the Philippines since July 2016 in what the authorities said were shootouts during anti-narcotics operations. At least 2,300 drug-related deaths have occurred separately, at the hands of what police say are unknown assassins.

Human rights groups believe the death toll has been understated, and accuse the authorities of executing suspects and staging crime scenes. Police deny that and say their more than 130,000 arrests prove their intent to preserve life.

Cascolan is the latest officer promoted to a top command post having served in the Davao region during the 22 years Duterte was a mayor there. The outgoing police chief, Ronald dela Rosa, also served in Davao.

Cascolan's position as head of operations will go to Mao Aplasca, also from the Davao region.

Albayalde vowed no relent in the campaign and to ensure continuity of its "remarkable accomplishments", including arresting or convincing tens of thousands of people to surrender, and the "neutralizing" of drug suspects.

"We will not relent on our war against illegal drugs and other forms of criminality. The drug menace, we must all understand, is a worldwide phenomenon," Albayalde said in a speech.

"We will help and support each other to fight and win this war."

The outgoing police chief, Dela Rosa, will head the bureau of corrections.

He is leaving behind a police force with "a sordid human rights record", according to Carlos Conde, a researcher for the New York based Human Rights Watch.

In his departure speech, Dela Rosa lauded Duterte's for his courage to order an all-out war on drugs, and pledged his "unquestionable loyalty" to him.

"It was an order I certainly could not refuse. I shared the same sentiments as the president and would not let pass the opportunity to do my share," he said.

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Duterte's drugs war lieutenants get key posts in Philippine police...

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MANILA (Reuters) - Police at the helm of the Philippine war on drugs were given top posts in the national force on Thursday, indicating no let-up in a brutal crackdown that has caused international alarm, and defined Rodrigo Duterte's 21-month presidency.

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War in the Valley of Plenty

In Cape Town, one of the richest cities in all of Africa, gang-related killings and drug use are rampant.

An intervention programme named Ceasefire finds remarkable success by getting in the middle of the conflict.

Ceasefire community worker Nielin Peters tries to help gang members get out. But first, he must get into their world.

"The children that you raise will one day look up to you," said Peters.

"If they see you on the right road, they will choose it for themselves too. The road of gangsterism leads to prison or the grave. There is no benefit."

Mind Over Battle

In Los Angeles, Javier Chavez, a former gang member, helps others to break away from violence and drug addiction.

He's a counsellor at Homeboy Industries, an organisation that has helped over 10,000 former gang members from across the city each year.

But as he counsels others on how to cope with the challenges of life outside gangs and prison, Chavez constantly wrestles his own demons - his dark past which won't let him go.

"I spent 23 years of my life in the act of addiction," says Chavez. "My life was on the line ... I just want to do my part in life. That's how I make my amends."

Gangster's Granny

Ecuador is caught in the crosshair of Latin America's drug war.

Nelsa Curbelo is a peace activist and former nun whose organisation, Ser Paz, helps young gangsters leave their violent lives behind.

Curbelo uses a unique combination of skills developed during her time helping to broker peace during times of war as well as grandmotherly love to transform some of Ecuador's toughest streets.

"People used to say we were the worst of the worst. Now, you could say we're the best of the worst," said a young former gang member who was aided by Curbelo and her foundation.

"Nelsa is our second mother. She is the person who believed in us."

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In Cape Town, one of the richest cities in all of Africa, gang-related killings and drug use are rampant. An intervention programme named Ceasefire finds remarkable success by getting in the middle of the conflict. Ceasefire community worker Nielin Peters tries to help gang members get out.

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San Salvador (AFP)

Salvadoran police said Monday they had struck a "heavy blow" against the Central American country's violent MS-13 gang, arresting 117 members for a raft of crimes from murder to extortion.

US President Donald Trump has frequently pointed to the gang to justify his immigration policy, labelling it a danger to Americans and claiming many Salvadoran migrants to the US are gang members.

Announcing the arrests, El Salvador's top police official Howard Cotto said those arrested came from 11 separate MS-13 cells operating against businesses in downtown San Salvador.

Cotto said a complicating factor for El Salvador's anti-gang operations was that members of the feared gang operating in the capital lived elsewhere.

"They come from outside the capital to commit crimes," he said, claiming police "have managed to strike a heavy blow."

The charges against them include 16 homicides and extortion.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull US aid from El Salvador amid claims the government is not doing enough to counter the 70,000-member gang. Some 17,000 MS-13 members are in prison.

El Salvador's homicide rate of 51 per 100,000 inhabitants makes it one of the world's most violent countries outside of full-fledged conflict zones.

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Salvador police strike blow agasint MS-13 gang

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San Salvador (AFP) Salvadoran police said Monday they had struck a "heavy blow" against the Central American country's violent MS-13 gang, arresting 117 members for a raft of crimes from murder to extortion. US President Donald Trump has frequently pointed to the gang to justify his immigration policy, labelling it a danger to Americans and claiming many Salvadoran migrants to the US are gang members.

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Supporters of Catalan independence in Barcelona

Catalonia's drive for independence plunged Spain into its biggest political crisis for 40 years.

The region had its autonomy suspended for almost seven months by Madrid after a failed bid to break away in 2017.

In October 2019, Spain's Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan politicians and activists to jail terms of between nine and 13 years for that independence bid. Three others were fined.

Spain jails Catalan independence leaders

What is Catalonia?

Catalonia is a semi-autonomous region in north-east Spain with a distinct history dating back almost 1,000 years.

The wealthy region has about 7.5 million people, with their own language, parliament, flag and anthem.

Catalonia also has its own police force and controls some of its public services.

Why the controversy?

Catalan nationalists have long complained that their region sends too much money to poorer parts of Spain, as taxes are controlled by Madrid.

They also say Spain's changes to their autonomous status in 2010 undermined Catalan identity.

In a referendum on 1 October 2017, declared illegal by Spain's Constitutional Court, about 90% of Catalan voters backed independence. But turnout was only 43%.

There were clashes when Spanish national police tried to prevent people voting.

The ruling separatists in the Catalan parliament then declared independence on 27 October.

Angered by that, Madrid imposed direct rule by invoking Article 155 of the constitution - a first for Spain.

The Spanish government sacked the Catalan leaders, dissolved parliament and called a snap regional election on 21 December 2017, which nationalist parties won.

Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president, fled but is wanted in Spain accused of rebellion, as are four who fled with him.

In June 2018, Catalan nationalists regained control of the region from Madrid's direct rule after a new government was sworn in.

Quim Torra, a close ally of Mr Puigdemont, now leads the regional government.

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The clash between Catalonia and the Spanish government is complicated, so let's examine it.

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For the third time since 2016, the Philippine government has relaunched the controversial anti-drug campaign, known locally as Oplan Tokhang, amid continuing concern that the police-led operations have led to massive human rights abuses.

Tokhang has long been a top priority of President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to eradicate illegal drugs in three to six months after his rise to power in 2016.

But soon after it began, Tokhang was unsurprisingly blamed for the spate of extrajudicial killings in urban poor communities, with the police claiming that they were only forced to retaliate because suspected drug operators and peddlers were resisting arrests.

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Duterte suspended Tokhang in early 2017 after some police were accused of illegally abducting a South Korean businessman under a Tokhang operation. Several months later, the police resumed Tokhang which quickly produced a surge of drug-related killings all over Metro Manila, the nation's biggest urban center.

But it was the mysterious deaths of teenagers under police custody last August 2017 which generated a loud public outcry against Tokhang. This inspired the biggest anti-Tokhang gathering in September and it was also credited with partly causing a drop in the nationwide trust rating of Duterte.

Bowing to public pressure, Duterte removed the police from the anti-drug campaign in October and transferred the mandate to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. By this time, the Duterte government had already been accused of conducting a 'war on drugs' that had claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people, according to some estimates by human rights groups.

On 29 January 2018, the police resumed its role in implementing Tokhang under a new set of guidelines designed to restore public confidence.

What are some of the new features of the reloaded Tokhang? First, the police supposedly underwent rigorous retraining in the past several months. Second, Tokhang operations will apparently be conducted by a group of four policemen only on weekdays and during office hours. Third, the police will only visit the houses of those listed in the drug watchlist which should be based on verified intelligence reports. Suspected drug personalities will be invited to surrender to the nearest police station or barangay (village) hall.

Furthermore, the police are allowed to invite the media, church groups, and members of civil society to join and monitor the Tokhang operations. The police are also encouraged to bring a bible, the holy rosary, and other religious materials to encourage drug suspects to peacefully surrender.

To enforce discipline, the police now has a one-strike policy wherein a precinct commander will be relieved from his post if one of his Tokhang teams violated the new guidelines. The police provincial director and regional director will be relieved from duties as well if several precinct commanders were found guilty of violating the new rules.

Since its relaunch, the police claimed that 2,127 Tokhang operations succeeded in forcing the surrender of 821 drug personalities. Some police officers said the Tokhang campaign is now 'bloodless'. That may not be entirely accurate, because there were several news reports about Tokhang-related killings on the same week when the police resumed its anti-drug operations.

Human rights groups were also skeptical of the rebranded Tokhang. Karapatan characterized it as "a superficial makeover of a policy that has earned public condemnation." It added that Tokhang remains a short-sighted solution because it relies purely on a militarist approach in solving a comprehensive, deep-rooted problem. The group warned that the new Tokhang will also fail if corruption is not curbed in the ranks of the police.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines urged the police to focus on issues that matter most to the public instead of engaging in 'theatrics' like the bringing of religious items during Tokhang operations.

For Philippine police chief Ronald de la Rosa, the new Tokhang aims to prove that the police can be trusted in solving the drug menace.

"There is an ongoing internal cleansing in our organization. What we are doing right now is to prevent that the mistakes of the past won't be repeated," he told the media.

This statement is significant, since it constitutes a tacit admission that Duterte's 'war on drugs' has repeatedly failed despite being the main agenda of the government.

But the relaunch of Tokhang, despite its notorious record, could be less about enhancing the image of the police than a political tool intended to revive panic among the poor and discourage the rest of the population to challenge the president who has already stated his intention to amend the 1987 Constitution this year, a divisive move that could spark a political crisis as the ruling party attempts to further consolidate its power.

For this and other reasons, the police spin on the relaunch of the 'bloodless' Tokhang is likely to fall on deaf ears to informed observers in the Philippines. Ultimately, the seeds of doubt with respect to Duterte's war on drugs are tied not to opposition to the president for opposition's sake, but legitimate fears that it could be used to silence not just drug suspects but also the critics of the Duterte government. Multiple relaunches of failed policies are unlikely to resolve that underlying distrust.

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Duterte's Drug War in the Philippines: New Campaign, Old Problems

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For the third time since 2016, the Philippine government has relaunched the controversial anti-drug campaign, known locally as Oplan Tokhang, amid continuing concern that the police-led operations have led to massive human rights abuses. Tokhang has long been a top priority of President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to eradicate illegal drugs in three to six months after his rise to power in 2016.

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April 25
The trial that has divided Spain is taking place in a courtroom that is classic Spanish baroque, with marble columns and ornate flourishes. The seven judges preside on gilded, red-
velvet chairs. The 12 defendants, all implicated in staging Catalonia's independence referendum in October 2017, sit in a small gallery beneath them.

Ferrán López, a Barcelona police officer, was recently called to the stand. In his testimony, he recounted the "unstable and volatile situation" on the day of the referendum and his conversations with regional Catalan leaders before the polls opened.

"We communicated our concerns about the very tense climate this would provoke," he said. Asked about the response he got, López told the judges he remembered perfectly. Carles Puigdemont - then president of Catalonia's regional government, now living in exile in Belgium - was firm in his reply. "Mr. Puigdemont," López recalled, "told us that if the scenario we had predicted took place, he would declare independence at that very moment."

The Catalan government went ahead with the referendum and the regional parliament voted to declare independence later that month. These defendants face charges that include rebellion, disobedience and misuse of public funds - all of which they deny.

Additional organizers of the referendum, including Puigdemont, are living in exile. They would be arrested if they return to Spain but are not part of this case.

The referendum and subsequent trial have split Spanish society like no other events since the era of dictator Francisco Franco.

In Madrid, the trial of the secessionist agitators is seen as a necessity to maintain the rule of law - the inevitable response to a cohort of public servants who knowingly violated the national constitution and held an independence vote without the required approval from the central government.

But in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, the trial is criticized as political theater - thwarting the will of the people who voted for independence and threatening anyone else from pursuing independence in the future.

As Oriol Junqueras, Catalonia's former vice president and one of the defendants, said at the start of the trial, the exercise represents "an action against an ideology and against political dissent."

"This is rooted in a very long tradition of revenge and violence," said Jordi Puntí, a Catalan novelist who voted for independence in the 2017 referendum. Whenever Spain's government has "confronted this political situation," he said, "they always use the same amount of revenge."

The Catalan question has fundamentally altered the country's political landscape, weakening the two parties that have traded power since the early 1980s, and helping to give rise to three new parties, including Vox, a right-wing extremist faction.

The far-right Vox party is a co-accuser in the trial and has taken advantage of the live broadcast to paint itself as the true defender of national unity, repeatedly lambasting the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, of impotence in the face of looming disintegration.

Spanish voters will participate in a snap election on Sunday - a poll forced by Catalan nationalist lawmakers who grew frustrated by talks with Sanchez and blocked his 2019 budget. If Sánchez loses his job, it will be partly because of the Catalan separatist movement and partly because of the backlash to it, in the form of Vox.

For now, however, Sánchez is the preferred candidate of the Catalan nationalists because he has at least shown to be open to negotiations - a point his rivals in this weekend's elections say compromises his commitment to Spanish unity.

On the trial, Sánchez has stressed Spain's democratic institutions are up for the task. "Individual rights, public freedoms and the rights of minorities are guaranteed and protected" in Spain, he said when the court proceedings began in February.

Even before the trial started, the separatists' supporters objected that the defendants were political prisoners who were being unfairly held without bail. (Spanish authorities deemed them a flight risk after Puigdemont's escape to Belgium.) The separatists further argue that the court is inherently biased against them and that holding the trial in Madrid, the seat of the Supreme Court, rather than Barcelona, further predetermines the outcome.

As in the United States, the judges on Spain's Supreme Court are political appointees.

Gonzalo Boye, the lawyer representing Puigdemont, said the trial shows a willingness among the judges to wade into political waters. "They have decided that the Catalan issue is so relevant that they can't leave it in the hands of the politicians," he said. "And this is tremendous because it's a political problem, not a judicial problem."

But Ignacio González Vega, a judge and spokesman for the independent Judges for Democracy, said that so far, "from what I have seen, the court is showing itself to be independent and impartial."

"The trial is abiding by the most scrupulous requirements of Spanish procedural norms," he said.

Jean-François Blanco, a French lawyer who is among the international observers, was not as sanguine. He said he was "shocked" by the judges' decision to ban video footage from the day of the referendum as evidence until after the witnesses' oral testimonies are over.

"Sincerely, I found that surrealist," Blanco said. "Who interviews police officers without showing the videos of the incidents concerned?"

The defendants claim that decision has made it harder to challenge the rebellion charge, which rests on the presence of violence on an insurrectional scale.

"Those videos are meant to contradict the testimony. Who is going to remember in May or June what somebody has said in March?" Boye said.

In November, 100 legal experts from across Spain signed a letter condemning the "banalization" of charges that, in their view, did not apply to a demonstration that came nowhere close to a "violent uprising." Some observers have noted that it was the violence of Spanish police forces seeking to stop the referendum that led to widespread injuries and attracted national attention.

González Vega said the video would be shown, albeit later. "That's not an irregularity," he said. "Under no circumstances is that an irregularity. That is a power the court has, to admit or not to admit evidence."

The European Union has unflinchingly supported Madrid and its contention that the way to push for greater regional autonomy is through the provisions of the Spanish constitution.

Ratified in 1978, Spain's post-Franco constitution - the work of seven men, two of whom were Catalan - has been seen as a marvel of transitional politics, but the powers it grants to autonomous regions were always vague.

In recent decades, certain Catalan demands for autonomy within the constitution have been granted, although others have been denied, and so some have questioned whether the document failed to adequately prevent the current political crisis.

Miquel Roca, 78, was one of the two Catalan signatories. He noted that the prospect of a legal referendum is considered in the text, but must be approved by the government, just as the 2014 Scottish independence referendum was approved by London. Asked if he would change the 1978 document, Roca was firm: "No."

"This is not a constitutional problem," he said. "It is a political problem."

He alluded to the increasing fragmentation of the Spanish political landscape. "It's difficult to respect pluralism," he said. "What's missing is political will. Pacts are for the brave."
Read more Catalan separatists in court for Spain's 'most important' trial since returning to democracy Spanish government calls snap general election amid Catalan crisis Is Spain Francoland? No. Has the Catalan crisis damaged Spanish democracy? Yes. Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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Is the Catalan separatist trial in Spain about law or politics?

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April 25 The trial that has divided Spain is taking place in a courtroom that is classic Spanish baroque, with marble columns and ornate flourishes. The seven judges preside on gilded, red-velvet chairs. The 12 defendants, all implicated in staging Catalonia's independence referendum in October 2017, sit in a small gallery beneath them.

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In Venezuela, the government of President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition are engaged in a bitter power struggle.

The South American country has been caught in a downward spiral for years with growing political discontent further fuelled by skyrocketing hyperinflation, power cuts, and shortages of food and medicine.

More than 5.6 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years. So what exactly is behind the crisis rocking Venezuela?

Who's the president?

This would be an unusual question to ask in most countries, but in Venezuela many want to know exactly that after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president on 23 January 2019.

The move was a direct challenge to the power of President Maduro, who had been sworn in to a second six-year term in office just two weeks previously.

Not surprisingly, President Maduro did not take kindly to his rival's move, which he condemned as a ploy by the US to oust him.

He also said that he was the constitutional president and would remain so.

Despite attempts by Mr Guaidó to get the military to switch their allegiance to him, the armed forces have remained largely loyal to President Maduro, whose socialist party has also got a firm grip on the electoral body and the supreme court.

Why is the presidency disputed?

Nicolás Maduro was first elected in April 2013 after the death of his socialist mentor and predecessor in office, Hugo Chávez. At the time, he won by just 1.6 percentage points.

During his first term, the economy went into freefall and many Venezuelans blame him and his socialist government for the country's decline.

Mr Maduro was re-elected to a second six-year term in May 2018 in highly controversial polls, which most opposition parties boycotted.

Many candidates had been barred from running while others had been jailed or fled the country for fear of being imprisoned, and the opposition parties argued that the poll was neither free nor fair.

Mr Maduro's re-election was not recognised by the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which labelled Mr Maduro a "usurper" and argued that the presidency was vacant.

Citing articles in the constitution which in such cases call for the leader of the National Assembly to step in, Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president.

More than 50 countries recognised Mr Guaidó as the legitimate president, among them the US and many nations in Latin America. But Russia and China, among others, stood by President Maduro.

Despite his broad international support, Mr Guaidó does not wield much power in practical terms.

The security forces have so far remained loyal to Mr Maduro, who has rewarded them with frequent pay rises and put high-ranking military men in control of key posts and industries.

Mr Maduro remains in the presidential palace and some Venezuelans have become disillusioned by the failure of Mr Guaidó to dislodge his rival from power.

Talks between the government and the opposition held in 2019 made no progress.

The US has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela and on Mr Maduro and his inner circle but they have failed to weaken Mr Maduro enough to drive him from office. Some analysts argue that they offer the Maduro government a convenient scapegoat to blame for the dire state of the economy.

Some of the problems go back a long time. However, it is President Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez who are the target of much of the current anger.

When Mr Chávez became president in 1999, he promised, among other things, to drive down Venezuela's huge levels of inequality.

While he managed to reduce inequality during his time in power, some of the socialist polices he brought in backfired. Take price controls, for example, which were aimed at making basic goods more affordable to the poor by capping the price of flour, cooking oil and toiletries. The controls meant that many Venezuelan businesses stopped production because they no longer made a profit, eventually resulting in shortages.

A loosening of foreign currency controls originally brought in by President Chávez in 2003 has eased those shortages as traders can sell goods in dollars but that means they have again become largely unaffordable to the poor or those without access to the US currency.

Years of lack of investment in infrastructure further exacerbated by the more recent US sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector have crippled this key industry, which provides almost all of Venezuela's government revenue.

Venezuela has been in the grip of an economic crisis for years now with hyperinflation one of the main problems.

Business news website Bloomberg has been tracking the price of a cup of coffee in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to show how prices have increased. It has measured an increase of 2,597% in the 12 months to 1 August 2021 with a cup of coffee costing 7.8 million bolivares.

How have Venezuelans reacted?

According to figures compiled by the United Nations, more than 5.6 million Venezuelans have left the country since the crisis started to bite in 2014.

The government has disputed the figures, saying they are inflated by "enemy countries".

The majority of those leaving have crossed into neighbouring Colombia, from where some move on to Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Others have gone south to Brazil.

The mass migration is one of the largest forced displacements in the western hemisphere.

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Venezuela crisis: How the political situation escalated

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A closer look at what is behind the country's spiralling political and economic crisis.

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MADRID (Reuters) - Thousands of supporters of Catalan independence marched through central Madrid on Saturday in protest at the ongoing trial of 12 separatist leaders who face years in prison for their role in organizing a failed independence bid from Spain in 2017.

Demonstrators, many who made the journey from the northwestern Catalonia region for the protest, waved Catalan flags and carried signs reading "Self-determination is not a crime".

Protest organizers put the turnout at 120,000 while police gave a figure of 18,000.

Tensions between Madrid and Barcelona have thawed somewhat since the political crisis triggered by Catalonia's independence declaration in late 2017 but the trial of 12 separatist leaders for their role in the secession bid and events leading up to it has been one of several sticking points to derail negotiations.

The 12 are on trial in Madrid on charges ranging from rebellion to misuse of funds, which they deny.

The Catalan crisis is set to play a major role in April 28 elections, with three right-leaning parties, the conservative People's Party (PP), centre-right Ciudadanos and the relatively new far-right Vox party all calling for Spain to take a tougher position with separatists.

Polls show the support of Catalan parties may prove decisive if Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is to form a government after the vote. Most polls indicate Sanchez's Socialists winning the most seats but falling short of a parliamentary majority.

Sanchez came to power by winning a confidence motion last year with the support of Catalan separatist parties but was unable to secure their backing for his budget, effectively dooming the project and leading him to call an early election.

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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Thousands of Catalan separatist supporters protest in Madrid

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Thousands of supporters of Catalan independence marched through central Madrid on Saturday in protest at the ongoing trial of 12 separatist leaders who face years in prison for their role in organizing a failed independence bid from Spain in 2017.

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A string of brutal murders in the US has thrown a national spotlight on MS-13, a street gang that was born in LA but has roots in El Salvador.

The latest was a mass murder on Monday on Long Island, where the bodies of four males, including three teenagers, were found mangled in the woods, according to police.

President Trump tweeted to call the gang "bad". Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to "devastate" it. Both blamed Obama-era immigration policy for its rise.

But what is MS-13 and is Obama really to blame?

A reputation for extreme violence

The gang began in the barrios of Los Angeles in LA during the 1980s, formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador's long and brutal civil war. Other members came from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

The MS stands for Mara Salvatrucha, said to be a combination of Mara, meaning gang, Salva, for Salvador, and trucha, which translates roughly into street smarts. The 13 represents the position of M in the alphabet.

MS-13 established a reputation for extreme violence and for killing with machetes. It took root in neighbourhoods dominated by Mexican gangs, and later expanded to other parts of the country.

According to the FBI, the gang has spread to 46 states.

In 2012, the US Treasury designated the gang a "transnational criminal organisation". It was the first street gang to receive the dubious honour, placing it alongside much larger international cartels like the Mexican Zetas, Japanese Yakuza and Italian Camorra.

Brutal initiations

MS-13 has been accused of recruiting poor and at-risk teenagers. Joining is said to require being "jumped in" - subjected to a vicious 13-second beating - and "getting wet" - carrying out a crime, often a murder, for the gang.

Leaving is potentially even more dangerous. Large chest tattoos brand members for life, and some factions are said to murder members who attempt to leave.

A 2008 FBI threat assessment put the size of MS-13 between 6,000 and 10,000 members in the US, making it one of the largest criminal enterprises in the country.

It is now larger outside the country, according to the agency. An anti-gang crackdown in the late 1990s saw hundreds of early members shipped back to Central American countries, where they established offshoots. Estimates put the number of members in Central American countries at at least 60,000.

The gang's annual revenue is about $31.2m (£23.4m) according to information from a large-scale Salvadorean police operation obtained by the El Faro newspaper - mainly from from drugs and extortion.

'Kill, rape, control'

Recent high-profile cases linked to the gang include the murder of two female high-school students who were attacked with a machete and baseball bat as they walked through their neighbourhood in New York last month - a revenge attack over a minor dispute, according to police.

Four alleged MS-13 members were charged with that crime. Another two alleged members were charged at the same time with the murder of a fellow gang member said to have violated gang protocol.

The same month, two alleged members of the gang in Houston, Texas were charged with kidnapping three teenage girls, holding them hostage and raping them before shooting one dead on the side of the road.

Miguel Alvarez-Flores, 22, and Diego Hernandez-Rivera, 18, laughed and waved at the cameras during their court appearance.

MS-13's motto is "kill, rape, control", according to one FBI gang specialist who investigated the group.

Blaming Obama

Mr Trump and Mr Sessions have pointed the finger at former President Barack Obama over the spread of MS-13, alleging that his open-door immigration policies fuelled its growth.

But the gang formed and flourished in the US long before Mr Obama came to power. MS-13 was identified as a significant threat in the 1990s, and a special FBI taskforce was convened against the gang in 1994.

"The big surge was during Bush-Cheney when the drivers of illegal migration in Central America grew, when various crackdowns on crime filled prisons to bursting point, and when funding for rehabilitation programs declined," Fulton T Armstrong, a research fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, told fact-checking website Politifact.

"I have seen no evidence that the Obama administration can be blamed in any way for the existence or activities of the gang in the US," said Ioan Grillo, author of a book on US gang crime.

The Obama administration also prioritised the deportation of gang criminals, including MS-13 members, in an aggressive deportation program.

Politifact rated Mr Trump's claim as false.
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A string of brutal murders in the US has thrown a national spotlight on MS-13, a street gang that was born in LA but has roots in El Salvador. The latest was a mass murder on Monday on Long Island, where the bodies of four males, including three teenagers, were found mangled in the woods, according to police.

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catalonia separatist leaders face trial in spain - cnn

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Catalan separatists' trial begins in Spain

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The leaders of the failed 2017 Catalan independence movement appeared in court on Tuesday for the start of a long-awaited trial that has the whole of Spain talking.

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The story of a mother who lost her 7-year-old daughter when their tent caught fire in a Syrian camp shows the brutal situation for those living there.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Next, we have a story of one person's death among many - the story of a death in a Syrian camp for displaced people. And we should warn you that some people will find this story disturbing. The World Health Organization says dozens of children have died as their families made the journey in the cold to this camp, trying to find shelter and safety. Thousands have been streaming there as the U.S.-led coalition fights ISIS in the area, and some of them are foreigners held there as relatives of ISIS fighters. The cold means they are using kerosene heaters in tents. NPR's Ruth Sherlock was recently there and met a mother who lost her daughter in a fire.

RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: A woman films on her phone as she runs through the darkness in a refugee camp towards a tent that's caught fire.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Foreign language spoken).

SHERLOCK: "Where are they, the woman and her children? Where are they?" she screams over and over in the video.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Foreign language spoken).

SHERLOCK: Other refugees try to help. There's a little girl, 7 years old, trapped inside the burning tent, but there's nothing they can do to save her.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).

SHERLOCK: We meet the little girl's mother in the camp. It's been just two days since her daughter died, and she seems shell-shocked, hunched over with grief. She says she still hasn't been able to tell her relatives the awful news, and so we agree not to use her or her daughters' names as she tells us what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).

SHERLOCK: The night of the fire, she'd felt ill and had gone to lie in the tent that's become the family's home. Her daughter covered her with a blanket and said, Mom, go to sleep. She says she told her children to turn off the kerosene heater, the only source of warmth in the tent, before they slept. She doesn't know exactly what happened next, but she woke in a panic.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) I woke up. There was fire all around me, and I was running out of the tent. And my sister came to rescue people.

SHERLOCK: She refers to the other mothers in the refugee camp as her sisters. She grabbed two of her youngest children, an infant and a toddler, and screamed at her 7-year-old to wake up. She went back in for her, but it was too late.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) And when I went back in, I found my daughter. She became a coal, a piece of coal.

SHERLOCK: This mother is Tunisian, one of hundreds of foreign women and children of ISIS members who languish in camps in northeast Syria, with most of their governments showing little interest to bring them home because of their ties to extremists. She also cares for two Belgian children she adopted here in Syria after their parents, who'd joined ISIS, died in the war.

The foreign refugees live in a section of a larger camp that's also home to some 23,000 Syrians fleeing the fighting as the U.S.-led coalition tries to defeat the last remnants of ISIS. The conditions are miserable. When we visit, it pours with rain, and the ground is muddy. Women in burqas get soaked to the skin as they go to collect containers of fuel for their heaters. These winter months are bitterly cold, and kerosene heaters provided by aid workers are often the only way to keep warm. But Mysa Khalaf with the U.N.'s Refugee Agency tells me they can be dangerous.

MYSA KHALAF: This is one of the concerns that we have, is the kerosene, the heaters that are being used inside these tents.

SHERLOCK: This is especially true for people from outside Syria, she says, who aren't familiar with how to use them. Officials couldn't give us data on how often these fires happen, but Khalaf and others say they know of at least three fatalities in the first few weeks of this year alone and of other tent fires where no one died. The Kurdish authorities who oversee the foreigners' camp say they lack the international support to improve the conditions, and the only solution, they say, is for governments to take their citizens back. The mother we talked to is desperate to leave the camp.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).

SHERLOCK: She says she tried to give her daughter a semblance of a normal life, even arranging tutoring for her. But this is no life, even for animals, she says, let alone for a child. And her daughter always wanted to leave. Maybe, she says, God found her a way out by taking her away. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, northeast Syria.

(SOUNDBITE OF DISTANT.LO'S "TOO OFTEN")

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7-Year-Old Dies In Tent Fire In Syrian Refugee Camp

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The story of a mother who lost her 7-year-old daughter when their tent caught fire in a Syrian camp shows the brutal situation for those living there. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Next, we have a story of one person's death among many - the story of a death in a Syrian camp for displaced people.

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Za'atari refugee camp hosts around 80,000 Syrians who have been forced to flee the war in Syria. More than half of these refugees are children. The size of the camp, now Jordan's fourth biggest city, is presenting huge challenges for infrastructure.

Children outside an Oxfam facility in the Za'atari camp, where we are campaigning for a permanent water and sewage systems.

Oxfam currently works in 3 of Za'atari's 12 districts, supervising, water and sanitation, refuse management and the cleaning and maintenance of wash blocks. We also co-ordinate hygiene promotion activities which are crucial in preventing the spread of disease.

Oxfam is working with UNICEF and other international actors, to install a water network in the camp which will ensure refugees have safe access to water. When our water network has been completed it will be the largest ever to be constructed in a refugee camp.
Baby Sham is just a few hours old, and the youngest resident of Za'atari camp when this photo was taken.
In some ways life carries on as normal in the camp, babies are born and some children are able go to school.
Syria, ten, and Hassan, four, walked for almost 12 hours to cross the border from Syria to Jordan. They now live in Za'atari refugee camp with their mother.
As the camp transitions into a semi-permanent city refugees are struggling to find work and create a livelihood for themselves and their families. Many refugees are surviving on meager humanitarian aid or working illegally.

A view of Za'atari camp stretching towards the horizon.
As a host country Jordan is estimated to spend $870 million a year supporting Syrian refugees; if it were treated as a traditional donor, Jordan would have contributed 5,622% of its fair share.
Jamal Ashamed with one of his birds.
Jamal and his seven children fled Syria three years ago. He left everything behind but has managed to reclaim part of his identity, his passion for training pigeons.

Jamal spent some time volunteering with Oxfam, before he was offered the opportunity to work with us as a water distributor.

We are calling for urgent and immediate action by the international community to deal with this deepening crisis: to fully fund the aid response, to offer refuge to those who have fled the country including through resettlement of a fair share of the refugee population, to halt the transfer of arms and ammunition and to revive concerted efforts towards a resolution of the crisis.
Photos: Tom White/ Oxfam

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Life in Za'atari refugee camp, Jordan's fourth biggest city

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Za'atari refugee camp hosts around 80,000 Syrians who have been forced to flee the war in Syria. More than half of these refugees are children. The size of the camp, now Jordan's fourth biggest city, is presenting huge challenges for infrastructure.

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Dozens of women form a thick black blanket against the fence that marks the entrance to the camp, their eyes peering from beneath the black veil so synonymous with the Islamic State (IS) group.

As we approach, a large number of niqab-wearing women become agitated and start yelling an IS slogan in Arabic, which translates to "Islamic State is not dead".

The camp guards brandish small electric shock devices and push and shove the women. Rocks are thrown and the women scream and shout.

This is al-Hawl, the sprawling refugee camp in Syria's Kurdish north-east, home to at least 72,000 people, many of them women and children who chose to or were forced to join IS.

Four Corners was granted rare access to the camp three times in early April. On this, the second visit, our crew was suddenly recalled by security and ordered to leave because of concerns for our safety. As we left, we heard the sound of guards firing warning gunshots into the air.

It is likely some of the women at the gate that day were members of an unofficial "ISIS mafia" that police the camp and beat and harass women who do not wear their veil, or who do things considered un-Islamic by IS.

A German woman in the camp, who asked for anonymity because of fears for her safety, told the ABC she had been beaten by a boy because she was not wearing a niqab.

"If you don't follow the rules and cover up, they target you," she said.

She was jailed by IS for trying to flee its now-toppled caliphate. Eventually she made it out to al-Hawl.

"I've been here for 14 months; I'm one of the first foreigners who came here," she said.

"I don't know if I'll ever get home."

A United Nations of suffering

Al-Hawl and al-Roj - another refugee camp in Kurdish-controlled Syria - are both holding pens for the foreign women and children left behind in the aftermath of IS's collapse.

The camp guards are members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish paramilitary that, with US support, waged a years-long campaign to retake every last inch of territory captured by IS in 2014 and 2015.

More than 10,000 foreigners are held at al-Hawl and they comprise a United Nations of suffering - women from Europe, Asia, Russia, the US, Australia and dozens of other nations.

They are held in a corner of the centre known as the foreigners' camp.

The ABC's visit to al-Hawl's foreigners' camp revealed a sea of misery: teenagers missing legs and arms, women so sick they couldn't stand, children under five with large, poorly healed burns across their face and arms.

Then there is the condition of the camp itself: built on an exposed hill, recent heavy rains have turned it into a morass of mud, dotted with pools of filthy rain water, litter and human waste.

Infectious illnesses are rampant and many of the inhabitants are suffering not only from the long-term effects of starvation, but also from dysentery and the skin disease leishmaniasis, as well as a shocking list of wounds and injuries caused by the grinding Syrian civil war.

Australians living amid al-Hawl's misery

At the far corner of the foreigners' camp is a clutch of tents holding several dozen Australian women and their children.

One of those tents has been home for several weeks to the children of slain Australian IS fighter Khaled Sharrouf.

His 16-year-old daughter Hoda has told Four Corners they are desperate to leave the camp and return to Australia.

"These people here are horrible. They don't treat anyone nicely. Once I leave I never want to come back here ever, ever again," she said.

Her elder sister, 17-year-old Zaynab, is heavily pregnant with her third child.

"I think that's my biggest fear, is to give birth here - because I've heard a lot of stories of people giving birth inside their tent," she said.

"A lot of problems have happened - there's no doctors to check the child and people here don't really have experience with giving birth, and so there've been children who have died ... it's not a big chance that they'll live."

'This place is hell'

Sanitation is non-existent. Some residents are so sick they are unable to walk to the camp's administrative section to access the limited health care provided by non-government organisations such as the Red Crescent and World Health Organisation.

Many of the women at the camp are pregnant and there are reports of mothers and babies dying during or after birth.

British IS bride Shamina Begum gave birth to a baby boy in the camp. He died three weeks later.

Some of the oldest tents are as large as two buses side-by-side and house dozens of families. Other, newer, tents put up by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, are the size of a small room. Some are already collapsing because of the rains.

Four Corners spoke to a Canadian woman who lived in one of the newer UNHCR tents at the back corner of the camp. She also asked for anonymity.

Next to her small white home was a crater-sized muddy hole full of rainwater, rubbish and faeces.

At night the sound of dysentery-struck people moving their bowels in the hole kept her awake, she said. During the day children played in the hole.

The night before we arrived, the Canadian woman - who has two young children and is heavily pregnant with a third - was forced to huddle under blankets after her tent blew over in the middle of strong winds and heavy rain.

She followed her husband to Syria and IS, but he died. She tried to live as a widow for two years, but said it was impossible to live alone as a woman under IS.

She eventually remarried a man in his 50s. He died three months later and she is now carrying his unborn child.

When the ABC spoke to her, she was packing her meagre belongings - several cheap, mud-spattered rugs, a few battered cooking utensils and several sacks full of worn-out clothes - into a rusty trolley so she could move to another tent.

"This place is hell," she said.

"We have nothing, and bad things are happening here.

"Yesterday one of the guards told me, 'wait till the Americans leave [Syria], then we'll do to you what ISIS did to the Yazidi women'."

In late 2014, IS swept through northern Iraq, killing and enslaving thousands of Yazidis, a minority religious sect. Many of the captured Yazidi women were sold as sex slaves to IS fighters.

SDF authorities at the camp reject suggestions guards are doing anything other than keeping the peace.

Other female residents told the ABC they were surprised by how well they have been treated by the Kurds, who were considered one of IS's greatest enemies in Syria.

It is still unclear what will happen to the Sharrouf children and the other foreigners at al-Hawl. While about a dozen countries including France, Russia, Indonesia and Egypt have repatriated some people from the camps, most Western nations have so far declined to commit to bringing their citizens home.

As the ABC left the camp, a woman in her early 30s wearing a hijab approached and asked in broken English for help. Four crying and barefoot young children in tattered clothes clung to her.

Her sister had kicked her and her children out of their tent and she said they had nowhere to stay that night. Camp authorities had ignored her requests for help, she said.

Such is the life for the women and children of IS, abandoned to squalid refugee camps while the group's leaders hide in Iraq, plotting a resurgence of their brutal version of Islam.
Watch Orphans of ISIS on Four Corners at 8:30pm on ABC TV and iview.

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Death, disease and Islamic State's moral police stalk Syria's al-Hawl refugee camp

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Dozens of women form a thick black blanket against the fence that marks the entrance to the camp, their eyes peering from beneath the black veil so synonymous with the Islamic State (IS) group. As we approach, a large number of niqab-wearing women become agitated and start yelling an IS slogan in Arabic, which translates to "Islamic State is not dead".

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Sri Lanka has banned its citizens from wearing face coverings under an emergency law, after terrorist attacks at prominent churches and upscale hotels left hundreds dead in the small island nation.

President Maithripala Sirisena said the ban was meant to ensure national security, helping authorities to identify people. He did not specifically mention the niqab and burka, types of facial coverings worn by Muslim women across the world, but critics say the new measure violates their rights.

Amid heightened safety concerns, a body of Islamic scholars in Sri Lanka advised last week that Muslim women "should not hinder the security forces in their efforts to maintain national security by wearing the face cover (Niqab)."

The government's face-covering ban took effect Monday, days after a violent raid that was linked to the investigation of the Easter Sunday bombings.

In the April 21 attack, a string of explosions occurred at three luxury hotels frequented by foreigners and three churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, as well as Negombo, to the north, and Batticaloa, to the east. At least 253 people were killed in the coordinated attacks. Another 15 people, including six children, died Friday in the country's Eastern province after soldiers raided a house in search of suspects, a military spokesman said.

Authorities blamed the bombings on National Thowfeek Jamaath, a Muslim militant group that previously vandalized Buddhist statues in the majority Buddhist country. Sri Lanka was not seen as a hotbed for radical Islamist activity before the Easter attacks.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings last week, triggering fears of further violence the terrorist group might inspire. Sri Lankan authorities have arrested dozens of suspects and are searching for more militants with suspected links to ISIS.

The terrorist attacks have exacerbated a rivalry between Sri Lanka's president and prime minister, who belong to different political parties. In 2018, the president ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe because of an alleged assassination attempt before later reappointing him.

But on Sunday, the two leaders attended a mass together in a rare display of unity, while Catholic churches were closed for safety.

Both men denied receiving intelligence warnings in the days before the coordinated bombings, yet both have been blamed for the attacks.

"At one level, if we are to be charitable it was a degree of incompetence and complacency," Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, tells NPR's Michael Sullivan of the government's response to the warnings.

"At another level, which is more insidious, is a notion that, you know, perhaps there were people who did not want anyone to act upon it and wanted the catastrophe to take place," Saravanamuttu says, "because they have political or other benefits to be derived from it actually happening."

Sri Lanka is set to hold presidential elections late this year. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former defense minister and the brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has emerged as a vocal candidate. He pledged to bring peace and " dismantle the networks" of radical Muslim militants in the country.

Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, has promised to enact new legislation to combat terrorism, saying, "Sri Lanka does not have any laws to arrest individuals who join foreign terrorist organizations," according to the country's state news agency.

Meanwhile, some top officials have been replaced since the bombings. Former Army Commander General S. H. Shantha Kottegoda was appointed as the new secretary to the Ministry of Defense on Monday, after the president requested former Defense Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resign.

Some Sri Lankans say they're distrustful of their leaders' motivations. John Ison Fernando, an events planner who is a member of St. Anthony's Shrine, one of the bombed churches, tells NPR, "The prime minister wants to be the president in the next election. The current president wants to hold his position till next election."

He added, "In this panicked situation, still they are callous."

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Sri Lanka Bans Face Coverings After Easter Sunday Attacks

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Sri Lanka has banned its citizens from wearing face coverings under an emergency law, after terrorist attacks at prominent churches and upscale hotels left hundreds dead in the small island nation. President Maithripala Sirisena said the ban was meant to ensure national security, helping authorities to identify people.

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NEW YORK, April 23 (UPI) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs takes a toll on the country's poorest women and children, when a family's primary earner, usually a man, dies during police operations, a Filipino researcher said Tuesday.

Ica Fernandez, a Filipino development specialist who has been mapping data on the Philippine Drug War and its impact on the poorest households, said Tuesday the campaign is shattering families when fathers die and mothers must find a new role for themselves -- and sometimes a new husband.

"The recurring narrative is that, when father goes to the other life, the mother has to leave, transfer the household," Fernandez said at a forum on violence and policing at Columbia Journalism School.

Fernandez and Abigail Pangilinan, a Filipino development worker and urban planner, said they directly interviewed 22 families affected by the drug wars and coping with the loss of a family member.

"What happens is that the grandmother -- the paternal grandmother -- takes care of these children," Fernandez said, adding that among the families interviewed, two of the grandparents had already died because of disease.

"They could not take the strain of taking care of four to five children," she said, referring to the typical number of children in an impoverished urban family in the country.

Ronald Mendoza, dean of the Ateneo School of Government at Ateneo de Manila University, and a former United Nations official, said the anti-drug crackdown has a long-term and cross-generational impact on children. Children whose lives are affected by the violence are more likely to perform poorly or drop out of school.

The Philippine government provides no official data on child casualties, but a children's rights group in the country said there are 75 documented cases of minors killed as a result of the drug campaign and related violence, Mendoza said Tuesday.

The international development policy expert's database, which relies on news reports to estimate drug casualties, also reveals chilling details about the impact of the anti-drug campaign on minors. About 27,000 children under the age of 18 have surrendered to police, and anywhere from 18,398 to 32,395 children have been orphaned, losing one or both parents as a result of the war on drugs.

Mendoza's database estimates at a bare minimum a total of 7,029 individuals, mostly "very poor, mostly male," have died as a result of the crackdown from 2016 to 2018. They are also relatively young; 61 percent of the dead were below the age of 40, and 267 are women.

The occupations of the victims are harder to pin down, but Mendoza said he has managed to identify the occupations of 17 percent of the individuals, who worked in precarious jobs as jeepney dispatchers, street vendors, and garbage collectors. The majority of the people were killed in the context of "acknowledged police operations." "Unknown assailants" were responsible for 35 percent of the deaths.

Midway through his term in office, Duterte vowed during his Second State of the Nation address to engage in an "unremitting and unrelenting" fight against narcotics.

"I do not intend to loosen the leash in the campaign or lose the fight against illegal drugs. Neither do I intend to preside over the destruction of the Filipino youth," the president said in 2017.

These and similar declarations have led to policies where extrajudicial killings are becoming more common in areas outside Manila, the capital.

Fernandez and Pangilinan said by 2018 the crackdown had moved to different parts of the country, like Cebu in the central Philippines.

"This is something we can establish," the researchers said, adding the drug war is undermining social welfare programs for the poor.

The campaign could also be giving rise to cynical hostility toward victims. Fernandez said one local news report illustrated how hospital workers are reacting to the injured rushed to local facilities.

"You have nurses laughing while someone bleeds to death," she said. "You have cases where the poor are no longer seen as human. They're completely dehumanized."

The Philippine Supreme Court has not ruled Duterte's anti-drug campaign unconstitutional.

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Philippines' 'war on drugs' is tearing families apart, analysts say

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NEW YORK, April 23 (UPI) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs takes a toll on the country's poorest women and children, when a family's primary earner, usually a man, dies during police operations, a Filipino researcher said Tuesday.

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Catalonia

Catalonia is a region of northeastern Spain: it's home to Barcelona, 7.5 million people, and a proud tradition of independence dating back nearly 1,000 years.

Although officially part of Spain since the state was created, the region has its own language and cultural identity. Its levels of autonomy - like those of other Spanish regions - have varied over time.

During the 20th century dictatorship of General Franco, the culture, language and identity of Catalonia was suppressed, but the region enjoyed greater freedom when he died in 1975.

In 2006, a landmark vote secured even greater autonomy for Catalonia, including enhanced judiciary and taxation powers. This was reversed in 2010 when a Spanish court ruled some of the freedoms unlawful - and more than a million people held a march in Barcelona in protest.

Why independence?

Several reasons. Catalonia's distinct culture and language mean many people don't feel Spanish, and the legacy of Franco's oppression only adds to the view that the region is ruled from the outside.

The case is also economic: supporters of independence say the region gives far more to the Spanish economy than it gets back, and believe Catalonia pays too much money into central government and gets little in return.

Accounting for around 16% of Spain's 46 million population, it contributes about 20% of the country's GDP, produces one third of its exports and receives one third of its foreign investment.

But support for independence is by no means universal: while recent months have seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets demanding independence, anti-secessionist demonstrations have filled Barcelona with a sea of Spanish flags, too.

That was revealed in the referendum, which re-opened the independence debate.

On 1 October around 2.2 million people in Catalonia voted on whether to secede from Spain. More than 90% of those who turned up were in favour of independence, and celebrations filled Barcelona's streets as the region's leader, Carles Puigdemont, formally declared independence a few weeks later.

But not everyone was happy.

Turnout for the referendum was about 40%. The poor showing was attributed in part to the Spanish government defining the vote as unconstitutional, which turned many people against the referendum and was followed by voter suppression by the Spanish police.

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But it was also due to more widespread objections to the referendum, which many felt was divisive and illegitimate. Some polls identify the number of people who support unity with Spain as a majority - a group who refer to themselves as the "silent majority" and say they're marginalised by the vocal secessionists.

Madrid's view

For Madrid, Catalan independence seems unthinkable.

The Spanish government - headed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy - has rejected Mr Puigdemont's request for negotiations, insisting the referendum was illegal and unconstitutional.

Although it supports some regional autonomy, the Spanish constitution says Spain cannot be broken up, and Article 155 gives the state loosely defined powers, when approved by the senate, to act against regions that attempt to secure independence.

"The most important thing is to be within the frame of the Spanish constitution," Spanish foreign minister Ildefonso Castro said. "You can disagree with the law, but you cannot disobey the law. If you disobey the law, you become an outlaw."

Madrid's hard line was reflected during the election and what followed it.

On 1 October, following a court ruling that the vote was illegal, Spanish police seized ballot boxes and clashed with voters at polling stations as they attempted to prevent it vote taking place.

The Catalan health ministry reported that 900 people were injured - though much fewer were thought to have been hospitalised - prompting an international outcry.

Almost immediately after the region declared independence, Mr Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dissolving its parliament, dismissing officials and suspending the region's autonomy.

Several high-ranking members of the Catalan cabinet were also detained in Spain, under charges including sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds, while Carles Puigdemont and four other leaders fled to Brussels.

They remain there as the region holds elections.

The vote was declared by Mr Rajoy, who says it is necessary to decide a new 135-member Catalan parliament in order to restore democratic rule in the face of "arbitrary and excluding" decisions that have led the people of Catalonia down a "blind road".

Europe's dilemma

One reason the referendum caused waves is the fear that it could provide fuel for similar independence movements elsewhere - a "domino effect" of separatism across the globe.

Catalonia certainly isn't alone in its desire for independence: In Spain, the Basque country and Galicia are home to secessionist movements, while some Corsicans want to secede from France.

And in the UK - of course - the Scottish independence movement still looms large.

And for European leaders - who rejected Catalan leaders' call for intervention, insisting the issue was an internal matter - the possible consequences of Catalan independence are uncomfortable to contemplate.

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Catalonia independence: What you need to know

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Catalonia is a region of northeastern Spain: it's home to Barcelona, 7.5 million people, and a proud tradition of independence dating back nearly 1,000 years. Although officially part of Spain since the state was created, the region has its own language and cultural identity.

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Philippines: Rodrigo Duterte orders police back into deadly drug war

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President had stood down police less than two months ago in response to rising opposition to controversial campaign

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Venezuelan opposition leader and President of the National Assembly Juan Guaido has called on his supporters to continue anti-government demonstrations against embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

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The Philippines' Inhumane Anti-Drug Campaign Is Leading to Mass Murder

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President Duterte said he could take care of his own country and would nurture it to health. But killing is not healing.

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Its name has become a sinister shorthand for the fear of violence seeping across America's borders. MS-13, or "Mara Salvatrucha," is one of the largest gangs in the world, a menace in several countries and a frequent target of President Trump's rhetoric. Its violent grip in Central America is one of the forces driving thousands of migrants to flee for the U.S. - which, ironically, is where the gang got its start.

The Trump administration refers to MS-13 as " violent animals," and Mr. Trump often invokes MS-13's gruesome acts of violence to justify hardline policies against immigration.

"This is a crisis. You have human trafficking, you have drugs, you have criminals coming in, you have gangs, MS-13. We're taking them out by the thousands and bringing 'em back," the president said last week.

In recent months, migrants from the Northern Triangle - Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador - have headed to the U.S.'s southern border in much-publicized caravans to flee rampant violence and poverty. In 2017, there were close to 4,000 homicides in El Salvador, a nation of about 6 million people. Though that's down from over 6,600 killings in 2015, El Salvador still has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

"I got shot with a '38. I had like a fifty-cent-size hole on both of my sides," said Rafa Arturo, 45, an El Salvador native who spent much of his life in the U.S. before being deported. He was shot twice in 2016. He now lives in San Salvador with his 5-year-old son Jacob, who was born there. "It happened in front of my house, " he added.

Rafa was just a toddler when he came to the U.S. with his parents, settling in Los Angeles. But after a string of convictions, Rafa was deported in 2009, leaving behind four daughters. According to public records, he was convicted for three crimes involving theft from 1992 to 2001. He now works in a call center in San Salvador and worries about the rampant violence.

"What I'm truly afraid is that, we go out someplace ... and then we get both shot," Rafa said. "The reason why I want to send Jacob to the States is because ... his safety. That's number one."

MS-13 and a rival gang, Barrio 18 or 18th Street, actively recruit members as young as 8 years old in El Salvador.

"You guys have been to a public school here, there's gang walls written already," Rafa said. "That's just the kindergarten school. By all means necessary, as a parent, I'll do whatever it takes to get my son to a next step."

Rafa tried to unite Jacob with his sisters in the U.S. but his visa was rejected multiple times. Out of options, Rafa is preparing to head to the border again, this time with Jacob - a dangerous journey to a country that will try to turn them back.

Where did MS-13 come from?

"We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in - and we're stopping a lot of them," President Trump said of MS-13 last May. "You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals." The following month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said "large criminal organizations such as MS-13 have violated our borders and gained a deadly foothold within the United States."

But MS-13 isn't exactly a foreign invader - it originated in Los Angeles.

During El Salvador's Civil War in 1980s, the U.S. provided right-wing governments political, economic and military support against leftist guerrillas, while government forces were carrying out the bulk of human rights violations. As the government sent thousands to their deaths, civilians were indiscriminately targeted. Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans fled as the war progressed, and many arrived to the U.S. undocumented.

Reagan-era immigration policies made it especially tough for Salvadorans to obtain asylum status or temporary legal status. Living in low-income neighborhoods, Salvadoran immigrants faced obstacles to landing steady employment and an education. Marginalized Salvadoran youth in LA neighborhoods joined gangs or formed their own.

"[Gangs] are really a social problem, and they attract young people who feel marginalized, who feel excluded from mainstream society," said Sonja Wolf, who researches street gang culture in Central America.

MS-13 initially began as MSS, a stoner gang made up of teenage immigrants who mostly smoked weed and listened to heavy metal music, according to anthropologist Thomas Ward. However, as more migrants arrived, MSS began to protect themselves from other gangs.

According to Ward, the group took a more malevolent turn when members in the LA County jail began adopting street gang subculture. It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the group became MS-13, as members began negotiating with the Mexican mafia for protection in jails and prisons from other Latino gangs.

The gang spread to other states when families moved for work. "Sometimes their children were affiliated with MS or had some kind of link," Ward said. "In order to fit in the new community, they would claim to be LA gangsters to get some clout and start up new cliques claiming MS."

This LA street gang became a problem for El Salvador after a change in U.S. immigration policy in 1996, when the U.S. increased the number of crimes that were subject to deportation. The U.S. also deported those with suspected gang links. El Salvador hardly had the infrastructure to handle the influx of returning migrants and dismantle criminal organizations, especially since it was still recovering from the war. Between 1998 and 2014, the U.S. deported over 81,000 migrants back to El Salvador.

Deportees reported prejudice against them when trying to find employment in El Salvador, according to Nestor Rodriguez, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The Salvadoran press emphasized that planeloads of criminals were returning to the country. "They [deportees] would go to an employer, the employers would say roll up your sleeves. They would see tattoos and say if we need you, we'll call you," Rodriguez said.

Deportees returned to a society torn apart by war, a country they no longer had ties to. When Rafa returned to the country of his birth, he barely spoke Spanish and felt like an outsider. "Me and my son are an attraction, because I walk right here and talk to them in English," he told CBS News.

Meanwhile, the gang put down roots. El Salvador crafted policies to target gang members, but instead MS-13 grew more strategic and powerful, placing members in the police and military, even at the university where they studied law and accounting.

"The societal response was a gang repression, this iron first policy of trying to crack down," Ward said. "The gangs responded by becoming more organized and more rebellious, it created this cycle of violence that has perpetuated until some kind of new policy is instituted where they are not demonized."

Today, there are an estimated 10,000 active MS-13 gang members in local cliques in the U.S. and 50,000 across Central America.

The U.S. has a perspective that once these people are deported, "it's no longer our problem," according to Rodriguez. But he said, "This doesn't disappear. It's like a boomerang, and it's going to create more pressure for migration."

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u.s. immigration and customs enforcement

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MS-13 and the violence driving migration from Central America

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MS-13's violent grip in Central America is one of the forces driving migrants​ to flee for the U.S. - which, ironically, is where the gang got its start

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The Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó called for the military to rise up against the government of President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday. Credit Credit Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Anti-government protesters and law enforcement officers clashed in Caracas on Tuesday after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó appeared alongside soldiers at a military base and called for the population to rise up against the president.

"Today, brave soldiers, brave patriots, brave men attached to the Constitution have followed our call," Mr. Guaidó said in a video posted on social media, speaking from Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, a military airport in Caracas known as La Carlota, in a direct challenge to the government.

He has called before for the military to rise up against the government of President Nicolás Maduro, but doing so flanked by men in uniform, at a base in the heart of the capital, was a new step. With few exceptions, the military has so far protected Mr. Maduro.

Mr. Guaidó claimed that "the definitive end of the usurpation starts today," but it was not clear how many civilians or soldiers would heed him.

"We are counting on the people of Venezuela today," he said in the video. "The armed forces are clearly on the side of the people."

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Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez hugging a supporter after being released from house arrest. Credit Rayner Pena/EPA, via Shutterstock

Jorge Rodríguez, the government's information minister, said on Twitter that government was "confronting and deactivating a small group of military traitors" that he said had taken over the base "to promote a coup." He blamed the "coup-mongering ultraright," which he said had pushed for a violent agenda for months in Venezuela.

Behind Mr. Guaidó, who has described himself since January as the country's interim president, stood Leopoldo López, a member of his party who received a nearly 14-year sentence after staging protests in 2014 and has been held by the government under house arrest. Mr. López did not speak in the video but issued messages on Twitter saying that he had been released by soldiers.

"I was released by the military on the order of the Constitution and President Guaidó," he wrote in his first Twitter posts since 2017. "Everyone mobilize. It's time to conquer for freedom."

Speaking to reporters near the airstrip, Mr. Guaidó said that a wide swath of the military now backed him, including top commanders, but he declined to release their names.

"There are generals, there are lieutenant colonels, there are majors, there are colonels - it's a reflection of the country," he said.

Mr. Guaidó said he had had no communication with Mr. Maduro.

The government and supporters of Mr. Guaidó appeared to be bracing for further confrontation. Pro-government armed groups and protesters had encircled Mr. Maduro's presidential palace by midmorning.

Troops loyal to Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro launching tear gas from inside the air base. Credit Fernando Llano/Associated Press

In other parts of the city, national guard soldiers and policemen fought against anti-government protesters who were beginning to assemble for a protest in response to Mr. Guaidó's call. Witnesses said tear gas canisters could be seen detonating near the military base.

Videos posted on social media showed a crowd of protesters approaching the air base, waving Venezuelan flags.

"I believe this is very important, but I see apathy and fear in people," said one of the protesters, Mary Galaviz, 69. "We should not be afraid. In war there is death, but goals are achieved."

Miriam Segovia, 52, another protester near the base, said she hoped that the armed forces would "put themselves on the side of the Constitution, so we can escape this misery, this hunger and lack of medication."

Battered by mismanagement, American sanctions and corruption, the Venezuelan economy has been in steep decline since 2014. Millions of people have emigrated, and the roughly 30 million who remain are plagued by hyperinflation and shortages of medicines, food, electricity and jobs.

Mr. Maduro, who has been in office since 2013, won re-election last year in a contest that was widely seen as fraudulent. In January, the National Assembly, controlled by the opposition and led by Mr. Guaidó, declared the election and the government illegitimate, leading Mr. Guaidó to claim to be the rightful, transitional leader.

A member of the National Guard who supports Mr. Guaidó throwing a tear gas canister during a confrontation with guards loyal to Mr. Maduro. Credit Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

More than 50 countries, including the United States and most of its close allies, recognized him as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

On Tuesday morning, Vice President Mike Pence reiterated American support for the opposition, posting a message of encouragement on Twitter: "To @jgauido, the National Assembly and all the freedom-loving people of Venezuela who are taking to the streets today in #operacionlibertad - Estamos con ustedes! We are with you! America will stand with you until freedom & democracy are restored. Vayan con dios!"

The appearance of Mr. Guaidó and Mr. López on Tuesday, with the apparent support of some national guardsmen, prompted immediate rumors in Caracas that the armed forces could be shifting loyalties.

A central pillar of Mr. Guaidó's strategy has been luring the military to his side, and a number of officers have defected. But that has never amounted to enough for a full-scale uprising against Mr. Maduro.

In January, shortly before Mr. Guaidó declared himself president, members of the national guard pledged allegiance to him at a base in Caracas. The government stormed the base and arrested some of the soldiers.

One of the soldiers later appeared in a Colombian border city seeking asylum, where he joined several thousands of rank-and-file soldiers who had defected.
Please check back for updates.

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Clashes Flare After Venezuela Opposition Leader Calls for Military Uprising

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Anti-government protesters and law enforcement officers clashed in Caracas on Tuesday after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó appeared alongside soldiers at a military base and called for the population to rise up against the president.

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Catalonia | Geography, Independence Movement, & History

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Catalonia: Catalonia, autonomous community and historic region in northeastern Spain.

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Hayek predicted it all 75 years ago

Venezuela is a human catastrophe. The evidence is brutally visible and can no longer be explained away by apologists for tyranny. So many people enamored with long-debunked theories had high hopes that for Venezuela - despite the enormous historical and empirical evidence to the contrary - the promise of socialism would work and would not lead to the loss of liberties or drive the once-prosperous nation into poverty. Looking back on the 20th century, we should turn to some of the most prominent thinkers who lived under similar conditions and dissected their experiences for us to learn from. Venezuela's crisis is a good example of harsh lessons learned by one generation but forgotten by the next.

In 1944, Friedrich Hayek warned in The Road to Serfdom that tyranny inevitably results when a government exercises complete control of the economy through central planning. Over half a century later, beginning with Hugo Chávez's revolution, Venezuela began its own road to serfdom by expropriating thousands of businesses and even entire industries. The more fortunate companies left before it was too late, while the businesses that remained were handed over to the Venezuelan military, under whose oversight they were neglected into ruins. In a typical demonstration of class warfare, the government publicly vilified these business owners as unpatriotic, greedy lackeys of American interests, claiming that Venezuela's poverty had been a direct result of their existence.

Chavismo created an atmosphere of distrust in which no one felt safe enough to invest in Venezuela. More important, the courts were no longer the place to get redress. Since 1999, the Venezuelan judiciary had been systematically stacked with judges loyal to the executive. Twenty years after socialism took hold of the country, Venezuela has hit rock bottom on every possible development index. Today, 90 percent of Venezuelans are living below the poverty line and inflation rates exceed 1 million percent. Record numbers of children are dying from malnutrition, and nearly all of the country's hospitals are either inoperative or in critical need of basic medical supplies. Frequent nationwide power outages have left, at times, up to 70 percent of Venezuela in darkness. Chávez's socialist agenda purported to be in service of the entire nation, but as Hayek reminds us, "the pursuit of some of [the] most cherished ideals . . . [produces] results utterly different from those which we expected."

A prime example of this divorce between intentions and actual consequences is price controls. In 2014, Venezuela's new Fair Price Law capped the price of goods and services and established a sentence of up to 14 years in prison for those caught "hoarding," "overcharging," or "trafficking food." There is ample economic history revealing the consequences of price controls, which disrupt the equilibrium price set through the interaction between supply and demand. The price ceilings in Venezuela's case effectively led to long queues, empty grocery stores, and, ultimately, starving citizens. The government set prices artificially low, which resulted in a skyrocketing demand and the overconsumption of basic goods. On the other hand, producers started to make less because it had become unprofitable to sell their products within Venezuela. Instead, they began sending their goods abroad or to the black market, where sellers face prison time for their activity and usually need to pay kickbacks to continue operating. These risks are reflected in higher prices. The real-life consequences of Chavismo's misguided policies are telling: Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds in the year 2017.

Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian rule over Venezuela is the next piece of the Hayekian puzzle. Chávez's hand-picked successor has further plunged the country into devastation. Hayek's explanation of "Why the Worst Get on Top" in his seminal book is particularly helpful in understanding the current state of Venezuela at the hands of Maduro. In Hayek's words, at some point a dictator has to "choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure," failure meaning the loss of power over the lives of the people. This is the reason, Hayek argued, that the unscrupulous and uninhibited are more likely to stay in power in a society tending toward totalitarianism. This is, again, tragically accurate 75 years after the publication of The Road to Serfdom. Maduro and his inner circle have responded to the outcry for change from the hungry and desperate by unleashing ultraviolent revolutionary collectives in the hopes that millions will get the message, retreat to their homes, and watch - helplessly - as the night of dictatorship keeps falling upon them.

While the majority of Venezuelans suffer, Maduro dines at luxurious restaurants and treats his family to extravagant skydiving adventures. The president's corrupt behavior is a reflection of his inner circle, which is composed almost entirely of crooks. To name a few, Diosdado Cabello, Chavismo's second in command, who served as president of the Constituent Assembly under Maduro, is the head of an international drug-trafficking organization known as the Cártel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), along with Néstor Reverol, minister of the interior and justice. Maduro's nephews, known in the media as the narco sobrinos, are imprisoned in the United States for their involvement in the same drug trade. Meanwhile, Maduro's former vice president, Tareck El Aissami, now Minister of Industries and National Production, has effectively acted as an ambassador to the terrorist organization Hezbollah, inviting its militants to train with FARC rebel forces in Venezuela. These are just some of the people who have led the country into chaos and who have dutifully followed Maduro while the rest of the country suffers under starvation, looting, illness, and extreme poverty.

Each day that Maduro remains in power represents another day in which the world concedes to the destructive tenets of authoritarianism. The Venezuelan people will be rid of these thieves sooner or later, but the world should have learned a lesson from thinkers such as Hayek the first time around. Now the international community can choose to heed his timeless warnings by taking action and elevating the pressure that's already been put on the Maduro regime. "Only if we understand why and how certain kinds of economic controls tend to paralyze the driving forces of a free society," Hayek wrote, "can we hope that social experimentation will not lead us into situations none of us want."
Roberto González is a senior legal associate and Liza Gellerman is a junior legal researcher at the Human Rights Foundation.

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The Economics of Tyranny in Venezuela | National Review

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Hayek predicted it all 75 years ago Venezuela is a human catastrophe. The evidence is brutally visible and can no longer be explained away by apologists for tyranny.

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A demonstrator throws a pallet onto a burning barricade during a protest against a rally by the Spanish far-right Vox party, in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday March 30, 2019. The nationalist Vox party has recently emerged onto the political scene by winning representation in regional elections in the country's south in December. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

By JOSEPH WILSON, Associated Press

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - The Catalan separatist crisis that has plagued Spain ever since a failed breakaway bid by the wealthy region two years ago promises to play a central role in Spain's April 28 national election.

While the ruling Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez are trying to focus on social issues, the opposition parties on the right are competing for which of them can take a harder stance on reigning in the secessionists.

That includes the upstart far-right Vox party, which is hoping to increase voter support with a pledge to crush the separatist movement by stripping Catalonia's regional government of its powers and recentralizing control in Madrid, the capital.

A few thousand supporters came to an outdoor rally by Vox on Saturday in downtown Barcelona, the largest city in northeastern Catalonia.

Many carried Spanish flags and greeted Vox leader Santiago Abascal with chants of "President! President!" when he took the stage.

"Catalonia is not a nation! It is something much more important; it is a part of Spain!" Abascal told the crowd on Saturday.

Abascal railed against the attempt by Catalan separatist lawmakers to declare independence in 2017, a fateful decision that set off Spain's worst constitutional crisis in nearly four decades. The separatist movement's leaders are now either on trial in the Supreme Court or are outlaws from Spain after fleeing the country.

"The most sacred thing is unity," Abascal said. "We will suspend Catalonia's self-government, intervene in its administration, and outlaw the separatists."

The polarizing presence of Vox was met by protests from Catalan separatist groups that turned violent. Protesters threw objects and burned wood in the street during run-ins with police in riot gear, who deployed to keep them separate from the campaign event.

Catalan regional police said they arrested seven protesters, three for attacking a person going to the nationalist rally. Police said five people, including one officer, received light injuries.

The turnout for Abascal was tiny compared to the gatherings of hundreds of thousands that separatists have mustered for several years in the region, where voters are roughly equally split over the question of secession, according to the most recent regional election results.

Its hard talk against Catalonia worked for Vox in regional elections in Andalusia in December, when it became the first far-right party to secure parliamentary seats since Spain installed a democracy following dictator Gen. Francisco Franco's death in 1975.

Polls now show Abascal's party may end up holding the key to allowing the conservative Popular Party and the pro-business Citizens party to kick Sanchez's Socialists out of power on the national level after the April 28 election.

For Arantxa Giner, a 36-year-old consultant in European affairs, Vox's no-nonsense stance on Catalan separatism is worth her vote.

"For me, it is the most important (issue), because it's true that the other parties in Spain, when they have to deal with the nationalists in the Basque region and here, they are a bit scared of them," Giner said. ""I think that no Western democracy is going to allow separatists to ask for more powers . when they are not loyal to the state."

While not anti-European Union, Vox wants to portray itself as the defender of traditional Spanish customs, such as the bullfight and hunting. It also wants to roll back domestic violence laws and stop unauthorized immigration.

Many in Spain fear that Vox will push the Popular Party and Citizens toward more radical, far-right positions.

"Their political principles go against fundamental rights," Ismael Benito, a 23-year-old academic, said at an anti-Vox rally. "They force other right-wing parties in Spain to go to their far-nationalism and completely fascist right-wing."

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Spain's New Far-Right Campaigns to Stop Catalan Separatists

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A demonstrator throws a pallet onto a burning barricade during a protest against a rally by the Spanish far-right Vox party, in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday March 30, 2019. The nationalist Vox party has recently emerged onto the political scene by winning representation in regional elections in the country's south in December.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte swept into office earlier this year with bombastic promises to declare war on the drug dealers and users who he said were blighting his country.

And thus far, he has delivered: Since he took office on June 30, about 2,400 people have been slain in drug-related killings.

Between July 1 and August 20, about 900 people were killed in police operations, with another 1,100 people killed in incidents unrelated to police operations.

But one of the most troubling aspects of those deaths is how they've been meted out. While police have killed a significant number of people, most of the killings appear to have been carried out by vigilantes and other civilians, some pressed into service as contract killers.

"My first job was two years ago in this province nearby. I felt really scared and nervous because it was my first time," a woman going by the name Maria told the BBC in August.

She was part of a team that included several women, who are often able to approach targets without raising suspicions. "One time, they needed a woman," Maria told the BBC. "My husband tapped me to do the job. When I saw the man I was supposed to kill, I got near him and I shot him."

Throughout his presidential campaign, Duterte emphasized that his policy on the country's drug dealers and users was " kill them all," a statement that elicited both approval and shock. He also promised bounties to police who killed drug dealers and exhorted regular Filipinos to kill or arrest suspects - a request other politicians have echoed.

When he won the election on May 9, the country saw about two shooting deaths a week, according to The Atlantic. By July 21, police or vigilantes were killing 10 people a day.

Even as mayor of Davao, a small city in the southern Philippines, Duterte reportedly encouraged vigilantism and bragged about killing three accused kidnappers himself. Duterte, nicknamed " the Punisher," is suspected of having ties to motorcycle-borne killers who gained the name " Davao death squads." Motorcycle-riding gunmen have continued to kill in the months since his election.

Many Filipinos have embraced his vitriol and supported his fight. "He's only going to go after the killers and the drug dealers," a woman in Davao told The New York Times in mid-June. "Don't be afraid."

Since his election, Duterte has continued to encourage the public to take the law into its own hands.

"Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun - you have my support," Duterte said in early June, according to the Associated Press.

If a drug dealer resists arrest or threatens a citizen, Duterte went on, "you can kill him ... Shoot him and I'll give you a medal."

Incendiary rhetoric from Duterte as well as public accusations from Philippine police have contributed to the rise of vigilantism.

On August 30, a businessman and his wife were gunned down by an unknown assailant, just days after the national police chief accused him of being a high-profile drug trafficker.

Such killings have led to accusations that security forces and hired guns working with them are carrying out extrajudicial killings. Maria, the hit woman interviewed by the BBC, says she got involved in contract killing after a corrupt police officer - one who was also dealing drugs - started commissioning her husband to gun down debtors.

She soon became ensnared as a hired gun. Duterte's war on drugs has largely been fought in the poorest parts of the country, and in many cases bystanders are caught in the crossfire.

In one incident in late July, unidentified gunmen killed five people living in a cemetery, including a mother and son celebrating his birthday. The assailants left cardboard signs declaring the dead people to be " drug pushers," a common practice that stoked anger in this instance.

"Suddenly there was this sign. Suddenly there was 'shabu' at the crime scene," a person living in the cemetery said, referring to a local term for crystal meth. "Suddenly, they were bad people. But you know what? They were good people!"

'A bigger stick'

There is reason to be concerned that Duterte's violent approach to the country's drug problem will only exacerbate and entrench it, rather than root it out.

"The lawlessness that has erupted over this is opening up political space for any kind of killing now," Sanho Tree, a drug-policy expert at the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies, said in an interview with CCTV.

Criminals and civilians in the country could be using Duterte's crackdown as cover for settling scores, and competing drug gangs could use the wave of violence to attack their rivals and expand their turf, Tree added.

"This is a serious problem for sure, but the solution is not to be found by getting a bigger stick," Tree said. "Only by reducing criminal sanctions can you create a space for a public-health approach ... People who are driven underground cannot get help."

Duterte has said the country's security forces are not responsible for extrajudicial killings, and both he and police have said they've only killed in self-defense. Some 600,000 people have turned themselves in to authorities, many of whom were likely prompted to do so by the bloodshed.

The influx of prisoners has left at least one jail with five times the number of people it can hold.

Duterte has referred to his campaign against drugs as "war," which raises the specter of more killing, both by officials and by civilians. Unbowed by criticism at home and abroad, the Philippine president looks unlikely to ratchet down the bloodshed he has helped unleash.

In response to UN human-rights experts urging him to halt extrajudicial killings, Duterte threatened to pull his country out of the UN.

"Do the lives of 10 of these criminals really matter?" Duterte said in late August. "If I am the one facing all this grief, would 100 lives of these idiots mean anything to me?"

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The Philippines' president has declared a war on drugs, and it's turned normal people into hired killers

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte swept into office earlier this year with bombastic promises to declare war on the drug dealers and users who he said were blighting his country. And thus far, he has delivered: Since he took office on June 30, about 2,400 people have been slain in drug-related killings.

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solutions

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Download the PDF here.

Venezuela has collapsed. And the international community, including the United States, has a responsibility to respond to that collapse in ways that will limit adverse impacts on the Venezuelan people and on regional stability. The international community must also work together to take steps to support the restoration of Venezuelan democracy and help rebuild the troubled country.

Venezuela's profound crisis

A combination of remarkable incompetence, misguided ideology, and systemic corruption have reduced a once prosperous and resilient democracy to a wellspring of suffering and the source of one of the largest mass migrations ever in the Western Hemisphere. More than two decades of expropriations and state takeover of the economy has led to economic collapse. The International Monetary Fund projects that the Venezuelan economy will contract by 18 percent in 2018 under the weight of 1,370,000 percent inflation and with the prospect of 10,000,000 percent inflation in 2019. Despite having the largest proven oil reserves in the world, mismanagement has led oil production-the heart of Venezuela's economy-to plummet. Today, Venezuela is producing approximately 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, compared with a production peak of nearly 3.5 million barrels per day in 1998. The energy sector is so decimated that the country now faces regular, widespread power outages.

As a result of a number of misguided policies, Venezuela's agriculture sector has also imploded. Today, the country faces severe food shortages: The average Venezuelan lost an estimated 24 pounds in 2017. Empty store shelves have become the rule, and authorities are using access to food rations as a form of social and political control. The country's health care system has collapsed to the point that previously eradicated diseases such as malaria and diphtheria have re-emerged, and infant and maternal mortality are on the rise.

The depths of Venezuela's crisis, however, transcend the humanitarian misery being inflicted on the country's people. The dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro has unleashed a brutal wave of repression upon anyone who voices disagreement with its policies. More than 12,000 people have been arbitrarily detained or imprisoned since 2012, while 8,292 have been victims of extrajudicial executions; more than 289 have been subjected to documented cases of torture; and more than 200 have been killed by Venezuelan security forces while protesting.

Venezuela's democratic institutions have been systematically hollowed out to such an extent that most of the countries of the Western Hemisphere dismissed the country's last presidential election, earlier this year, as illegitimate. The Lima Group, an ad hoc group of countries representing more than 90 percent of the non-U.S. population in the Americas, has repeatedly denounced "the loss of democratic institutions and the rule of law" in Venezuela.

Corruption is endemic, with Venezuela ranking 169th out of 180 countries assessed in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index. The extent of corruption and criminality is laid out in extensive detail in InSight Crime's report, "Venezuela: A Mafia State?" Two examples of high-level corruption provide a sense of the scale of Venezuela's problem. The former vice president under the Maduro regime, Tareck El Aissami, is alleged by the U.S. government to have amassed a fortune of almost $3 billion despite a career in the public sector. And former senior officials of Venezuela's state-run oil company were recently implicated in a multibillion-dollar corruption scheme by authorities in Andorra.

The combination of economic collapse and state-led repression has pushed more than 2.3 million Venezuelans to flee their homeland during the past three years alone. Another 1 million Venezuelans are likely to leave the country in the coming 12 months-a pace that shows little sign of slowing.

Venezuelan refugees are placing a significant strain on the country's neighbors. In the past year, Colombia-Venezuela's neighbor most affected by the refugee crisis-has provided temporary residency and work authorizations to nearly 1 million refugees. But Colombia has begun to show increases in anti-immigrant sentiments, particularly in border communities. Despite receiving far fewer Venezuelan refugees than Colombia-approximately 100,000-Brazil has seen multiple xenophobic incidents, and Ecuador and Peru have declared states of emergency.

The need for more international action

The growing frustration that various, international diplomatic efforts have yet to resolve the crisis in Venezuela has led to increased talk of the potential need for armed intervention to depose Maduro and facilitate humanitarian relief. Any such intervention would of course require a meaningful international coalition; clear international and domestic legal justification and sanction; and the will and resources to persist in what would almost certainly be a yearslong commitment. It is difficult to conceive of a situation where these conditions might be met. Even if they could, such an undertaking would present enormous risks and costs that would render action implausible and inadvisable in all but the most extreme circumstances.

There is, however, a great deal that the United States and the international community can and must do to come to the collective protection of the Venezuelan people. Measures short of the use of force must be attempted and exhausted in order to:

Address the refugee crisis

Hold to account and further isolate the Maduro regime

Prepare for contingencies

Address the refugee crisis

To date, the international community's response to the Venezuelan refugee crisis has been inadequate. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has raised approximately half of the resources it has identified as necessary to address this emergency, and it is likely that the UNHCR significantly underestimated the cost of needed resources. According to one estimate, the total cost of dealing with the next 1 million Venezuelan refugees may be as much as $5 billion. The $95 million that the United States pledged to provide during fiscal year 2017 to help with Venezuelan refugees and the $25.5 million that all actors pledged to the UNHCR for Venezuela will not be nearly enough.

In the coming months, there will almost certainly be more refugees flowing out of Venezuela. Regime durability will generate more migration, as the regime follows the Cuban model of using out-migration as a pressure relief mechanism. Regime collapse-from the application of either internal or external pressure or a combination of the two-would similarly increase migration pressures, at least in the short term, as violence would likely rise as regime factions seek to preserve a criminal status quo. Given these dynamics, it is imperative that the United States and the rest of the international community establish a more robust response to the refugee crisis.

To exercise meaningful leadership in response to the Venezuelan refugee crisis, the United States should:

These three steps would demonstrate real concern for Venezuelans fleeing repression and state collapse, as well as provide the United States with two things it currently lacks in rallying international support: credibility and moral authority.

To that end, efforts to address the Venezuelan refugee crisis cannot be limited to unilateral U.S. actions. Instead, with U.S. support and cooperation, the international community should:

Immediately meet the UNHCR's identified funding needs. Countries should meet these estimates through an increase in U.S. financial support to the UNHCR and additional funding from other capable partners, including Canada and the European Union.

Increase funding for Venezuela's affected neighbors, especially Colombia. Countries should also seek ways to leverage international financial institution resources, particularly those of the Inter-American Development Bank, to share the responsibility of providing support to Venezuela's neighbors in South America and the Caribbean as they work to accommodate record numbers of refugees.

Hold to account and further isolate the Maduro regime

The events transpiring in Venezuela and imperiling tens of millions of Venezuelans are not happening by accident: They are the result of willful actions by key figures in the Maduro regime. Those individuals must be held to account and must be isolated to the fullest extent possible.

As with the refugee crisis, efforts to increase accountability and isolation are both areas in which the United States should demonstrate meaningful leadership through domestic action and the encouragement of multilateral action.

To those ends, the United States should:

Ban U.S. entry and access to the U.S. financial system for regime figures and their families. During the past 10 years, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned 88 Venezuelan officials. Using the Global Magnitsky Act, as well as Venezuela-specific authorities, the United States should increase the pace of such sanctions. The United States should also explicitly expand these sanctions to include those who most benefit from the Maduro regime's ill-gotten gains-the families and close associates of senior regime officials.

Yet, efforts to isolate and hold to account the Maduro regime cannot be limited to unilateral U.S. efforts. The international community, with U.S. support and cooperation, should:

Open a formal International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into regime figures responsible for crimes against humanity in Venezuela, and bring charges against them based on the recent referral by six countries in the Americas. Last month, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru formally referred allegations of crimes against humanity by the Maduro regime to the ICC. Instead of attacking the court, the United States should find ways to support the formal investigation and prosecution of Maduro regime officials responsible for clear violations of international law, just as it has supported past ICC efforts in Africa and the work of other international tribunals.

Prepare for contingencies

As the United States and the international community wrestle with the refugee crisis and seek to hold regime leaders to account, they must also prepare for foreseeable contingencies. To that end, international actors must be prepared for all possibilities that might arise in Venezuela-from positive, peaceful change to potential further collapse and chaos.

When Venezuela has a government committed to improving conditions for all Venezuelans, it will be imperative that the international community is ready to help. International actors should not wait until change happens to rally support-rather, they must help incentivize change. To do so, the United States and the international community should:

Establish and fund, at least partially, a multilateral reconstruction and humanitarian relief fund. The people of Venezuela, as well as factions within the regime, need to have hope that a better future awaits them after the Maduro regime. Without such hope, it is highly unlikely that Venezuelans in the country will generate the kind of internal pressure needed to complement external pressures and effect change. A clear commitment of support from the international community can help stoke confidence and eliminate any dangerous lags in assistance when change comes.

Although it is difficult to contemplate because of the human suffering it implies, the situation in Venezuela could further deteriorate. To prepare for such an outcome, the United States must:

Engage in responsible contingency planning. As it does for other areas in crisis around the world, the U.S. military must ensure that it has an up-to-date, adequate evacuation plan for U.S. embassy personnel and U.S. citizens in Venezuela if the situation on the ground necessitates it. It must also prepare for the possibility of a border confrontation, at scale, between Venezuelan and Colombian armed forces, so as not to be forced into improvising a response with unpredictable consequences.

Conclusion

Not every crisis has a solution that the United States can provide, whether working alone or in concert with the international community. The United States and the international community, however, have yet to deploy all the peaceful tools at their disposal. The crisis unfolding in Venezuela demands that these countries exhaust these strategies to come to the assistance of the Venezuelan people-both those who have been forced to flee their country and those who continue to suffer under intolerable conditions.
Dan Restrepo is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Endnotes

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Venezuela in Crisis: A Way Forward - Center for American Progress

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Download the PDF here. Venezuela has collapsed. And the international community, including the United States, has a responsibility to respond to that collapse in ways that will limit adverse impacts on the Venezuelan people and on regional stability. The international community must also work together to take steps to support the restoration of Venezuelan democracy and help rebuild the troubled country.

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Conflict

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Indonesian Churches Blasted by Family of Suicide Bombers

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Christians outraged at "heinous and gory" terrorist attacks that killed and injured dozens of worshipers Sunday morning.

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Background

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Since 2014, ISIS has demonized, threatened and persecuted religious minorities. This report explores the ideological justifications for ISIS's violent campaign to target-and ultimately eliminate-other religious communities.

Executive Summary

The fact is that [ISIS] kills Christians because they are Christians; Yazidis because they are Yazidis; Shia because they are Shia. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, March 17, 2016.

On March 15, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted to classify ISIS's actions targeting religious minorities in the so-called Islamic State as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. Two days later, then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that ISIS "kills Christians because they are Christians; Yazidis because they are Yazidis; [and] Shia because they are Shia." As the former Secretary said, ISIS's "entire worldview is based on eliminating those who do not subscribe to its perverse ideology." (Sources: Christianity Today, U.S. Department of State)

As ISIS targets religious minorities within its held territory, the group also calls for attacks against Christians, so-called apostates, Jews, and Hindus worldwide. One article from ISIS's online English-language magazine Dabiq declared that the militant group rejects any religion that does not parallel its own extremist brand of Sunni Islam. "We hate you," the article directed at its secular readers, "first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah - whether you realize it or not." (Sources: , , , Firstpost, Independent)

CEP's ISIS's Persecution of Religions report highlights ISIS's ongoing use of genocidal violence and incendiary rhetoric against Muslims, religious minorities, and members of other religions and faith groups.
Download Full Report
Directly Targeted by ISIS

Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis, Christians, and Mandaeans in Iraq and Syria have been displaced, killed, kidnapped, raped, and tortured by ISIS militants. ISIS's treatment of these minorities has been characterized by the international community as genocide and crimes against humanity.

Yazidis

No other religious group present in ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq has been subjected to the destruction that the Yazidis have suffered. U.N. Human Rights Council, June 15, 2016.

According to a June 2016 report by the United Nations, more than 400,000 Yazidis have been displaced, captured, or killed since August 2014, when ISIS launched a deadly siege on Yazidis in Mount Sinjar. According to a 2016 report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, "no other religious group" in ISIS-controlled areas "has been subjected to the destruction that the Yazidis have suffered." (Sources: United Nations, Guardian)

Yazidis, who practice a combination of Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and Islam, have long been ostracized and accused of devil-worship by some Muslim populations in the Levant, due to perceived similarities between the Yazidi angel Tawusi Melek and the Islamic devil Shaytan. Prior to ISIS's rise to power, the majority of the global Yazidi population lived in northern Iraq, in and around the Sinjar Mountains. As of June 2016, the United Nations notes that "no free Yazidis remained in the Sinjar region." (Sources: United Nations, New York Times, VICE News, Atlantic, Daily Mail, National Geographic)
ISIS's Territory
On August 3, 2014, ISIS attacked and conquered the town of Sinjar in Iraq's northern Nineveh province. ISIS swept through the city, killing nearly 5,000 Yazidis, capturing 6,300 more, and forcing 400,000 to flee to Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. An estimated 55,000 Yazidis fled into the nearby Sinjar Mountains, where dozens subsequently died from dehydration and starvation. Although thousands of Yazidis have escaped, an estimated 2,000 remain trapped in the foothills, waiting for the ISIS militants nearby to be purged from the region. (Sources: United Nations, Guardian, Al Jazeera, Star, Guardian, CNN, BBC News, VICE News, New York Times)

Today, out of more than 6,300 Yazidis captured during the siege, an estimated 3,500 are still being held captive by ISIS, the majority of them women. ISIS has traded hundreds of Yazidi women and girls-some as young as nine years old-as sex slaves in its auctions. Former Yazidi captives have said they would be tortured if they resisted the sexual advances of ISIS fighters and that suicides and suicide attempts are commonplace among female captives. In April 2017, one Kurdish official noted that the bodies of between 1,300 and 1,500 Yazidis were found near Sinjar since ISIS began terrorizing the region. (Sources: India Today, , New York Times, VICE News, United Nations, Yahoo News, New York Times, CNN, , CNN)

ISIS has sought to defend its actions toward Yazidis through its online propaganda magazine Dabiq. One article from the magazine's October 2014 issue claimed that "enslaving the families of the [non-believers] and taking their women as concubines" was a "firmly established aspect" of sharia (Islamic canonical law). ISIS has used its platform online to further demonize Yazidis, labeling them as "devil worshippers," "pagans," and "infidels." (Sources: , Reuters, , CNN)

Christians

ISIS militants have tortured, raped, kidnapped, and executed Christians in Iraq and Syria, despite claiming that Christians who pay a special tax (jizya) would receive ISIS's protection. According to a July 2016 report by the Hudson Institute, ISIS's jizya option is a deceptive propaganda ploy used to extort Christians with no regard for their protection or religious freedom. The group urges attacks on Christians outside of its territorial strongholds. (Source: Hudson Institute)
ISIS's Territory
On June 10, 2014, ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Mosul, demanding that all of the city's Christian inhabitants pay jizya and live as second-class citizens. Two days later, however, ISIS reneged on this promise of security, instead saying that Christians would be killed or forced to convert to Islam if they did not leave Mosul by the following week. Similar policies were implemented through the rest of Iraq's northern Nineveh Province. Syrian Catholic leader Ignatius Yousef Younan from Nineveh claimed that at least 500 Christians from his diocese were killed by the militants when they failed to flee ISIS's territory in time. (Sources: Human Rights Watch, Tony Blair Faith Foundation, BBC News, Hudson Institute)

The vast majority of Iraqi and Syrian Christians are believed to have fled ISIS's strongholds. Nonetheless, an estimated 625,000 to 775,000 Christians have remained in Iraq and Syria's rural regions, perpetually in danger of ISIS activity nearby. Small numbers of Christians also reportedly remain inside key ISIS cities like Tal Afar and Raqqa, barred by ISIS from leaving. The effects of ISIS's policy has devastated the Christian population in the Levant. Christians in Iraq went from a population of 1.4 million in 2003 to an estimated 150,000 to 275,000 in 2016. In neighboring Syria, Christians went from a population of 1.25 million in 2011 to 500,000 in 2016. (Sources: Forbes, Knights of Columbus p.222 & 223, Christian Times, Jerusalem Post)
Worldwide
ISIS has carried out a slew of deadly anti-Christian attacks in Egypt, which hosts the largest Christian population in the Middle East. On May 26, 2017, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, gunmen opened fire on a bus of Coptic Christians in the southern Egyptian city of Minya, killing at least 29 people and wounding 25 others. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack the following day, saying that a "security team of caliphate soldiers" had "set up an ambush" for the victims, who were on their way to visit a monastery south of Cairo. (Sources: Reuters, Los Angeles Times, New York Post)

The attack was the most recent of several ISIS-claimed attacks on Egypt's Christian population. On April 9, 2017, ISIS carried out twin suicide bombings targeting Coptic Christians on the holy day of Palm Sunday, collectively killing at least 45 people and injuring dozens more. In the northern city of Tanta, one ISIS bomber detonated his suicide vest inside St. George's church, killing 28 people. In another ISIS-claimed attack, a suicide bomber killed 17 people outside St. Mark's church in Alexandria. ISIS had previously claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack targeting Coptic Christians in December 2016, when a bomber killed 29 people at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in southern Cairo. ISIS said in a statement released after that attack that the group would "liberate" Cairo, threatening further attacks on Christians in the Middle East. (Sources: BBC News, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, )

ISIS also regularly calls for the killings of Christians and others in the West-often derided as "Crusaders"- through its various propaganda arms. On July 26, 2016, two ISIS sympathizers entered a Christian church in Normandy, France, taking nuns and worshipers hostage and killing the Catholic priest. Later that day, ISIS claimed responsibility for the church attack, asserting that its "soldiers" had acted "in a response to the call to target Crusader coalition states." (Sources: New York Times, )

The attack in Normandy came after ISIS had repeatedly demonized and incited violence against Christians through its English-language magazine Dabiq. The magazine-itself named after the site of the final, apocalyptic battle between Christians and Muslims, according to Islamic eschatology-has published several issues dedicated to threatening the annihilation of Christians. Dabiq's fourth issue, entitled "The Failed Crusade," included a story asserting that "[e]very Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader and kill him." Former ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani was quoted in the article urging readers to attack Westerners and Christians "wherever they can be found." (Sources: International Business Times, BBC News, Dabiq, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Tony Blair Faith Foundation)

In August 2016, ISIS released its 15 th Dabiq issue, "Break the Cross." In that issue, ISIS again attempted to discredit Christianity by labeling it as a "deviation" and a "falsehood that should be rejected." ISIS used that issue to praise high-profile attacks in Florida, Bangladesh, France, and Germany, suggesting that in the wake of these attacks, "cross-worshipers [Christians]" and "democratic pagans of the West" should "consider... abandoning their infidelity and accepting Islam." In a December 2016 online statement, ISIS published the names and addresses of thousands of churches in the United States and called on its followers to attack them. The statement encouraged ISIS sympathizers to "turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie." ISIS assailants carried out a deadly shooting attack on a Turkish nightclub on New Year's Eve, killing 39 people. After it was revealed that the group had primarily killed Muslims, ISIS asserted that nightclubs were "temples of shirk [idolatry]" and that the attack was therefore religiously justified. (Sources: , , Voactiv, , )

ISIS has continued to release anti-Christian propaganda and calling for attacks on Christians outside of ISIS-held territory. In May 2017, ISIS released the ninth issue of its online Rumiyah magazine, including a featured article attempting to provide religious justifications for the group's deadly anti-Christian attacks in Egypt. In the article, ISIS referred to Christians as "fighters" and urged further attacks on churches and monasteries. (Source: )

Mandaeans

Out of a previous Iraqi-Mandaean population of around 10,000, only 1,000 remain.

ISIS has displaced an estimated 90 percent of the Gnostic Mandaean population in Iraq. An estimated 10,000 Mandaeans lived in Iraq's northern provinces in 2014. By early 2016, an estimated 1,000 Mandaeans remain in Iraq, according to humanitarian aid group Noor Solidarity. (Sources: Week, Inter Press Service, Mandaean Associations Union, Noor Solidarity)
ISIS's Territory
The majority of Iraq's Mandaean community have been displaced from their homes in northern Iraq and forced to flee to nearby rural areas or neighboring countries, including Jordan, Turkey, and Iran. ISIS has threatened the Iraqi Mandaeans with "ethnic cleansing" and "extinction," according to a 2014 statement by the Mandaean Association Union. (Sources: Mandaean Associations Union, Noor Solidarity, Inter Press Service, Week, Inter Press Service)

When ISIS captured Mosul in August 2014, Mandaeans there fled their homes out of fear that they would be killed or forced to convert. According to Suhaib Nashi, leader of the Mandaean Association Union in Exile, "Our community is suffering a real genocide at the hands of radical Islamists [ISIS]." Nashi claimed that ISIS militants were killing Mandaeans in order to appropriate their wealth and for "the more sinister reason of ethnically cleansing [us]." In the words of one Mandaean refugee, Mandaeans fear that going back to their homes "would be suicide." (Sources: Minority Rights Group International, Inter Press Service)

Muslims

Shiites
ISIS's Territory
ISIS has conducted some of its most deadly attacks against Shiite populations in Iraq. On June 10, 2014, ISIS militants massacred 670 Shiite prisoners living in Badush, a town north of Mosul. Several days later, ISIS massacred 1,700 Iraqi Shiite air force recruits in Tikrit. Out of the nearly 19,000 civilians killed by ISIS in Iraq in 2014 and 2015, the majority are believed to be Shiite Muslims, according to a U.N. report. (Sources: Independent, Guardian, CNN, Independent, Independent, United Nations)
Worldwide
ISIS regularly publishes propaganda materials targeting Shiites worldwide. In January 2016, ISIS released its 13 th issue of Dabiq magazine, titled "The Rafidah: From Ibn Saba' to the Dajjal," with one article claiming that ISIS will wipe out the entire global population of Shiites. The author asserts that Shiites are American allies, and that they "are mushrik [polytheist] apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rafidi [Shiite] walks on the face of earth." (Sources: Dabiq, Fox News, Daily Mail, Fox News)

ISIS has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting Shiites outside of its territorial strongholds. In November 2015, for example, two ISIS militants detonated suicide bombs in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 43 people and wounding more than 230 others. ISIS later said that the group had specifically targeted the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood in southern Beirut because of its large Shiite population. (Sources: New York Times, Fox 8, CBS News, CNN, CNN, )

ISIS has carried out attacks against Shiites and Shiite offshoots in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In March 2015, an ISIS-affiliated group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings targeting Zaidi mosques in Yemen, collectively killing more than 130 people. ISIS has since continued to carry out sectarian attacks in the Gulf region. In May 2015, ISIS carried out two suicide bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia, collectively killing at least 24 people and wounding an estimated 120 others. Also that month, ISIS claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at a Shiite mosque in Yemen, wounding at least 13 people. On June 26, 2015, an ISIS-affiliated suicide bomber targeted one of the largest Shiite mosques in the Kuwait, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens more. (Source: New York Times, New York Times, New York Times)

ISIS has also carried out deadly attacks in Southeast Asia, targeting Shiite religious centers and gatherings in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. On November 26, 2015, ISIS-affiliated gunmen stormed a Shiite mosque in Bangladesh, opening fire on worshipers and killing one man, wounding three others. The attack came roughly a month after another set of bomb attacks in Bangladesh, which targeted a procession commemorating the Shiite holy day of Ashura. The attacks collectively left one person dead and dozens wounded. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the February 2017 bombing of a Sufi shrine in Pakistan. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the group had targeted a "Shia gathering," though Sufi Muslims can adhere to Shiite or Sunni forms of Islam. ISIS has also claimed responsibility for the November 21, 2016, attack targeting a Shiite mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens more. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released by its Amaq news agency. (Sources: New York Times, New York Times, Independent, Independent, CNN)

Shabaks
ISIS's Territory
According to the International Organization for Human Rights (IOHR), nearly all Iraqi Shabaks have been displaced from Nineveh province. Human Rights Watch notes that the Shabaks have been "systematically killed and threatened" since ISIS captured Mosul in June 2014. (Sources: Human Rights Watch, Minority Rights Group International, Al Monitor, BBC News, Kurdish Project)

More than 3,000 Shabak families reportedly lost their homes and hundreds more were massacred when ISIS seized Mosul in June 2014. Although the majority of Shabaks managed to survive the advance of ISIS forces by fleeing to Kurdish territory in the north, an estimated 1,600 fell victim to ISIS kidnapping and killings. (Sources: Al-Monitor, Tony Blair Faith Foundation, Kurdish Project, New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Rudaw)

Alawites

ISIS considers the Alawite sect in Syria to be infidels and apostates. Alawites adhere to an offshoot of Shiite Islam and comprise 10 to 15 percent of Syria's population, living mainly in the country's western regions. ISIS, which associates the sect with the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has killed thousands of Alawites, including women and children. (Sources: BBC News, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy)
ISIS's Territory
ISIS has promised to kill and displace the entire Alawite population in western Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), ISIS executed 120 Syrian regime soldiers in August 2014, when the militants captured the Tabqa airbase in Raqqa. ISIS has also targeted and murdered Alawite civilians, accusing them of collaborating with the regime. In February 2016, ISIS claimed a suicide bomb attack in the Syrian capital of Damascus that left eight people dead. Following the attack, ISIS released a statement online threatening further violence against Alawites: "Their [the Alawite] army will never feel secure and we will let them taste the killing and displacement that our people swallow in the land of Syria," the statement read. (Source: Voactiv)

In July 2016, ISIS claimed that its fighters killed nearly 600 Syrian Alawites during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan (June 6, 2016 through July 5, 2016). On May 23, 2016, ISIS conducted a series of bombings in the Syrian coastal cities of Jablehand Tartus, killing nearly 150 people. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attacks saying it "hit Alawite gatherings" in those cities. (Sources: Independent, Financial Times)

Sufis

ISIS has characterized the mystical Islamic practice of Sufism as idolatrous, singling out its adherents for attacks. ISIS began seizing territory from Sufi communities in northern Syria in March 2014 and in northern Iraq in June 2014. ISIS has since destroyed hundreds of Sufi shrines and religious sites. ISIS has also called for attacks against Sufis outside of its territorial strongholds. (Sources: BBC News, Huffington Post)
ISIS's Territory
Soon after ISIS's June 2014 takeover of Mosul, Iraq, the group began demolishing Sufi shrines, tombs, and mosques around the city. The practice has since continued within the so-called Islamic State and in its strongholds abroad. In March 2015, the militant's media branch in Libya released photos of ISIS fighters razing Sufi shrines in the Tripoli province. In November 2016, an ISIS militant in Karachi, Pakistan, detonated a suicide bomb at a Sufi shrine outside of the city, killing at least 52 people and injuring more than 100 others. ISIS's Amaq news agency claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted more than 500 Sufis who had assembled at the shrine to perform a ritual. (Sources: Al Arabiya, Reuters, National Geographic, NewsDeeply, Al Jazeera, Daily Mail, CNN)

ISIS has also specifically targeted Sufi leaders. In late April 2015, humanitarian activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) reported that ISIS had been targeting dozens of notable Sufi sheikhs in Raqqa for arrest or execution. Among those executed was Sheikh Hassan, the Imam of the Grand Mosque in Raqqa. (Source: Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)
Worldwide
ISIS has called for and claimed attacks on Sufi leaders and gatherings abroad. On May 7, 2016, a suspected ISIS supporter hacked to death Sufi leader Mohammad Shahidullah in Bangladesh. ISIS has also called for the murder of American Shaykh Hisham Kabbani in its April 2016 issue of Dabiq. Kabbani, a Sufi leader from Detroit, had written a fatwa (religious ruling by an Islamic scholar) that declared that the Quran does not condone violent jihad, a statement that was distributed among U.S. troops in Iraq in 2011. Kabbani was named on a kill list in the magazine among other Western Muslim political figures from the United States and United Kingdom. (Sources: Daily Mail, Saisat Daily, Dabiq, Facebook, Hisham Kabbani)

On February 16, 2017, an ISIS-affiliated suicide bomber targeted the Sufi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in the historic city of Sehwan, Pakistan. The attack was the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan in two years, leaving more than 80 people dead and hundreds injured. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the group had targeted "Shia gathering" and calling the suicide bomber "a "martyr of the Islamic State." Sufi Muslims can adhere to Shiite or Sunni forms of Islam. (Sources: Independent, Independent)

Apostates

ISIS has executed thousands of civilians and opposition soldiers under the pretext of apostasy. According to ISIS propaganda, any Muslim who resides outside of the so-called Islamic State and does not either travel to join the group or conduct domestic terror attacks is an apostate. Muslims within ISIS-held territory who resist the group or its laws are similarly deemed guilty of apostasy and sentenced to die. (Source: Dabiq)
ISIS's Territory
ISIS routinely labels its enemies as apostates, marking them for death. In January 2015, ISIS captured a group of 17 Syrian soldiers from the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, labeling the men as apostates and crucifying them before finally shooting them to death. In May 2016, ISIS released a video depicting the execution of five men charged with apostasy. In October 2016, ISIS militants reportedly executed 58 of its own fighters accused of planning a rebellion in its stronghold of Mosul, Iraq. The conspirators were charged with apostasy and drowned. Their bodies were dumped in a mass grave outside the city. (Sources: Dabiq, Christian Post, Daily Mail, Heavy, Reuters)
Worldwide
ISIS produces propaganda advocating for the murder of so-called apostates worldwide. ISIS's 14 th issue of Dabiq-released in April 2016-included an article claiming that imams in West continue to "poison" the minds of their students with ideas of "liberalism and democracy." The article singled out Muslim-American scholars for allegedly teaching "half-truths and false interpretations" regarding Islam. "Real" Muslims, according to ISIS, must move to the so-called Islamic State or wage jihad abroad to kill "disbelievers and apostates." The article asserted that a Muslim-regardless of where he or she lives-is not a true Muslim unless he or she shares ISIS's ideology and supports the group as a foreign fighter or domestic terrorist. (Source: Dabiq)

The Vilification of Other Religious Groups

ISIS incites, executes, and celebrates attacks against religious groups that reside outside of its territorial strongholds. On various occasions, ISIS has expressed its desire to target Jews and Hindus in particular, and professed its aims to eradicate the state of Israel and conquer India.

Jews

God has gathered you [Jews] in Palestine so that the Mujahadeen can reach you soon and you will hide by the rock and the tree. Palestine will be your graveyard. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, December 26, 2015

ISIS has sought to incite attacks against Jews around the world and has vowed to turn Israel into a "graveyard." (Sources: Anti-Defamation League, VICE)
Worldwide
In September 2014, former ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani released a video in which he blamed Jews for organizing the international coalition against ISIS. In that speech, Adnani called for attacks against Western soldiers and civilians, and calling U.S. President Barack Obama a "mule of the Jews." Adnani said, "The Jews! The Jews! Save the Jews!' This is the reason they [the U.S.-led coalition] came." ISIS supporters have also urged anti-Semitic attacks. In one post from February 2017, ISIS supporters on Telegram urged fanatics to "dress up like a Jew" and "terrorise the Yahood [Jew]." (Sources: Anti-Defamation League, )

ISIS has been successful in carrying out attacks on Jewish targets worldwide. In March 2016, a suspected ISIS suicide bomber killed three Israeli tourists outside of their hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. The attack came soon after the ISIS newsletter Al-Naba published an article commanding attacks on Jews worldwide. ISIS said that attacking Jews is the duty of every Muslim and urged supporters to attack "Jews and their allies where ever [you] may find them." That same month, Turkish intelligence officers uncovered an ISIS plot to attack Jewish schools Istanbul. (Sources: Jerusalem Post, Fox News)

In October 2015, U.S. citizen and ISIS sympathizer Mahin Khan reportedly told an undercover FBI agent that he intended to detonate a pressure cooker bomb outside of a Jewish community center in Arizona. In January 2015, Frenchman Amedy Coulibaly recorded a video in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS before he raided kosher food store and killed four people-all of them Jews-after taking multiple people hostage. In May 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, who had spent a year in Syria fighting for ISIS, killed four people and wounded another in a shooting at a Jewish Museum in Brussels. (Sources: ABC15, Breaking Israel News, Anti-Defamation League, Wall Street Journal)

ISIS was also found to have specifically targeted Jews during the March 2016 Brussels attacks, particularly at Brussels airport. According to sources close to the investigation, Jews traveling to Israel were targeted in particular. Bomber Najim Laachraoui allegedly followed a group of Hasidic Jews in the airport before detonating his device, according to the Belgian source. The source said that Laachraoui "seemed to rush towards two Orthodox Jews. He really, clearly wanted to kill a Jew." (Source: )

Hindus
Worldwide
In a May 2016 online video, ISIS encouraged Indian Muslims to travel to the "Caliphate" or else attack Hindus within India. The video depicted an Indian foreign fighter in Syria declaring, "In [ISIS's] land you get to have hatred for the kuffar [infidels]. In this land you get to perform jihad." In the video another fighter claims, "We will come back, with the sword, to free you [Muslims], [and] to avenge" anti-Muslim riots in India, including the 1992 burning of the Babri mosque in northeast India, and the 2002 riots in Gujarat and Kashmir, attacks that collectively left nearly 1,000 people dead. (Source: Independent)

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the majority of at least 30 murders of religious minorities, liberal bloggers, and academics in Bangladesh in 2015 and 2016. In the group's April 2016 issue of Dabiq, ISIS published an interview with "Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif," ISIS's former representative in Bangladesh. Hanif claimed that he was training fighters in Bangladesh and Pakistan to launch suicide attacks in India and rid the country of Hindus. "We will target Hindus in large numbers," said Hanif. (Sources: Independent, Dabiq, Firstpost, One India)

ISIS is also suspected behind several terrorist plots and attacks in India. In March 2017, two bombs exploded a train in the northern Indian city of Agra, wounding 10 people. The attack-believed to have been carried out by ISIS-came days after ISIS threatened to carry out attacks on the Taj Mahal mausoleum in Agra. India has also arrested suspected ISIS assailants. In October 2016, authorities arrested members of a suspected ISIS cell that had allegedly been plotting attacks during the Hindu festival of Diwali. (Sources: , , )

ISIS has also attempted to capitalize on anti-Hindu sentiment in Southeast Asia, promising to attack India in order to bring about "the end of the world." In July 2015, ISIS distributed a propaganda pamphlet in Afghanistan and Pakistan seeking to recruit Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. The document revealed ISIS's aspirations to unite the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS under one army and trigger all-out war by attacking India and provoking the United States to intervene. (Source: )

Conclusion

ISIS demonizes, threatens, and persecutes members of different religious groups, both within its so-called Islamic State and beyond. Among those attacked and persecuted within ISIS-controlled territory are Yazidis, Christians, Mandaeans, Shiites, Shabaks, Alawites, Sufis, and so-called apostates. ISIS also attempts to vilify and target Jews and Hindus outside of the group's controlled territories, denouncing them as sinners and enemies of Islam in attempt to harvest additional support from prospective recruits abroad.

ISIS maintains that non-Muslims must convert to Islam or die. Notably, however, the militants have committed some of their most violent and deadly attacks against other Muslims-including Shiites, Shabaks, Alawites, and Sufis, as well as secular or dissident Sunnis-whom the group labels as apostates.

ISIS's extremist ideology requires all religions to embrace the group's radical and perverse ideology, or else face persecution, abuse, torture and death. Backed by its violent actions and rhetoric, ISIS has repeatedly shown that no faith group-including and particularly the Christians, Yazidis, and Muslims in ISIS's immediate warpath-is safe from the group's extremist ideology.

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Since 2014, ISIS has demonized, threatened and persecuted religious minorities. This report explores the ideological justifications for ISIS's violent campaign to target-and ultimately eliminate-other religious communities. Executive Summary The fact is that [ISIS] kills Christians because they are Christians; Yazidis because they are Yazidis; Shia because they are Shia. Former U.S.

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Conflict

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sri lanka: 16 people killed in shootout between police and militants - cnn

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10 civilians and 6 suspected terrorists killed in police raid in Sri Lanka

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At least 16 people are dead after a shootout late Friday between police and alleged militants in eastern Sri Lanka.

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Venezuela crisis: Facts, FAQs, and how to help

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The Venezuela crisis has caused more than 6 million people to flee the country seeking food, work, and a better life. Learn more.

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Background

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NORTH AMERICA

The keynote speaker at the event was right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who was on an al Qaeda hit list. At least one of the gunmen appeared to have been in contact with an ISIS operative in Syria via social media. ISIS claimed responsibility, describing the attackers as "soldiers of the caliphate," according to the Institute for the Study of War. The institute described the attack as "ISIS-inspired," and U.S. officials said the group probably was being "opportunistic" in claiming responsibility. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

November 4, 2015 -- University of California, Merced, student Faisal Mohammad stabs four people before being shot to death by police. Authorities initially said the attack was simply the work of a disgruntled student, but the FBI concluded four months later that Mohammad had looked at ISIS and other terrorist websites and propaganda before the attack. The agency concluded the attack appeared to be terror-inspired, but said "it may never be possible to definitively determine why he chose to attack people on the UC Merced campus." None of the stabbing victims died.

December 2, 2015 -- Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, shoot 14 people to death and injure 21 others at a gathering of local government health workers in San Bernardino, California. Malik and Farook are gunned down in a shootout with law enforcement.

Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook, three U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The husband-and-wife team had developed extremist views as early as 2013, a time that predates the rise of ISIS, FBI Director Comey has said. And Farook tried to contact other terrorist groups, a senior law enforcement official said.

"Individuals inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) and with links to al Qaeda conducted the terrorist attack," according to the Institute for the Study of War. "This attack was the first al Qaeda- or ISIS-related in the U.S. by a skilled shooter team using both guns and explosives." The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

January 8, 2016 -- A man identified as Edward Archer is arrested after a Philadelphia police officer is shot and wounded. Officer Jesse Hartnett was hit three times and suffered "some very serious injuries that will require multiple surgeries," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said. Despite being seriously injured, Hartnett got out of his patrol car and shot the assailant, who later was apprehended by other officers, Ross said.

Archer claims to have committed the attack on ISIS' behalf, telling police: "I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State, and that's why I did what a did." Archer has a criminal history and impending court appearances. He had traveled to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

June 12, 2016 -- A gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was killed by police three hours after taking hostages in the club. Mateen was a 27-year old U.S. citizen of Afghan descent who pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 phone call during the siege. Subsequent analysis of his computer shows he was also an admirer of al Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki.

President Obama said there was no evidence the attacker was under direction from a terrorist network, or carrying out any group's larger plot. ISIS media outlet Al-Bayan later described Mateen as "one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America," but the group provided no evidence of communication with the attacker. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

Nemmouche was arrested with a Kalashnikov, a handgun, an audio recording claiming responsibility and a white sheet emblazoned with the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

December 20, 2014 - A man stabs three police officers in the French city of Tours. The attacker was a 20-year-old French citizen who was born in Burundi. He was shot dead by police. CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank reported that the attacker had posted the ISIS flag on his Facebook page. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

January 9, 2015 - Amedy Coulibaly is killed during a police rescue operation to end his siege at a kosher grocery store in Paris. Authorities say he killed four hostages. He allegedly shot a Paris policewoman the previous day. Coulibaly had pledged his allegiance to ISIS in a video made before the attack. He was a friend of Said and Cherif Kouachi, who killed 12 people two days earlier in an attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack at Charlie Hebdo.

Pro-ISIS sources circulated a video in which Coulibaly pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in front of an ISIS flag, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Investigators found ISIS flags, automatic weapons, detonators and cash in an apartment rented by Coulibaly outside Paris. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

The head was tied to the factory's fence, along with two flags bearing "the Islamist profession of faith," authorities said.

"We can note that this perfectly matches ISIS' watchword, which regularly calls for committing terrorist attacks on the French territory, and to precisely slit the throats of the nonbelievers," Molins said. "The beheading also precisely recalls this terrorist organization's modus operandi." The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

September 2, 2015 - ISIS announces that its affiliate in the Caucasus had launched an attack on a Russian military facility in southern Dagestan, a troubled Russian republic, claiming a number of Russian soldiers were killed or injured. There is no independent confirmation of the attack.

November 13, 2015 - A series of terror attacks in Paris kills at least 130 people and wounds more than 350 others. The attackers, armed with assault rifles and explosives, target six locations across the city -- including a soccer match as France plays world champion Germany and the Bataclan concert hall, where most of the fatalities occur. In an online statement distributed by supporters, ISIS said eight militants wearing explosive belts and armed with machine guns attacked precisely selected areas in the French capital. The Institute for the Study of War described the attacks as the terror group's "most sophisticated assault in the West to date." It was the worst violence in France since World War II. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

December 5, 2015 - A 29-year-old man attacks another man in the Leytonstone Underground station in London, England. He cut the man's throat in a "sawing motion," prosecutors said. The attacker was heard to shout, "This is for Syria, my Muslim brothers." Britain's Press Association said his cell phone contained images and flags associated with ISIS. Police said they were investigating the incident as a terrorist offense. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

December 30, 2015 - An ISIS affiliate in the Caucasus says it carried out a gun attack in the city of Derbent in Dagestan, claiming to have killed a "Russian intelligence officer." Reports from the region say a shooting at the ancient citadel in Derbent targeted a group of tourists and killed a security guard, injuring several others. The Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus pledged allegiance to ISIS in June 2015.

January 7, 2016 - A man is shot dead by police in Paris as he wields a large knife outside a metro station. A Paris prosecutor later says the man -- thought to be Tunisian -- had a sketch of an ISIS flag and had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Baghdadi. "We might be confronted to highly organized networks like the one in November or we could also run into an isolated attack by a person with psychological problems," says the prosecutor, Francois Molins.

February 15, 2016 - The ISIS affiliate in the Caucasus claims a vehicle-suicide bombing at a police checkpoint in the Russian republic of Dagestan. The attack occurred in the city of Derbent. Local officials say two police were killed and 12 injured. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 19, 2016 - A suicide bomber strikes a busy tourist area in Istanbul, Turkey, killing four and hurting 36. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the attacker is linked to ISIS. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 22, 2016 - Two explosions at Brussels airport and another at a subway station in the Maalbeek district of the Belgian capital leave at least 32 people dead and scores injured. In a statement posted online by several prominent supporters and by the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency, ISIS claimed that its fighters carried out the attacks.

March 30, 2016 - Two attacks in two days in the Russian republic of Dagestan are claimed by the ISIS affiliate. The first, on March 29, claims to have killed ten Russian soldiers near Kaspiysk; the following day a suicide attack on a police checkpoint kills several, according to the ISIS media office in the Caucasus. Russian officials acknowledge both attacks took place, but say casualties are much lower than claimed.

June 13, 2016 - Larossi Abballa, a 25-year-old Islamic extremist, killed a police officer and his romantic partner in the town of Magnanville, west of Paris. In the midst of his attack, he pledged allegiance to ISIS via Facebook. Abballa had previously been convicted for jihadist activities and was under investigation by French authorities. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

June 28, 2016 - Three suicide bombers attack the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul. They killed 44 people with gunfire and the explosions of powerful suicide vests. The incident marks the highest death toll in a terror attack against an airport. The perpetrators were identified by Turkish authorities as from the central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and from the Dagestan region of Russia. Turkish officials told CNN the three had been dispatched from ISIS' headquarters in Raqqa, Syria, and had occupied an apartment in Istanbul for a month before carrying out the attack. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS.

July 14, 2016 - A French-Tunisian man drove a truck into crowds celebrating France's National Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring many more, investigators said.. At least ten children were among the dead. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who had no record of terrorist involvement, was shot dead by police after driving the truck more than one kilometer through crowds who had been watching a fireworks display on the Promenade des Anglais. The ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq described Bouhlel as "from the soldiers of the State."

US Secretary of State John Kerry said later there was "no indication" that ISIS played a role in directing or ordering the Nice attack. But French prosecutor Francois Molins said Bouhlel had apparently planned the attack for several months and had "support and accomplices." The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

July 16, 2016 - A 17-year old Afghan launched a knife attack on passengers on a train in Germany. The ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq later claimed that Muhammad Riyad, who was shot dead by police after escaping from the train, "attacked the Crusader passengers with an axe and a knife." It later issued a video of Riyad in which he said he was a "soldier of the Caliphate" and would "carry out a martyrdom operation in Germany." The attack took place near the city of Wurzburg in Bavaria. Five people were wounded, one of them critically. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

January 27, 2015 - An attack on the luxury Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, kills at least 10 people. The Libyan branch of ISIS claims responsibility for the assault, which killed five foreigners, including David Berry, an American security contractor.

"The attack was an inflection in ISIS's Libya campaign, aimed at securing the cooperation of Islamist rebel groups in western Libya while slowly expanding ISIS's stronghold in the east," the Institute for the Study of War reported. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 29, 2015 - Car bombs and mortar rounds target army and police positions in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 26 and wounding nearly 40 others. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a militant group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS, said via Twitter that it was behind the attacks. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 15, 2015 - ISIS releases a video it says shows the beheadings on a Libyan beach of 21 Coptic Christians who had been kidnapped in Egypt. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 20, 2015 - Three simultaneous suicide car bomb attacks kill at least 30 people and injure more than 40 others in Gobba, Libya. The Libyan branch of ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 18, 2015 - A terrorist attack on the landmark Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia, leaves 23 dead, including many foreign tourists. Another 36 people are hospitalized, and eight others are treated and released. The siege ends when security forces kill two of the attackers. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi later confirmed that a third person took part in the museum attack and got away.

ISIS claimed responsibility. "The suicide gunmen attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis ... demonstrates how the confluence of ISIS and al-Qaeda elements in North Africa may lead to emergent threats in the region," the Institute for the Study of War says.

"While both groups recruit heavily from Tunisia, the al-Qaeda affiliated Uqba Ibn Nafaa Brigade is the country's strongest operational extremist group. However, the Bardo attack diverged from Uqba's usual pattern of attacking security forces near its mountainous stronghold in western Tunisia, indicating that ISIS-linked elements likely played some role in the operation." The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 20, 2015 - Terrorists bomb two mosques in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 137 and wounding 357. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

April 2015 - A Syrian teacher, identified as 39-year-old Shuja Gannun, is killed in Kahramanmaras, in southern Turkey. ISIS later said it had killed him, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks terrorist activity. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

April 12, 2015 - Militants aligned with ISIS take responsibility for attacks that killed at least 12 people in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. At least 45 people were injured. The assaults targeted a police station, a checkpoint and a highway. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an ISIS affiliate, claimed responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

April 19, 2015 - ISIS' media arm releases a video of operatives beheading two groups of prisoners, believed to include at least 30 Ethiopian Christians, at different locations in Libya. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one if its affiliates.

Late May 2015 - A man disguised as a woman kills three people when he blows himself up outside a mosque in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. ISIS claimed responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

June 26, 2015 - A gunman kills at least 38 people and wounds about 40 others in an attack on a seaside resort in Sousse, Tunisia. ISIS claimed responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

June 26, 2015 - A bomb blast tears through the Imam Sadiq mosque during Friday prayers in Kuwait City, Kuwait, killing 27 people and wounding 227 others. ISIS claims responsibility for the suicide bombing. The assault was carried out by ISIS affiliate Wilayat Najd, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

June 29, 2015 - A car bomb in Sanaa, Yemen, injures at least 35 people, two critically. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

July 23, 2015 -- At least five ISIS militants in northern Syria approach the border and fire on a Turkish border unit, killing a soldier and wounding two others, the Turkish military says. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

August 6, 2015 - An explosion rips through a mosque in the Asir region of southwestern Saudi Arabia, killing at least 13 people and injuring nine others. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

August 12, 2015 - Images published online appear to show the body of Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian national, officials from various countries and the SITE Intelligence Group say. He is believed to have been beheaded. A group claiming to be ISIS' branch in the Sinai Peninsula had threatened to kill Salopek, who was abducted in Egypt, if Egypt didn't release female Muslim prisoners. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

September 2, 2015 -- At least 28 people are killed and dozens more wounded in two suicide bombings at the al-Moayyad mosque in Sanaa, Yemen. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

September 24, 2015 - A bomb blast at the Al Bilaili mosque in Sanaa, Yemen, kills at least 29 people. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

October 6, 2015 - Explosions rock a hotel in southern Yemen that houses members of deposed President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi's government. At least 15 people are reported killed. ISIS claims responsibility, though a Yemeni government minister blames Houthi rebels. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

October 10, 2015 - Two bombs explode at a peace rally in Ankara,Turkey, killing at least 97 people and wounding nearly 250 others. The Turkish Prime Minister later said investigators suspected ISIS. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

November 12, 2015 - Suicide bombers blow themselves up in Beirut, Lebanon, killing at least 43 people and injuring 239 others. A would-be suicide bomber who survived told investigators that he was an ISIS recruit, a Lebanese security source said. He told authorities that he and three other attackers arrived in Lebanon from Syria, the source said. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

November 24, 2015 -- A bomb hits a bus carrying members of the Tunisian presidential guard in Tunis, Tunisia, killing 12 people. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

December 6, 2015 - A car bomb explosion kills the governor of the major Yemeni city of Aden and six bodyguards. ISIS claims responsibility. The attack is believed to have been conducted by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

December 30, 2015 - ISIS claims the murder of an officer in the Egyptian army and his driver near the Central Security camp in the capital. There is no independent confirmation of the attack.

December 31, 2015 - ISIS claims the bombing of an Egyptian police checkpoint in Giza, reporting that its fighters entered a police checkpoint and planted and later detonated a large improvised explosive device, killing and wounding all who were inside. There is no independent confirmation of the attack.

January 8, 2016 - ISIS' Libyan affiliate claims a suicide attack on a military training center for Libyan forces in Zliten, southeast of Tripoli. The town's mayor tells CNN that at least 50 people were killed in a truck bombing at the center. ISIS claims more than 80 were killed. It is the most lethal suicide bombing ever staged by the ISIS Libyan affiliate.

On the same day, ISIS claims a second attack that kills six people at a checkpoint in Ras Lanouf.

January 8, 2016 - ISIS claims a gun attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Egypt's Giza governorate, reporting "deaths and wounds among the passengers." But CNN reports no casualties in what appears to have been an incident involving fireworks. Egypt's Interior Ministry describes the incident as a minor clash between security and a small of group of protesters.

January 12, 2016 - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says the man who carried out a suicide bombing that killed 10 foreigners in Istanbul belonged to ISIS. The blast happened late in the morning in Sultanahmet Square, a tourist hub in the heart of Istanbul between the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. The attacker had recently come into Turkey from Syria, accord to Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.

January 14, 2016 - Widespread clashes are reported between ISIS militants and the Egyptian military in northern Sinai. Egypt said its forces killed 30 Islamist militants while four Egyptian army personnel were killed at a security checkpoint near the town of Sheikh Zuweid. ISIS claims responsibility for several attacks in the town. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 20, 2016 - ISIS claims responsibility for an attack in Arish in Sinai, which kills five police officers. ISIS said that a bomb targeted a patrol and was followed by clashes between ISIS militants and police officers. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 21, 2016 - Suspected ISIS militants launched an attack on oil terminal in the Libyan port of Ras Lanuf, causing at least one storage tank to explode and a pipeline to catch fire, according to the Libyan news agency and an engineer. No casualties are reported. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 27, 2016 - Two remote-controlled bombs explode as a patrol of Egyptian security forces drives near al-Arish in north Sinai. ISIS forces in north Sinai claim that more than 20 people were killed and wounded, including a senior commander; the official death toll is four, according to Egyptian media, with 12 injured.

In a separate attack, five police officers were shot dead by unknown gunmen in central al-Arish, according to the Egyptian Interior Ministry. One was a lieutenant colonel.

Both attacks are believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 28, 2016 - A suicide attack targets the presidential palace in Aden, in the south of Yemen. The Ma'ashiq Palace is where President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi is based since returning from exile. Security sources told CNN that the explosion killed 11 people, including two children. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 29, 2016 - An attack on a mosque in al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, kills at least four people and injures nearly 30. The Shia mosque is attacked by two men wearing explosive belts, one Egyptian and the other Saudi. The Egyptian, identified as Talha Hesham Abdo, is detained. No claim of responsibility is made, but the attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 3, 2016 - ISIS publishes photographs of executions of several men in Libya described as spies. All were executed in the ISIS stronghold of Sirte.

On the same day, ISIS claims that fighters of its Barqah Province in Libya attacked a military checkpoint with remotely-detonated explosives, killing more than 20 soldiers. There is no independent confirmation of the attack, but there are reports of clashes between ISIS fighters and army forces in Benghazi on that day.

February 4, 2016 - ISIS claims an IED attack in north Sinai on a military vehicle. There is no independent confirmation but Egyptian security forces say 10 militants are killed in a series of raids over the following days.

February 11, 2016 - ISIS in Libya's Barqah province claims an attack on a camp of a rival faction near the town of Derna. It says that a remotely detonated IED killed three people. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 17, 2016 - ISIS in Yemen claims that one of its members killed nearly 20 soldiers in a suicide bombing at the Ras Abbas military camp, west of Aden. Yemeni officials said 13 people were killed at the camp, which had been recently set up to admit recruits to the Yemeni army. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 20, 2016 - ISIS' affiliate in Egypt's Sinai desert claims IED attacks against soldiers near Bir al-Abd, killing and wounding "all passengers" in two military vehicles. Egyptian authorities did not comment on the claims.

February 25, 2016 - Officials in Sabratha, western Libya, say ISIS fighters briefly took over the city's security headquarters, killing and beheading 12 officers. The head of the Military Council admits ISIS fighters "exploited a security vacuum" by deploying in the city center as the military conducted raids elsewhere. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 26, 2016 - ISIS in Libya's Barqah province claims to have killed "dozens" from rival factions during heavy fighting around Benghazi. The group also claims that a vehicle suicide bombing in al-Hawari, near Benghazi, killed 25 soldiers. Other reports speak of heavy fighting in the area at this time, but don't provide details of casualties. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 28, 2016 - ISIS' affiliate in the Sinai desert in Egypt claims that a series of attacks in the cities of al-Arish and Sheikh Zuweid killed and wounded more than 10 members of the security forces, including a police captain shot outside his home. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 2, 2016 -- ISIS' affiliate in the Sinai desert in Egypt claims multiple bombings against the Egyptian army and publishes photos of an IED attack against an army patrol near Sheikh Zuweid, in which it claims three soldiers were killed. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 7, 2016 -- Dozens of ISIS fighters attack the Tunisian town of Ben Gardane near the Libyan border. Prolonged gunbattles leave a total of 53 people dead, including several civilians and 43 militants, according to the official Tunisian news agency. Tunisian authorities say most of the ISIS attackers were Tunisian nationals. Prime Minister Habib Essid says the attackers intended to establish a "Daesh emirate" by seizing the area. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 8, 2016 - ISIS claims an assault on Egyptian forces in the Zurra al-Khayr area, west of the town of al-Arish. Its daily al-Bayan news bulletin says five Egyptian soldiers were killed or wounded in an IED attack. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 10, 2016 -- ISIS says its fighters in Libya detonated an IED near the town of Derna, wounding one. ISIS' media arm, Aamaq, also claims an attack on a Libyan Dawn militia checkpoint near Sirte, a coastal city held by ISIS. The attack follows a reported airstrike by Libyan Dawn on Sirte. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 12, 2016 -- In its first claim in more than a year, ISIS in southern Libya's Fezzan province says it carryied out an ambush on a road between Mizda and Qaryat, killing a number of Libyan soldiers. Photographs show some of the weapons allegedly captured. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 14, 2016 - An Egyptian police officer is shot dead by masked individuals in North Sinai, the Interior Ministry says. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 18, 2016 - Egyptian security officials and media say at least five soldiers were killed and eight others injured when militants attacked an army checkpoint with mortars near Rafah in North Sinai. The attack follows a bombing on March 17 in the same area which killed one officer. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

March 19, 2016 - Egypt's Interior Ministry says 15 policemen were killed in a mortar attack on a checkpoint near northern Sinai's provincial capital of al-Arish. The Sinai-based ISIS affiliate claims responsibility in a statement on social media.

April 2, 2016 - ISIS' province in Saudi Arabia, known as Wilayat Najd, claimed an attack against a police station near the capital, Riyadh. No injuries were reported. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

April 5, 2016 - Wilayat Najd, ISIS' province in Saudi Arabia, claimed it assassinated a senior police officer west of Riyadh. The official news agency later confirmed Col. Kitab Majed al-Hammadi was shot dead and blamed ISIS. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

April 8, 2016 - At least five Egyptian soldiers and one civilian are killed when armored vehicles are blown up in two incidents, according to security sources. ISIS' Sinai affiliate claims responsibility for the attacks in Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid.

April 17, 2016 - ISIS' affiliate in eastern Libya claimed to have carried out a vehicle-borne suicide attack against rival groups near the city of Derna. There was no confirmation of the attack, which was reported as rival militia launched a major offensive against ISIS in the area. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

April 25, 2016 - ISIS' province in Algeria (Wilayat Jaza'ir) claimed an attack against Algerian security forces in Jijel. There was no confirmation from Algerian sources. The origins of the attack are unclear.

May 8, 2016 - ISIS claimed an attack on security forces in suburban Cairo. Eight policemen were killed in a drive-by shooting in the industrial town of Helwan, according to the Interior Ministry. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 15, 2016 - ISIS' affiliate in Yemen claimed responsibility for a suicide attack against Yemeni security forces at their base in the southern city of Mukalla. Security officials told CNN at least 30 soldiers were killed at the base's crowded entrance. The head of security in Hadramout province escaped assassination when a second suicide bomber targeted his convoy, but six others were killed. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 20, 2016 - Two members of the Egyptian security forces were killed when a roadside bomb detonated close to their vehicle near the town of Al-Arish, in northern Sinai. ISIS claimed the attack in its daily bulletin of operations. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 23, 2016 - At least 43 Yemeni military recruits and soldiers were killed in two ISIS suicide bombings in the southern city of Aden, local security officials said. One bomber targeted a recruitment center while a second blew himself up in the middle of a group of soldiers in the city. (Aden is the headquarters of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.) The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 31, 2016 - Six Egyptian soldiers were killed when their armored vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in northern Sinai, according to security officials. ISIS' daily bulletin of operations later claimed responsibility. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 8, 2016 - Two gunmen carried out an attack on a market in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis. The Israeli Security Agency later said the attackers had been inspired by ISIS, but not directed by the group, which never claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

June 16, 2016 - Two Egyptian police officers were shot dead at their homes in Al-Arish, North Sinai, according to the Interior Ministry. The attack was claimed by ISIS in its daily bulletin of operations. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 19, 2016 - A booby-trapped car killed six Jordanian security forces at a military post near the entrance to the Al-Rukban refugee camp in northeastern Jordan. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack. ISIS-affiliated media claimed the attack had targeted the "American Jordanian al-Rukban military base" and posted video of a vehicle speeding toward the post, followed by an explosion. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS.

June 27, 2016 - ISIS' branch in Yemen claimed another series of attacks on the city of Mukulla on the Arabian Sea coast. It said eight suicide bombers killed more than 50 soldiers and posted photographs of five of the bombers. Yemeni officials said at least 42 people, mostly soldiers, were killed, and at least 30 wounded. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 27, 2016 - ISIS' daily news bulletin -- Al Bayan -- claimed an attack by its affiliate in northern Sinai against an Egyptian military vehicle, and subsequent clashes with troops. Local media reported the death of a soldier by a sniper in Sheikh Zuwaid. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 30, 2016 - ISIS' daily news bulletin, Al-Bayan, claimed that the group's affiliate in Sinai killed and wounded several members of the Egyptian military. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said one policeman was killed by an IED. On the same day, ISIS claimed the assassination of a Coptic Christian priest in the town of al Arish. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 5, 2016 - Three suicide bombings took place in Saudi Arabia -- in Medina, Jeddah and Qatif. Saudi authorities identified the Jeddah bomber as a Pakistani; two guards were wounded in the attack, close to the US consulate. The Medina attack, close to one of the holiest sites in Islam, killed four security guards. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Saudi officials blamed local cells sympathetic to ISIS.

July 9, 2016 - Members of ISIS' affiliate in North Sinai shot and killed a man they accused of collaborating with the Egyptian military. The killing occurred in the town of Sheikh Zuweid and was the third attack on alleged 'collaborators' within a week. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 10, 2016 - An Egyptian brigadier-general, Ahmed Kamal Mahmous, and one other soldier were killed by an IED that exploded in central Sinai, according to local reports. The attack took place in Al-Munbatih and was claimed three days later by ISIS in its daily news bulletin, which claimed several casualties in addition to Mahmous. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 12, 2016 - A roadside bomb killed two Egyptian policemen in Northern Sinai, according to the interior ministry. Two other police personnel were wounded in the bombing of a police patrol in the provincial capital of Al-Arish, the ministry added in a statement. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 14, 2016 - In its daily bulletin, ISIS claimed its fighters in northern Sinai had killed several Egyptian soldiers in a bomb attack on their vehicle south of Al-Arish. Separately, a police officer in the town was shot dead, according to local sources. ISIS' affiliate in Northern Sinai said "soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in targeting" the officer. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 17, 2016 - ISIS claimed that a counter-attack against Libyan militia in Sirte killed and wounded 250 enemy fighters, largely through suicide bombings to the south and east of the city. A spokesman for the government-backed militia confirmed 20 dead and 120 wounded in previous days. Sirte, seized by ISIS in 2015, had been under siege by Libyan militia for several weeks before the attack. At least one mass grave has been found as the militia have advanced. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by an affiliate of ISIS.

July 20, 2016 - Nine people reportedly were killed in a few attacks. ISIS claimed that its fighters in Sinai killed three Egyptian soldiers and destroyed their armored vehicle in an IED attack in the town of Al-Arish. Security sources confirmed the deaths of four police personnel in another incident. Elsewhere in Sinai, ISIS claimed to have shot dead two Egyptian soldiers. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by an affiliate of ISIS.

July 20, 2016 - ISIS claimed to have killed seven Yemeni soldiers in a bombing in Aden. A statement distributed on Twitter said its fighters had detonated an IED against "a gathering of soldiers in the city." Local reports spoke of five soldiers being killed in the attack. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an affiliate of ISIS.

April 24, 2016 - ISIS' West Africa province, better known as Boko Haram, claimed an ambush of Nigerian forces in the country's northeastern Borno state. The Nigerian army said there were battles in the area at the time. Unusually, the claim was reported by ISIS media outlets, which had frequently ignored Boko Haram operations. ISIS claimed the attack had killed 10 Nigerian soldiers and posted photographs of the dead. (Note: Not all attacks by Boko Haram are claimed as ISIS operations.) The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

April 25, 2016 - The embryonic ISIS presence in Somalia claimed its first attack: an unsuccessful attempt to destroy an African Union Mission in Somalia vehicle in Mogadishu. Counterterrorism officials estimate the number of ISIS sympathizers in Somalia in the low hundreds. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 12, 2016 - Boko Haram, the West Africa province of ISIS, claimed it killed at least 15 "apostates" in a suicide bombing targeting a government building in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri. It posted a photograph of the bomber. Other accounts put the death toll at five. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 4, 2016 - Boko Haram claimed it killed 35 soldiers in an attack in the border town of Bosso, Niger. In a communique released on Telegram, it said those killed included soldiers from Niger and neighboring Nigeria. The ISIS journal Al-Naba later produced a detailed account of the attack. Defense officials in Niger later said 30 soldiers had been killed, along with two from Nigeria. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 7, 2016 - Boko Haram released a statement claiming responsibility for an attack targeting a police station and barracks in Yobe state, in northern Nigeria. The statement claimed seven soldiers and policemen had been killed. ISIS later published photographs of a large haul of weapons allegedly seized in the attack. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 30, 2016 -- A suicide bomber thought to belong to ISIS affiliate Boko Haram killed at least 11 people when he blew himself up in a village close to Cameroon's border with Nigeria. Officials said the bomber, described by some as a boy, attacked a mosque in the village of Djakana as locals broke their Ramadan fast.. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 8, 2016 - Two suicide bombers launched attacks on mosques in the Nigerian town of Damboa during dawn prayers. Six people were killed, according to the Nigerian military, all of them when the second bomber managed to enter a mosque. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks but officials blamed Boko Haram, an ISIS affiliate. The bombings are believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 19, 2016 - ISIS claimed that its West African province had attacked Cameroonian army positions in the south-west of the country, an area previously attacked by Boko Haram militants. ISIS said the attack had taken place in the Fotokol area, and eight soldiers had been killed. There was no verifiable account of the attack. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an affiliate of ISIS.

December 15, 2014 - A gunman takes 17 hostages in a cafe in Sydney. Police storm the cafe after 16 hours. Two hostages are killed. So is the gunman. Other people are injured, including a police officer who suffers a wound to the face from gunshot pellets. The gunman is identified as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian-born refugee who was granted political asylum in Australia in 2001. During the siege, Monis demanded the delivery of an ISIS flag, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The hostage-taker "sought to cloak his actions with the symbolism of the (ISIS) death cult," said Tony Abbott, the prime minister at the time. The U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism described Monis as an "ISIL sympathizer." The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

September 28, 2015 - ISIS claims responsibility for gunning down an Italian citizen, Cesare Tavella, 51, who was jogging home in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka after swimming at the American International School's pool. Police later arrested four Bangladeshi citizens in Tavella's killing. Muntashirul Islam, Dhaka's police commissioner, described the suspects as contract killers hired by a person they referred to as "Big Brother" to kill a foreigner, preferably with "white skin"; he said none of the four or "Big Brother" is believed to have direct ties to ISIS.

Bangladesh experienced several violent acts inspired by extremists in 2015; this is the first for which ISIS claimed responsibility. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh has said that ISIS is not a presence in Bangladesh and that domestic factors were the motivation for people who have killed bloggers and foreign nationals in the country, according to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the national news agency of Bangladesh. The attack may have been inspired by ISIS.

October 3, 2015 - Hoshi Kunio, a 65-year-old man from Japan, is shot and killed by assailants in a village in the district of Rangpur, Bangladesh. ISIS claims responsibility in its online magazine, according to the SITE terrorist-monitoring organization. Police blame the killing on the banned extremist group Jama'atul Mujaheedin Bangladesh, according to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha.The attack may have been inspired by ISIS.

November 26, 2015 - Gunmen burst into a Shiite mosque in Bangladesh and open fire, killing one person and wounding three others. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement distributed online by supporters. Mohammad Asaduzzaman, police superintendent in the Bogra district of northern Bangladesh, said investigators were aware of the claim but couldn't verify it. The attack may have been inspired by ISIS.

January 13, 2016 - Three ISIS fighters launch an attack on the Pakistani consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad. The first operative reportedly detonated his explosives while attacking the consulate's guards and a second bomber detonated his device inside the building. A local official said six people were killed, as well as the three assailants. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

January 14, 2016 -Gunfire and at least five explosions erupted around midday in a busy commercial area in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, killing at least two and injuring 19 others. ISIS claimed responsibility in a statement posted online by the terror organization, translated by the monitoring group Flashpoint and confirmed by CNN. Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian singled out a militant named Bahrun Naim, who he said plotted the attack to assert himself among various figures competing to lead ISIS in Southeast Asia. Naim is thought to be in Syria and is suspected of recruiting supporters through social media. The attack is believed to have been carried out by ISIS or one of its affiliates.

February 22, 2016 -- ISIS claims responsibility for the killing of Hindu priest Jogeswar Roy in northern Bangladesh. Police say two assailants armed with pistols and cleavers attacked Roy at his home. The Bangladeshi government insists the spate of attacks in ISIS' name are in reality the work of home-grown militants. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

March 14, 2016 - ISIS claims responsibility fo the assassination of a Shia cleric in Bangladesh. Hafiz Abdul Razak was stabbed to death in Jhenaidah in southwestern Bangladesh. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

March 16, 2016 - A pro-ISIS group in the Philippines, Ansarul Khilafah, releases a video showing the beheading of an accused spy, identifying the man as Robert Pepito. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

April 3, 2016 - A pro-ISIS jihadi posts video showing an undated attack by a group pledged to ISIS in the Philippines. In Arabic and Maranao, the video is posted on Telegram and produced by a media unit called "Ala al-Haqi Madhoon." No location for the attack is given. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

April 9, 2016 - ISIS said its supporters had conducted their first attack in the Philippines, claiming they killed 100 Filipino soldiers. The claim was disputed by Filipino officials, who said 18 soldiers had been killed in a gunbattle with another jihadist group -- Abu Sayyaf -- in the town of Tipo-Tipo. The officials played down any ISIS role in the attack. The origins of the attack are unclear.

April 21, 2016 - ISIS supporters who had defected from another jihadist group in the Philippines issued a video showing the undated execution of two men, claiming they were spies. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

April 23, 2016 - ISIS claimed the assassination of a university professor in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, but officials cast doubt on the claim. Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was attacked with machetes. The origins of the attack are unclear.

May 9, 2016 - ISIS supporters in the Philippines claimed a raid on a military checkpoint in Maluso province, killing one soldier. It was the second claim of an attack on the Philippines' military by ISIS in as many months. ISIS appointed an emir for its followers in the Philippines. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 18, 2016 - The ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, known as Wilayat Khorasan, claimed it had detonated two IEDs in Peshawar, Pakistan. There was no confirmation from Pakistani authorities. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

May 25, 2016 - The ISIS-linked Amaq news agency claimed militants affiliated with the group were responsible for the murder of a Hindu businessman in northern Bangladesh. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

June 6, 2016 - The Khorasan Province of ISIS claimed it had carried out the assassination of Afghan member of parliament Sher Wali Wardak the previous day. Wardak was killed by an IED while in his car in Kabul. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

June 7, 2016 - ISIS issued a statement claiming its followers had slaughtered a Hindu monk in western Bangladesh. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

June 20, 2016 - The Khorasan province of ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a bus carrying Nepalese security guards in the Afghan capital, Kabul. At least 16 people were killed in the attack. ISIS identified the bomber as Irfanullah Ahmed and published a photo of him. But the Afghan Taliban also claimed responsibility for the attack. The origins of the attack are unknown.

July 1, 2016 - In the first attack of its kind in Bangladesh, several men armed with guns, knives and explosives took dozens of people hostage at a restaurant in the capital, Dhaka. At least 21 people from around the world were killed.

ISIS' affiliated Amaq news outlet and the group's own Telegram account claimed responsibility for the attack, posting photographs from inside the café and of the attackers holding their weapons before the assault. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed the group's fighters killed two soldiers in the Philippines' province of Lanao del Sur. Amaq said the soldiers' armored vehicle had been attacked near the city of Marawi in the southern Phillipines. Security forces confirmed the incident, but said it was the work of local jihadists. The attack is believed to have been inspired by ISIS.

A suicide bomber attacked a police station in Central Java in Indonesia, killing himself and injuring a police officer. The attack took place in the city of Solo. Indonesian police identified the bomber as a 30-year old man linked to an ISIS network led by Bahrun Naim. The attack is believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

ISIS claimed killing at least 40 Philippine soldiers in a week of clashes on the island of Basilan, according to a communique distributed on the group's Telegram and Twitter accounts. Philippines officials confirmed several days of clashes and blamed a faction of the jihadist group Aby Sayyaf, some of whose leaders had previously pledged allegiance to ISIS. They did not confirm military casualties. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by an ISIS affiliate.

July 23, 2016 -- ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a peaceful demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 260 others. Two ISIS fighters detonated their suicide belts among the protesters, according to ISIS' media wing, Amaq. A third attacker was killed by security forces before detonating his bomb, according to an Afghan security official speaking on condition of anonymity. The attack was one of the deadliest in months in Afghanistan.

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isis goes global: mapping isis attacks around the world - cnn

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ISIS: 143 attacks in 29 countries have killed 2,043

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NORTH AMERICA The keynote speaker at the event was right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who was on an al Qaeda hit list. At least one of the gunmen appeared to have been in contact with an ISIS operative in Syria via social media.

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Police officers searched for the gunman in a fatal shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday. Credit Credit Patrick Seeger/EPA, via Shutterstock

STRASBOURG, France - The deadly shooting at a crowded Strasbourg street market was an act of terrorism, officials said Wednesday, as hundreds of police officers hunted the fugitive assailant, a man described as a radicalized hometown career criminal.

The gunman killed at least two people and wounded 12 in the Tuesday night shooting spree at the famous Christmas market in Strasbourg, a city of more than a quarter-million in France's northeast border with Germany.

Rémy Heitz, the Paris prosecutor, who handles terrorism investigations nationwide, said at a news conference in Strasbourg that witnesses had heard the attacker yell " Allahu akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic, and that the targets and the suspect's profile justified the opening of a terrorism investigation.

Officials said the suspect had an extensive record and had served time in prison. More than 700 members of the security forces were searching for the suspect in Strasbourg, the French interior minister said.

"He had been incarcerated multiple times and was known to the prison administration for his radicalization and his proselytizing attitude," Mr. Heitz said of the suspect, identified as Chérif Chekatt, 29, who was born in Strasbourg. He was released from prison in late 2015.

On Wednesday evening, the French authorities appealed for witnesses, issuing a notice that included a picture of Mr. Chekatt and a physical description.

The notice asked people who might have seen him to contact the police but warned them not to confront the suspect, calling him "dangerous."

Mr. Chekatt was one of about 20,000 people flagged for possible radicalization by the French security services, and was also flagged with what is known in France as a Fiche S, or an S File, Mr. Heitz said. Four people in the suspect's entourage were taken into custody overnight, he added.

The attack Tuesday night hit one of France's most popular Christmas markets, unleashing chaos among the thousands of people milling around the vendors' stalls dotting Strasbourg's historical neighborhood.

[Read more about the deadly attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market.]
The authorities initially said that the gunman had killed three people, but Mr. Heitz later revised that death toll, specifying that two people had been killed and one was considered brain-dead. Six people were seriously wounded, he said.

City officials said the two people who were killed were a French citizen and a Thai citizen.

Among those injured was the daughter of a couple who own a cheese chop in the Rue des Orfèvres, a narrow street near the city's cathedral, where the attacker opened fire.

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The suspect in the shooting, Chérif Chekatt. Credit French Police

"Today our daughter Jeanne was the victim of a coward," Christelle Lorho wrote on Facebook. "We are lucky that she is still among us."

The shooting recalled other attacks in recent years by Islamist extremists in France, Belgium and other parts of Europe. Benjamin Griveaux, the French government spokesman, said after a cabinet meeting in Paris on Wednesday that President Emmanuel Macron had warned that "the terrorist threat is still at the heart of our nation's life."

The Strasbourg market has long been in the cross hairs of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, which see it as a symbol of an infidel holiday. In 2000, a cell based in Frankfurt plotted to attack the market, but its communications were intercepted and the plot foiled.

More recently, in fall 2016, a group of men deployed by the Islamic State's external operations arm in Syria planned to attack the market. French officials penetrated the cell and thwarted the attack, but it prompted the United States State Department to issue a travel alert, warning of credible threats against holiday events in Europe.

The market remained closed on Wednesday, leaving the city center mostly empty and cordoned off by security forces. Sports centers, cultural institutions and many shops in the area were closed, and security checks were reinforced.

Some witnesses of the attack first wondered whether the panic on Tuesday night was related to the "Yellow Vest" protests that have turned violent in recent weeks.

"It might be the biggest Christmas market in France - you'd never think of an attack when you hear the first gunshots," said Marc Meyer, 32, who was standing by the market's giant Christmas tree when he saw a panicked crowd rushing toward him around 8 p.m.

Jamel Beli, who was sitting on a nearby terrace when he heard the first gunshots, also thought the Yellow Vests were behind the agitation. "It was so, so crowded," said Mr. Beli, 42. "It could very well have been carnage."

Mr. Heitz, the prosecutor, said that the gunman was first seen shortly before 8 p.m. on the Rue des Orfèvres, in the heart of the Christmas market. He then moved through several streets, attacking with a handgun and a knife as he went.

Four soldiers on patrol shot at him, wounding him in the arm, Mr. Heitz said, but the attacker escaped and took a taxi to another area of Strasbourg. The driver told the police that the gunman had described the attack to him and tried to justify it. After exiting the taxi, the attacker came across more police officers, who shot at him but lost track of him.

The taxi driver's account helped the police identify Mr. Chekatt as the suspect, Mr. Heitz said. Tuesday morning, before the attack, the police had raided Mr. Chekatt's home in an unrelated murder investigation and found a grenade, a rifle, ammunition and several knives. He was not at home during the raid.

Laurent Nuñez, France's junior interior minister, told France Inter radio that it was possible that the suspect had fled into Germany, just across the Rhine from Strasbourg, and that border checks had been strengthened.

A makeshift memorial in Strasbourg for the victims of the attack. Credit Ronald Wittek/EPA, via Shutterstock

Mr. Nuñez said Mr. Chekatt had never been convicted of terrorism and did not appear to have tried to go to Syria, as some others on European terrorism watch lists have done.

Still, Mr. Heitz, the prosecutor, said that the suspect had an extensive criminal record, with 27 convictions, mostly for robberies and assaults, in France, Germany and Switzerland.

Being flagged with an S file - the "S" stands for La Sûreté de l'État, or security of the state - does not mean that a person has been convicted of an offense or is even suspected of one. Instead, it is a way for French security forces to keep track of a wide range of people who are thought to potentially pose a security threat, in some cases merely because they are acquainted with someone else under watch.

"The S File can target individuals who aren't very dangerous, and it is used only to watch their movements and trips around the country," Mr. Nuñez said. "It isn't a criterion of dangerousness."

The shooting was not the first time that Strasbourg has grappled with the consequences of radicalized youth.

Delphine Rideau, the head of Maison des Adolescents, an organization in Strasbourg that helps local youths and is involved in the prevention of radicalization, said that there had been several cases of radicalized individuals in Strasbourg, although not all were violent.

"We've seen petty criminals who became radicalized all of sudden, and others who were isolated, abandoned, and lost ground," she said.

One of the gunmen in the Bataclan concert hall, one of the sites of the November 2015 attacks in and around Paris, was originally from the Strasbourg area, and French intelligence officers in 2016 detained seven men, five of them in Strasbourg, who were preparing to "go into action imminently."

Robert Hermann, the president of the Strasbourg Eurométropole, a grouping of city councils in the region, said that the Christmas market was the city's most secured event of the year, but that "zero risk" was impossible. The Bas-Rhin Department, which includes Strasbourg, has less than 2 percent of France's total population but about 10 percent of people flagged with an S File, he said, adding that monitoring everyone all the time was impossible.

"Some are intellectuals who convert people, others are ideologists who will take action, other get radicalized in prison," Mr. Hermann said. "The profile of the main suspect is even more complex."

The Strasbourg Christmas market, which started in 1570, is one of France's most popular winter events. In the past few years, it has attracted more than 2.5 million visitors annually, and the authorities have tightened security, including by deploying undercover police officers.

The Strasbourg mayor, Roland Ries, said at a news conference that he planned to reopen the market on Thursday if security conditions allowed. One street reopened to the public Wednesday afternoon, and dozens of people laid flowers where the shooting took place.

"Today we are mourning," Mr. Ries said. "But I hope that, as soon as tomorrow, we can resume our normal lives."

Elian Peltier reported from Strasbourg, and Aurelien Breeden from Paris. Rukmini Callimachi contributed reporting.
Follow Elian Peltier @ElianPeltier and Aurelien Breeden @aurelienbrd on Twitter.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Strasbourg Attack Is Labeled an Act of Terrorism. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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France Declares Strasbourg Shooting an Act of Terrorism

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STRASBOURG, France - The deadly shooting at a crowded Strasbourg street market was an act of terrorism, officials said Wednesday, as hundreds of police officers hunted the fugitive assailant, a man described as a radicalized hometown career criminal.

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background and crisis

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The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela may reach a flash point this weekend as political tensions over humanitarian aid escalate.

Venezuelans have faced severe food and medicine shortages due to an economy rocked by hyperinflation. Over 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country, most since 2015, according to the United Nations. It's estimated that another 2 million people will leave in 2019. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, at least 40 people have been killed since protests began in January. Another 696 people were arrested, the highest recorded detentions in Venezuela in 20 years.

But as resources grow increasingly scant, the country's embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, has instructed the military to block aid deliveries from the U.S. and others. Unable to reach Venezuela, supplies sent by the U.S. have been stored in a closely guarded warehouse in Colombia, and Maduro ordered all crossings along the Brazil border closed. Maduro defended his decision to prevent aid from entering the country by proclaiming that Venezuelans are not "beggars."

But in bold defiance of Maduro, opposition leader Juan Guaidó vowed to forcibly transport and distribute the aid by Saturday, a move that experts fear could lead to violent clashes between the Venezuelan military - which is still loyal to Maduro - and opposition forces.

"The worst case scenario, in the immediate term, is that there is significant violence this weekend around the confrontation at the border - both from a humanitarian perspective and the basic safety and security of the Venezuelan people," said Paula Garcia Tufro, deputy director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center of the Atlantic Council. "I think that's a real risk and there's a potential for miscalculation that could lead to that outcome."

The standoff between Maduro and Guaidó - who, with the backing of foreign allies led by the United States, declared himself president last month - has grown more tense as the opposition leader's self-imposed deadline to deliver aid approaches.

The situation in Venezuela hasn't always been so dire. Venezuela's oil reserves once made it one of the richest Latin American countries - fortune that has since turned to hardship. To understand how Venezuela has reached its current state of crisis, it's necessary to look back at the country's political tumult over the past six years.

2013

On March 5, Hugo Chávez, the country's longtime president, died of cancer at 58. Maduro, who Chávez groomed to replace him, was elected into office less than a month later, gaining 50.6 percent of the vote.

Chávez was a charismatic and admired leader in Venezuela, largely thanks to his social welfare programs. After he assumed the presidency in 1999, he continued nationalizing the oil industry and used the profit to fund food subsidies, education and health care programs. Under his administration, unemployment and poverty halved, and income per capita more than doubled.

"Between 2001 and 2013 Venezuela receives the equivalent of three Marshall Plans in inflation adjusted dollars - that's for one country of thirty million people," said Harold Trinkunas, deputy director for the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. "That stopped after 2013, with the decline of the price of oil."

That largely unrestrained spending, which Maduro continued after he took office, created a huge deficit that sent the country into an economic spiral.

2014

On January 23, in the midst of high levels of violence, food shortages and a scarcity of basic goods, opposition leaders Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado began a campaign to remove Maduro from office. That February, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in protest. Over a three-month period of violent demonstrations, 43 people were killed.

Venezuela's Central Bank confirmed on December 30 that the country had entered a recession due to plummeting oil prices. The inflation rate that year surpassed 63 percent, the highest in the Americas. The government was forced to make cuts in public spending, making it difficult for poor Venezuelans to access food and medicine.

2015

In the legislative elections held December 6, the opposition party gained a two-thirds supermajority in the National Assembly. Maduro, fearing for the security of his position, stacked the Supreme Court with justices loyal to him.

On December 30, the Supreme Court blocked four newly elected lawmakers from joining the assembly just days before they were due to be sworn in, which Maduro's critics saw as an attempt to chip away at opposition's majority.

Reports would later show that food shortages were so severe that Venezuelans lost an average of 19 pounds between 2015 and 2016.

2017

The Supreme Court banned an opposition leader from participating in the April 7 elections. The next day, Venezuelans responded with mass demonstrations all over the country. The protests lasted for months, resulting in violent clashes with riot police that left 66 dead.

On July 30, in an election considered by critics to have been a sham, voters elected the members of the Constituent Assembly, which was created with the intent to change the constitution - a parallel to the National Assembly. Neighboring countries in Latin America, as well as the U.S., Canada and Spain, said they would not recognize the authority of the new branch. The Constituent Assembly was officially sworn in on August 4.

2018

Presidential elections were held on May 20, and Maduro was reelected despite claims of fraud from the opposition coalition. The U.S. decried the election as unfair and anti-democratic before any voting had even taken place.

On November 8, the United Nations Refugee Agency announced that over 3 million people had fled Venezuela due to massive shortages of food and medicine.

"It's going to be incredibly destabilizing to the region because even just a million people migrating would be an enormous burden and is straining local capacity in terms of fiscal costs," Tufro said.

2019

Not long after Maduro's inauguration on January 10, Venezuelans took to the streets calling for him to step down. Guaidó, leading the opposition, claimed the presidency, citing emergency powers granted from the constitution.

The U.S. quickly showed support for Guaidó. On January 23, Maduro responded by severing diplomatic ties with the U.S., ordering all American diplomats out of the country within 72 hours. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that they would instead abide by Guaidó's directive to maintain diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

Humanitarian aid from the U.S. arrived to Venezuela at its border with Colombia on February 8, which Maduro blocked.

On February 21, Maduro closed the border Venezuela shares with Brazil in an effort to block aid from coming into the country. A day later, at least two civilians were killed and dozens were injured when Venezuelan security forces fired on protesters near the Brazilian border.

Meanwhile, Venezuela's former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal publicly rejected Maduro and called out his inner circle for rampant corruption, urging the military to turn against him. This followed President Donald Trump's ultimatum to the Venezuelan military on February 26: side with the opposition collation or face consequences.

"If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out," Trump said in a speech. "You will lose everything."

Experts, however, are not optimistic that the military will turn on Maduro and allow aid to enter the country.

"The Venezuelan military especially at the most senior levels is heavily complicit in many of the crimes going on inside Venezuela related to human rights abuses and drug trafficking. So they really can't afford to have a transition to democracy because of the fear of being held accountable," said Trinkunas.
This article has been updated.

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Timeline: How the Crisis in Venezuela Unfolded

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The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela may reach a flash point this weekend as political tensions over humanitarian aid escalate. Venezuelans have faced severe food and medicine shortages due to an economy rocked by hyperinflation. Over 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country, most since 2015, according to the United Nations.

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In this op-ed, Salvadoran Estefani Alarcon explains how those outside of the United States have been impacted by MS-13, with some even being forced to move from home.
While I was growing up, the holidays were what I looked forward to the most, as any kid my age would. But for me, the season was more than Christmas and presents: During the holidays, my grandparents would visit my family in Los Angeles from El Salvador. They would bring a little of what we left behind with them: pollo campero, letters, pictures, and stories.

About four years ago, their annual visits ended, and they moved to the United States legally, to stay for good - not because they wanted to but because they had no other choice. But my grandfather especially wasn't keen on being away from El Salvador for too long. He complained about the crops he left behind, and the land no one else could take care of as well as he could. But the country he and my grandmother loved is no longer what they knew it to be, largely because of the gang known as MS-13.

Born in the streets of Pico Union, Los Angeles, in the 1980s, the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has since spread throughout the U.S. and beyond. In the early 1980s, civil wars in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua increased the migration of Central American people to the U.S.People in those countries endured violence and oppression, and as a result of deadly government operations, ( some financially supported by the U.S.), many people left for the U.S., and a sizable population settled in Los Angeles. There, a group of Salvadoran immigrants formed the gang known as MS-13. " Mara" is a Central American term for gang, "Salva" is short for El Salvador, and " trucha" means "trout" in English but is slang for "alert" or "vigilant." The 13 symbolizes the letter M which is the 13th letter in the alphabet, according to Insight Crime, a foundation that studies organized crime in Latin America.

Other local gangs began to notice the rapid growth of MS-13 in their community. The Mexican Mafia became allied with the group, increasing the number of members. The Los Angeles Police Department soon began a major crackdown on gangs known as Operation Hammer, and gang members soon filled California prisons. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton's deportation policies began sending undocumented gang members back to El Salvador, where the government was still destabilized from the civil war.

Central American countries were not prepared to control the influx of people returning: Between 2000 and 2004, about 20,000 criminals were sent back to Central America, according to one estimate cited in Insight Crime. In El Salvador and elsewhere, law enforcement used a strategy to combat gang violence known as or "iron fist," which worked by violently suppressing the gangs as well as incarcerating as many people as possible. Meanwhile, MS-13 resorted to what they knew best, extortion and violence.

The Salvadoran government's strategy backfired after many young people were incarcerated and later released without any charges. Rates of crime and violence in the streets increased as gang members gathered in prisons and developed national operations. Today, the homicide rate in El Salvador is one of the highest in the world, although it decreased in 2016. The crime rate is such a concern that the U.S. Department of State has a Level 3 travel warning for people considering traveling to El Salvador that cites safety concerns and tells those with travel plans to reconsider.

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This Gang Is the Reason My Family Fled El Salvador

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In this op-ed, Salvadoran Estefani Alarcon explains how those outside of the United States have been impacted by MS-13, with some even being forced to move from home. While I was growing up, the holidays were what I looked forward to the most, as any kid my age would.

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humanitarian and food crisis

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Venezuela's Humanitarian Emergency | Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crises

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This report documents increased numbers of maternal and infant deaths; the unchecked spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and diphtheria; and sharp increases in the transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in Venezuela. Available data shows high levels of food insecurity and child malnutrition, as well as of hospital admissions of malnourished children.

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For the children living in the dusty refugee camps near the Jordanian-Syrian border, the tiniest things spark joy. They fill their long days by playing with skipping ropes, buckets and stones, their imaginations working overtime to recapture some of the childhood they lost to war. Most fled the Syrian civil war with their families, seeking safety across the border in Mafraq, northeast Jordan. But with the conflict still raging after four years, many children have never known a life outside the camps. It is where they were born.

Every day, thousands of Syrians flee their homes. The once-stable country is experiencing an exodus on a scale that the world has not seen since the Rwandan genocide more than two decades ago. More than four million Syrians are now hosted by neighboring countries while an additional 7.6 million people have been displaced within Syria. The Syrian revolt, which began in March 2011 in the southern city of Dara'a - just north of the Jordanian border - propelled hundreds of families to cross the frontier on foot at night. Jordan now provides shelter for some 630,000 registered refugees.

More than 150,000 of them live in the north-eastern Mafraq region, where Associated Press Chief photographer Muhammed Muheisen spent several days in July documenting the lives of Syrian refugee children and their families. Although the area is best known for Za'atari, the huge refugee camp that opened in July 2012, most Syrian refugees live in unofficial tented settlements on the outskirts of the city. This is true of the country as a whole: the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 84% of Jordan's refugee population live outside the official camps.

Many people told Muheisen that while the official UNHCR-run camps have better facilities and support, they would feel trapped and crowded there. They seek a greater sense of community and independence, preferring to move around and find work outside to provide for their families.

A Syrian refugee girl fills water from a tanker to her tent on the outskirts of Mafraq, on July 25, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen-AP

Yet the conditions are undeniably harsh in these unofficial desert camps, with high temperatures during the day and extreme cold at night. Muheisen says he was especially aware of the lack of sanitation and medical care in the camps. Barefoot and malnourished, many of the children bore the additional mental scars of the war they had fled - Muheisen described young boys speaking and acting like men. Although some of the settlements have makeshift schools donated by UNICEF, classes are taught by other Syrian refugees and are not regular. Instead, many children work with their parents in nearby farms run by local Jordanians. With some 86% of refugees in Jordan living below the poverty line, refugee children are frequently the main breadwinners for their families and UNHCR worries that a generation of youth are forfeiting their future by missing out on an education.

"What hit me the most is that the children are the ones comforting their families," Muheisen tells TIME, saying that many spoke of a strong desire to work in order to help their families. The children's lives may have been turned upside down, but the photographer says he struck by their resilience and optimism.

The parents, meanwhile, merely dreamed of a better life for their kids than what they had experienced themselves. But with the Syrian crisis showing no signs of abating and refugees continuing to flee the war-torn country, it's unclear if that better life will be within reach any time soon.

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Inside the Syrian Refugee Camps Where Childhood Doesn't Exist

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For the children living in the dusty refugee camps near the Jordanian-Syrian border, the tiniest things spark joy. They fill their long days by playing with skipping ropes, buckets and stones, their imaginations working overtime to recapture some of the childhood they lost to war.

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solution bulliet points

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(Washington, D.C.) - The combination of severe medicine and food shortages within Venezuela, together with the spread of disease across the country's borders, amounts to a complex humanitarian emergency that requires a full-scale response by the United Nations secretary-general, researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Venezuelan authorities during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro have proven unable to stem the crisis, and have in fact exacerbated it through their efforts to suppress information about the scale and urgency of the problems.

The 71-page report, " Venezuela's Humanitarian Emergency: Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crises," documents increased numbers of maternal and infant deaths; the unchecked spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and diphtheria; and sharp increases in the transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in Venezuela. Available data shows high levels of food insecurity and child malnutrition, as well as of hospital admissions of malnourished children.

"No matter how hard they try, Venezuelan authorities cannot hide the reality on the ground," said Shannon Doocy, Ph.D., associate professor of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who conducted research at Venezuela's border. "Venezuela's health system is in utter collapse, which, combined with widespread food shortages, is piling suffering upon suffering and putting even more Venezuelans at risk. We need UN leadership to help end this severe crisis and save lives."

In late March 2019, the International Federation of the Red Cross announced that it was scaling-up its operations in Venezuela to provide aid to around 650,000 people. A UN report leaked to the media around the same time estimated that the population in need of support was 7 million.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres should lead efforts to develop a comprehensive humanitarian response plan for the situation inside and outside of the country, the groups said. Specifically, Guterres should:

Officially declare that Venezuela is facing a complex humanitarian emergency, a UN term of art, which would help unlock the mobilization of sufficient resources to address the urgent needs of the Venezuelan people;

Task the UN emergency relief coordinator, who is also head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to address Venezuela's crisis as a top priority requiring full-scale mobilization of humanitarian relief efforts and resources; and

Request Venezuelan authorities to grant UN staff full access to official disease, epidemiological, food security, and nutrition data so they can carry out an independent and comprehensive humanitarian needs assessment of the full scope of the crisis nationwide.

Experts from Human Rights Watch and from the Center for Humanitarian Health and the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health interviewed more than 150 people for the report. They included health care professionals, Venezuelans seeking or in need of medical care or food who had recently arrived in Colombia and Brazil, representatives from international and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, UN officials, and Brazilian and Colombian government officials. Researchers also analyzed data on the situation inside Venezuela from official sources, hospitals, international and national organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. This was a one-year research project.

International health agencies such as the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization have reported that:

Between 2008 and 2015, only a single case of measles was recorded (in 2012). Since June 2017, more than 9,300 cases of measles have been reported, with more than 6,200 confirmed.

Venezuela did not experience a single case of diphtheria between 2006 and 2015, but more than 2,500 suspected cases have been reported since July 2016, more than 1,500 of them confirmed.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that confirmed malaria cases in Venezuela have consistently increased in recent years - from fewer than 36,000 in 2009 to more than 414,000 in 2017.

The number of reported tuberculosis cases in Venezuela increased from 6,000 in 2014 to 7,800 in 2016, and - preliminary reports indicate - more than 13,000 in 2017. The TB incidence rate has consistently increased since 2014, reaching 42 per 100,000 in 2017 - the highest in Venezuela in 40 years.

In 2018, nearly nine of ten Venezuelans living with HIV registered by the government were not receiving ARV treatment, though the actual number of people who need ARVs is unknown.

The latest official statistics available from the Venezuelan Health Ministry indicate that in 2016, maternal mortality rose 65 percent and infant mortality rose 30 percent from 2015. While infant mortality has risen throughout the region, Venezuela is the only South American country where infant mortality has returned to levels last seen in the 1990s.

Hunger, malnutrition, and severe food shortages are widespread in all Venezuela. In 2018, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicated that between 2015 and 2017, nearly 12 percent of Venezuelans - 3.7 million people - were undernourished, up from fewer than 5 percent between 2008 and 2013. Unofficial surveys revealed that most Venezuelan households are food insecure and that moderate and severe acute malnutrition among children under 5 years is alarmingly high.

A massive exodus of Venezuelans - more than 3.4 million in recent years - is straining health systems in receiving countries. Data gathered in Colombia and Brazil shows a sharp rise in the number of Venezuelans seeking treatment abroad, and doctors reported that Venezuelans generally arrived after receiving limited or no treatment at home.

"The United Nations' leadership needs to ring the alarm bell and oversee a full-scale assistance plan for Venezuela that is neutral, independent, and impartial," said Paul Spiegel, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and a professor in the Department of International Health at the Bloomberg School. "From a technical perspective, Venezuela is facing a complex humanitarian emergency; if the UN secretary-general does not officially recognize it, the full-scale UN involvement that is needed to address it will most likely not occur."

While more international aid started to enter the country in 2018, humanitarian workers from international and nongovernmental organizations operating in Venezuela asserted that it does not meet the population's urgent needs. Authorities have, in many cases, imposed obstacles to the activities of these organizations.

Venezuelan authorities are within their rights to reject particular offers of assistance, but that only heightens their responsibility to work toward alternatives that can fully address the country's urgent needs. Efforts by Venezuelan authorities during Maduro's presidency have failed to do so, Human Rights Watch and experts from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said.

"Venezuelan authorities publicly minimize and suppress information about the crisis, and harass and retaliate against those who collect data or speak out about it, while also doing far too little to alleviate it," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "These authorities are accountable for the needless loss of life that their denial and obstruction have inflicted on the Venezuelan people."

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Venezuela: UN Should Lead Full-Scale Emergency Response

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(Washington, D.C.) - The combination of severe medicine and food shortages within Venezuela, together with the spread of disease across the country's borders, amounts to a complex humanitarian emergency that requires a full-scale response by the United Nations secretary-general, researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

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Uprising

In January 2011, Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad was asked in an interview with The Wall Street Journal if he expected the wave of popular protest then sweeping through the Arab world-which had already unseated authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt-to reach Syria. Assad acknowledged that there had been economic hardships for many Syrians and that progress toward political reform had been slow and halting, but he was confident that Syria would be spared because his administration's stance of resistance to the United States and Israel aligned with the beliefs of the Syrian people, whereas the leaders who had already fallen had carried out pro-Western foreign policy in defiance of their people's feelings.

The onset of antiregime protests, coming just a few weeks after the interview, made it clear that Assad's situation had been much more precarious than he was willing to admit. In reality, a variety of long-standing political and economic problems were pushing the country toward instability. When Assad succeeded his father in 2000, he came to the presidency with a reputation as a modernizer and a reformer. The hopes that were raised by Assad's presidency went largely unfulfilled, though. In politics, a brief turn toward greater participation was quickly reversed, and Assad revived the authoritarian tactics of his late father's administration, including pervasive censorship and surveillance and brutal violence against suspected opponents of the regime. Assad also oversaw significant liberalization of Syria's state-dominated economy, but those changes mostly served to enrich a network of crony capitalists with ties to the regime. On the eve of the uprising, then, Syrian society remained highly repressive, with increasingly conspicuous inequalities in wealth and privilege.

Environmental crisis also played a role in Syria's uprising. Between 2006 and 2010, Syria experienced the worst drought in the country's modern history. Hundreds of thousands of farming families were reduced to poverty, causing a mass migration of rural people to urban shantytowns.

It was in the impoverished drought-stricken rural province of Darʿā, in southern Syria, that the first major protests occurred in March 2011. A group of children had been arrested and tortured by the authorities for writing antiregime graffiti; incensed local people took to the street to demonstrate for political and economic reforms. Security forces responded harshly, conducting mass arrests and sometimes firing on demonstrators. The violence of the regime's response added visibility and momentum to the protesters' cause, and within weeks similar nonviolent protests had begun to appear in cities around the country. Videos of security forces beating and firing at protesters-captured by witnesses on mobile phones-were circulated around the country and smuggled out to foreign media outlets.

From early on, the uprising and the regime's response had a sectarian dimension. Many of the protesters belonged to the country's Sunni majority, while the ruling Assad family were members of the country's ʿAlawite minority. ʿAlawites also dominated the security forces and the irregular militias that carried out some of the worst violence against protesters and suspected opponents of the regime. Sectarian divisions were initially not as rigid as is sometimes supposed, though; the political and economic elite with ties to the regime included members of all of Syria's confessional groups-not just ʿAlawites-while many middle- and working-class ʿAlawites did not particularly benefit from belonging to the same community as the Assad family and may have shared some of the protesters' socioeconomic grievances.

As the conflict progressed, however, sectarian divisions hardened. In his public statements, Assad sought to portray the opposition as Sunni Islamic extremists in the mold of al-Qaeda and as participants in foreign conspiracies against Syria. The regime also produced propaganda stoking minorities' fears that the predominately Sunni opposition would carry out violent reprisals against non-Sunni communities.

As the protests increased in strength and size, the regime responded with heavier force. In some cases this meant encircling cities or neighbourhoods that had become hubs of protest, such as Bāniyās or Homs, with tanks, artillery, and attack helicopters and cutting off utilities and communications. In response, some groups of protesters began to take up arms against the security forces. In June, Syrian troops and tanks moved into the northern town of Jisr al-Shugūr, sending a stream of thousands of refugees fleeing into Turkey.

By the summer of 2011 Syria's regional neighbours and the global powers had both begun to split into pro- and anti-Assad camps. The United States and the European Union were increasingly critical of Assad as his crackdown continued, and U.S. Pres. Barack Obama and several European heads of state called for him to step down in August 2011. An anti-Assad bloc consisting of Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia formed in the last half of 2011. The United States, the EU, and the Arab League soon introduced sanctions targeting senior members of the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, Syria's long-standing allies Iran and Russia continued their support. An early indicator of the international divisions and rivalries that would prolong the conflict came in October 2011 when Russia and China cast the first of several vetoes blocking a UN Security Council Resolution that would have condemned Assad's crackdown.

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Syrian Civil War, armed conflict that began in 2011 with an uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The conflict drew involvement from a number of international actors and helped precipitate the rise of ISIL (also called ISIS or Islamic State) in eastern Syria.

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Syrian Civil War Map - Live Middle East Map/ Map of the Syrian Civil War

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Welcome to Syrian Civil War Map! This website contains a live and interactive map of the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi War. We are dedicated to delivering the latest news as well as the most accurate and unbiased information about the Syrian and Iraqi conflict. Unlike other websites we are not using online and public sources. We are in contact with many people living in Syria and Iraq. These people provide information about the current circumstances in the conflict areas.

More than 500000 people already died in the civil war in Syria which is ongoing for more than seven years. More than 12 million people were expelled from their homes because of the battles between various factions. Part of the reason why the conflict in Syria is so complicated is because of the huge diversity of ethnic and religious groups living there. The rivalries and tensions between these groups play an important role in the war. The protests in Syria, which started as a part of the big wave of "Arab Spring" protests, turned into a armed conflict with the government after protestors demanded the removal of President Bashar al-Assad. The armed conflict then turned into a proxy war between various countries seeking for power in the middle east. The current fighting faction are: The Syrian Government with its allies (including Russia, Hezbollah and Iran), Sunni Arab rebel groups, Jihadist rebel groups, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Syrian Civil War:

Syrian Democratic Forces: Usually shortened as SDF or QSD, are an alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, Assyrian and Armenian militias mainly fighting against ISIS, Al-Nusra Front and other Jihadist groups in the Syrian Civil War. The goal of the group is to establish and protect the federal region "Rojava - Northern Syria".

Anti-Government Forces: Hundreds of groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad. The main groups are the moderate FSA and jihadist groups like Al-Nusra ( Hayat Tahrir al- Sham) and Ahrar al-Sham.

Government Forces: Forces fighting for the government of Bashar al-Assad. These forces contain the regular Syrian Arab Army, National Defense Forces and Iran-backed Shia militias like the Hezbollah.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" is a jihadist group which controls huge swathes of land in western Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic. They consider themselves as the "Islamic Caliphate".

Syria Map

To learn more about the background of the Syrian Civil War and the major factions of the war you can click here: Background Information

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Syrian Civil War Map - Live Map of the Syrian Civil War

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Welcome to Syrian Civil War Map! This website contains a live and interactive map of the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi War. We are dedicated to delivering the latest news as well as the most accurate and unbiased information about the Syrian and Iraqi conflict.

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A peaceful uprising against the president of Syria 12 years ago turned into a full-scale civil war. The conflict has left half a million people dead, devastated cities and drawn in other countries.

Even before the conflict began, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafez, after he died in 2000.

In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighbouring countries against repressive rulers.

When the Syrian government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president's resignation erupted nationwide.

The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called "foreign-backed terrorism".

The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war. Hundreds of rebel groups sprung up and it did not take long for the conflict to become more than a battle between Syrians for or against Mr Assad. Foreign powers began to take sides, sending money, weaponry and fighters, and as the chaos worsened extremist jihadist organisations with their own aims, such as the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda, became involved. That deepened concern among the international community who saw them as a major threat.

Syria's Kurds, who want the right of self-government but have not fought Mr Assad's forces, have added another dimension to the conflict.

The United Nations Human Rights Office estimated last year that 306,887 civilians - 1.5% of the total pre-war population - were killed between March 2011 and March 2021 due to the conflict.

It said 143,350 civilian deaths were individually documented by various sources with detailed information, and that a further 163,537 deaths were estimated to have occurred using statistical techniques. At least 27,126 of those estimated to have been killed were children.

The then-UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, stressed that the fatalities were the "direct result of war operations", adding: "This does not include the many, many more civilians who died due to the loss of access to healthcare, to food, to clean water and other essential human rights."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground, had documented the deaths of 503,064 people by March 2023. It said at least 162,390 civilians had been killed, with the Syrian government and its allies responsible for 139,609 of those deaths.

The group estimated that the actual toll from the war was more than 613,400, with an additional 55,000 civilians believed to have died of torture in government-run prisons.

Another monitoring group, the Violations Documentation Center, which relies on information from activists across the country, had documented 240,215 battle-related deaths, including 145,765 civilians, as of March 2023.

The government's key supporters have been Russia and Iran, while Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed the opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

Russia - which had military bases in Syria before the war - launched an air campaign in support of Mr Assad in 2015 that has been crucial in turning the tide of the war in the government's favour.

The Russian military says its strikes only target "terrorists" but activists say they regularly kill mainstream rebels and civilians.

Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to help Mr Assad.

Thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen armed, trained and financed by Iran - mostly from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, but also Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen - have also fought alongside the Syrian army.

The US, UK and France initially armed what they considered "moderate" rebel groups. But they have prioritised non-lethal assistance since jihadists became the dominant force in the armed opposition.

A US-led global coalition has also carried out air strikes and deployed special forces in Syria since 2014 to help an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture territory once held by IS militants in the north-east and stop the jihadist group rebuilding.

Turkey is a major supporter of the opposition, but its focus has been on using rebel factions to contain the Kurdish YPG militia that dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an extension of a banned Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.

Turkish troops and allied rebels have seized stretches of territory along Syria's northern border and intervened to stop an all-out assault by government forces on the last opposition stronghold of Idlib.

Saudi Arabia, which is keen to counter Iranian influence, armed and financed the rebels at the start of the war. Having refused to engage with President Assad for more than a decade, it is now discussing how to facilitate Syria's "return to the Arab fold".

Israel, meanwhile, has been so concerned by what it calls Iran's "military entrenchment" in Syria and shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah and other Shia militias that it has conducted air strikes with increasing frequency in an attempt to thwart them.

Twelve years of war have inflicted immense suffering on the Syrian people.

In addition to the bloodshed, more than half of Syria's pre-war population of 22 million have had to flee their homes. Some 6.8 million are internally displaced, with more than two million living in tented camps with limited access to basic services.

Another 6 million are refugees or asylum-seekers abroad. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, which are hosting 5.3 million of them, have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history.

At the start of 2023, the UN said 15.3 million people inside Syria were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance - an all-time high since the war began - and 12 million did not know where their next meal was coming from.

The already dire humanitarian situation in north-western Syria - the location of the last opposition stronghold - was made significantly worse by the huge earthquake that struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 80km (50 miles) from the Syrian border, on 6 February 2023.

More than 5,900 people were killed across Syria and another 8.8 million were affected, according to the UN. Thousands of homes and critical infrastructure were destroyed, leaving many families without food, water and shelter. Deliveries of life-saving aid to opposition-held areas were also delayed for days because of what a UN panel described as "shocking" failures by the warring parties as well as the international community.

The disaster happened at a time when the prices of food and fuel in Syria were already skyrocketing because of runaway inflation and the collapse of its currency, as well as the global crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Syria has also been one of the countries in the Middle East worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic - although the true extent is not known because of limited testing - and is now also having to deal with a deadly cholera outbreak that was made worse by the earthquake.

Access to medical care is severely restricted for the sick and injured because only half of the country's hospitals are fully functional.

Despite their protected status, 601 attacks on at least 400 separate medical facilities had been documented by Physicians for Human Rights as of February 2022, resulting in the deaths of 942 medical personnel. The vast majority of the attacks were blamed on government and Russian forces.

Entire neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure across the country also remain in ruins. UN satellite analysis suggested that more than 35,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in Aleppo city alone before it was recaptured by the government in late 2016.

Much of Syria's rich cultural heritage has likewise been destroyed. All six of the country's Unesco World Heritage sites have been damaged significantly, with IS militants deliberately blowing up parts of the ancient city of Palmyra.

A UN commission of inquiry has concluded that the warring parties "have cumulatively committed almost every crime against humanity... and nearly every war crime applicable in a non-international armed conflict".

"Syrians," a February 2021 report says, "have suffered vast aerial bombardments of densely populated areas; they have endured chemical weapons attacks and modern day sieges in which perpetrators deliberately starved the population along medieval scripts and indefensible and shameful restrictions on humanitarian aid".

The government has regained control of Syria's biggest cities, but large parts of the country are still held by rebels, jihadists and the Kurdish-led SDF. There have been no shifts in the front lines for three years.

The last remaining opposition stronghold is in the north-western province of Idlib and adjoining parts of northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces.

The region is dominated by a jihadist alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), but is also home to mainstream rebel factions backed by Turkey. An estimated 2.9 million displaced people, including a million children, are living there, many of them in dire conditions in camps.

In March 2020, Russia and Turkey brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib. That led to an extended lull in violence, but there continues to be sporadic clashes, air strikes and shelling.

In the country's north-east, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the SDF in October 2019 to create a "safe zone" clear of Kurdish YPG militia along the Syrian side of the border, and have occupied a 120km (75 miles) long stretch since.

To halt the assault the SDF struck a deal with the Syrian government that saw the Syrian army return to the Kurdish-administered region for the first time in seven years. Despite the presence of Syrian troops, there are still regular clashes between the SDF and Turkish-led forces along the front line.

IS sleeper cells also continue to carry out frequent and deadly attacks.

It does not look like it will anytime soon, but everyone agrees a political solution is required.

The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communiqué, which envisages a transitional governing body "formed on the basis of mutual consent".

Nine rounds of UN-mediated peace talks - known as the Geneva II process - failed to make progress, with President Assad apparently unwilling to negotiate with political opposition groups that insist he must step down as part of any settlement.

Russia, Iran and Turkey set up parallel political talks known as the Astana process in 2017.

An agreement was reached the following year to form a 150-member committee to write a new constitution, leading to free and fair elections supervised by the UN. But little progress has been achieved after eight rounds of talks.

As the conflict entered its 13th year, UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said the situation in Syria was "untenable" and that "to carry on in the same manner, defies humanity and logic".

But he also expressed hope that the devastating earthquake could be a "turning point", noting the "humanitarian steps from all sides that have moved beyond previous positions, even if temporarily".
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While the world's attention is focused on Ukraine, Syria is still suffering in its long war.

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Solution

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Peter Bergen says there are many ways to make progress in the fight against ISIS and a number of those aren't military in nature.

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The Islamic State lost its caliphate in Syria, but terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since 2001. Now is no time for complacency: Our view

So vast and disorienting was the Easter Sunday carnage strewn by coordinated suicide bombings on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that investigators at first overestimated the death toll.

It was recalibrated at 253 dead Christian worshipers and tourists, mercifully lower than the 359 first reported, but still a barbarous record for any attack linked to the Islamic State terrorist group. Sri Lanka suffered nearly twice the number killed in Paris in a similarly coordinated fashion by ISIS attackers in 2015.

In fact, in the four months since President Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn and declared " we have won against ISIS" by recapturing its territorial caliphate, the terror group has claimed responsibility for deadly assaults in Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Eight Islamic State branches and a dozen networks operate around the world, along with an unknown number of sleeper cells. Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared in a video for the first time since 2014, praising the Sri Lanka attacks.

Al-Qaeda, the group behind the 9/11 attacks, also remains a threat. Despite being driven from Afghanistan in 2001 and suffering the death of leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, al-Qaeda continues operating in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and controls a northern Syrian province. Its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, remains at large.

Sri Lankan soldiers guard a church in Colombo, the capital, on April 29, 2019. (Photo: Manish Swarup/AP)

OPPOSING VIEW: Sri Lanka bombings do not mean there's an ISIS worth fighting

Terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since 2001, according to a study of extremism by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Hateful ideologies are pumped into the bloodstream of fragile states via a social media network using videos and newsletters and directing collaborators through encrypted messaging apps.

The island nation of Sri Lanka, with its history of civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009, was in many ways a perfect host for this viral extremism. Minority Muslims feel persecuted, and investigators now suspect that a radical cleric, Zahran Hashim - who ran an organization with a record of little more than vandalism - could have received ISIS assistance in pulling off the complicated Easter attacks.

In the face of global extremism, the United States must remain vigilant and forward-leaning. Now is no time for complacency. American counterterrorism operations are vital, and it was a mistake for Trump to sharply reduce U.S. troop levels in the former caliphate region of northeast Syria. That area is at risk of ISIS resurgence.

Even so, counterterrorism is only part of the solution. As USIP President Nancy Lindborg said last week, "We can't kill our way out of this."

While nation building is not America's job, the Trump administration can partner with the more than 70 nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fashioned to fight ISIS. The United States can offer modest bilateral assistance to fragile countries most susceptible to extremist violence.

This is a war that doesn't end with the capture of a nation's capital or a signed armistice. It's a battle of ideas that remains to be won.
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Sri Lanka Easter bombings show Trump is wrong on ISIS

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The Islamic State lost its caliphate in Syria, but terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since 2001. Now is no time for complacency: Our view So vast and disorienting was the Easter Sunday carnage strewn by coordinated suicide bombings on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that investigators at first overestimated the death toll.