The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan last year over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its environs resulted in a decisive victory for Azerbaijan, which recaptured substantial parts of the territory and its environs through military advances and then the concessions negotiated in a ceasefire agreement that was brokered by Russia in November 2020. The conflict would likely not have attracted the attention of many observers had it not been for Turkey's support for Azerbaijan and the controversies surrounding Turkey's deployments of Syrian rebel fighters who operate under the framework of the 'Syrian National Army' backed by Turkey.

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Babsiqa is a locality in the Barisha Mountain area of north Idlib countryside. It has many archaeological remains but unfortunately the humanitarian and services situation in the locality is not good. To learn more about this situation, I conducted an interview with the media wing for the local council of Babsiqa. This interview was conducted on 12 January 2020. It is slightly edited and condensed for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: What is the number of inhabitants in Babsiqa? And most of the inhabitants now are IDPs or original inhabitants?

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If the headline of this post strikes you as unusual, that is because this is indeed a strange topic to write about. But today actually marks the fifth anniversary of my U.S. visa application (visitor visa) that to this day remains 'refused,' apparently pending 'administrative processing.' So joyous is this occasion that I felt compelled to buy a chocolate cake to commemorate it. I would invite you, the dear reader, to participate in this occasion by having a slice of the cake (photographed below) but lockdown circumstances mean that there is no one to share it with in reality. I can only offer you a slice symbolically speaking via the Internet so that you may partake in the monstrous merriment of this feast day.

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By now it has become well-known that Syrian rebel fighters under the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army have been deployed to Libya as part of Turkey's effort to support the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord against the forces led by Khalifa Haftar and the Tobruk-based government. Although the ceasefire agreement struck in Geneva on 23 October 2020 between the two sides included a provision in its second clause for the 'departure of all mercenaries and foreign fighters from the Libyan lands by land and sea and air within three months from the date of the signing of the ceasefire,' this measure has not actually been implemented so far. Indeed, today I was able to interview a Syrian rebel fighter currently deployed in Libya to learn more about who these rebel fighters are and what their motivations are.

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The US Capitol riot on Wednesday, in which some Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC, understandably attracted global attention, with many making calls for 'restraint by all sides' in a jab at similar American calls directed to other countries where unrest occurs. The Islamic State, for its part, has made the riot the subject of its editorial in this week's issue of its al-Naba' newsletter, although the editorial has little description of the events itself and offers more of a grander overview of the meaning of the unrest. The editorial argues that the intense internal partisanship in America will make the country focus more on its internal problems and less on waging war on the Islamic State, and already there has been a great retreat in the efforts on that front. However, this retreat does not mean complete disengagement, and the editorial claims that even countries that claim hostility to America (e.g. Iran) are terrified by the retreat in the 'Crusader' war on the Islamic State, which they supposedly fear more than they fear American hegemony. In any case, the war with America and its allies and all paths of disbelief continue until Islam is supreme over the entire Earth, for fighting is based on fighting disbelief, and not the skin colour, political affiliation or globalist/isolationist tendency of the 'Taghut' (idolatrous tyrant) who assumes the American presidency.

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