Israel bombed an air-base in northwest Syria on Aug. 18, bringing into sharp relief the simmering rivalry between Israel and Türkiye. The attack reportedly came shortly after a Turkish delegation visited the Abu Duhur base in Idlib province. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was on the verge of breaching the agreed "status quo in security matters" by allowing in Turkish troops. Ankara condemned the Israeli bombing and seemed to deny it was planning to deploy at Abu Duhur, which it has reportedly been rebuilding. The two countries are increasingly at odds over each other's regional presence. A campaign billboard for Netanyahu's Likud party in the upcoming Israeli elections places Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan alongside the leaders of Iran, Hezbollah, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. "They want Netanyahu to lose," it says, refering to his political opposition. "Don't let them win."

Aid organizations responding to the powerful earthquake that hit Colombia on Aug. 10 face significant challenges, including difficulties accessing some of the worst-hit areas in remote western regions that have been seeing rising violence. Emergency response teams are still assessing the damage, but at least 181 people have already been reported killed and nearly 1,250 injured. It is feared the toll could rise significantly, with many more trapped under the rubble or missing.

Clashes between the Ethiopian army and Tigrayan forces have led to hundreds of civilians crossing into neighboring Sudan, marking another serious threat to a 2022 peace agreement. Heavy artillery and drones were used during the fighting, which was concentrated in contested western Tigray. Both sides have been amassing troops in recent months and there has been a significant recruitment drive in Tigray, where regional authorities have forcibly conscripted civilians, including children, according to Human Rights Watch.

As the US-Iran war escalates, more countries in the Middle East have—officially or unofficially—entered the fray over the past week. Saudi Arabia said July 30 that 14 countries (including Egypt, Türkiye and Bahrain) have so far joined an alliance it set up to protect shipping and energy supplies through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The alliance, which the kingdom calls defensive, formed in reaction to the blockade by Yemen's Houthi rebels against Saudi ships in the strait. Among those that has signed on is the internationally recognized (but largely exiled) government of Yemen, which would presumably be onside with reported plans by Saudi Arabia to launch a ground offensive against the Houthis.

New research from Meta's Oversight Board found commercial large language models (LLMs) from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, OpenAI and xAI are far less likely to criticize repressive leaders and governments. The research calls it "free speech infringements by proxy." Apps and material produced by these generative AI tools could actively reproduce restrictions, including on political criticism. It's unclear why these AI models are doing this—underscoring the need for companies to be transparent and build "human rights due diligence" into the process, before it’s too late. China, Thailand, Cambodia and Saudi Arabia topped the list of countries with the highest refusal rates when LLMs were prompted to create materials criticizing governments. 

The technical prowess of jihadi groups in West Africa is well documented—from the use of surveillance and attack drones to Elon Musk's Starlink and cryptocurrencies. The adoption of generative AI, then, should come as no surprise. New research details how the jihadist movement in Nigeria has become adept at using AI operationally in attack planning, weapons calibration, and the design of explosives. Initial training was delivered through transnational jihadist networks, but Nigerian groups now have dedicated AI teams staffed by trusted personnel drawn from senior operational and technical roles, including bomb-makers, gun specialists, and engineers. "Trial and error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy," a recently demobilized ex-combatant explained to researchers at the Cambridge Programme on AI Science & Policy (CASP).

Operatives from Israel's spy agency Mossad, including its chief, met several times with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2023 in an effort to install the former Iranian president as a new leader for the country, according to a New York Times investigation. Staunchly anti-Zionist during his 2005-2013 presidency, Ahmadinejad distanced himself from Iran's Islamist government in recent years after being blocked from running for additional terms, and came to see the economic sanctions punishing Iran over its nuclear program as an unacceptable burden, according to Haaretz. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quashed disagreements within his administration in order for the recruitment of Ahmadinejad to proceed. However, after being brought to a Mossad safehouse in Tehran amid US and Israeli strikes in February, Ahmadinejad balked at the regime-change plan and absconded, and is now being held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His public appearance in early July at the funeral of slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was his first in several months.

The blocking by the US of UN funding to African Union (AU) forces in Somalia starting next year is a body blow to a mission that has long been on financial life-support. The UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) provides the logistical backing critical to the functioning of the AU mission. Without that underpinning, it's hard to see how the AU's 11,800-strong force can continue. That became evident when Washington vetoed the application to Somalia of UN Resolution 2719 on peacekeeping cost-sharing. The AU's near two-decade mission has done significant work. Despite heavy casualties, it succeeded in ousting al-Shabab from Mogadishu—a daunting task the UN and the rest of the international system was unwilling to take on—and continued to protect Somalia's fractious political elite from the jihadist insurgency. But the inability of Somalia to grow and deploy its own security forces to consolidate territorial gains secured by the AU resulted in deadly mission creep and effectively tore up any putative exit plan. Instead, the AU has soldiered on in the absence of a workable political strategy, and with ever-shrinking sources of financing.