A World In Conflict

With the era of the old Cold War apparently being revived by Russia and China in a New Cold War ....

A World In Conflict

.... the actual end of the official Cold War has generally seen many of the world’s smaller conflicts that were sponsored by the USSR and USA steadily becoming fewer and less bloody, with less war between sovereign states.

But civil wars and strife have continued, or even increased particularly in the Muslim world. The lists below are not exhaustive, and includes countries where terrorist groups act regularly but don't currently threaten the states/regime existence

Muslim majority countries with armed conflict 2021:

• Afghanistan - Civil War/Terrorist Insurgency.
• Yemen - Religious Civil War (Shia v Sunni), with third party interference (Saudia Arabia).
• Algeria - Low level Islamic terrorist insurgency (al-Qa'ida and ISIS).
• Burkina Faso - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (al-Qa'ida and ISIS).
  Chad - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Boko Haram (BH) and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA)).
• Iraq - Political Unrest/Islamic Terrorist Insurgency.
• Libya - Terrorist Insurgency/Civil War (Ansar al-Sharia groups; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham – Libya; al-Mulathamun Battalion (al-Mourabitoun); al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb).
• Mali - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency/Civil War (Tuareg rebels and Islamic militants).
  Niger - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Boko Haram (BH) and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA).
• Nigeria - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Boko Haram (BH) and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA)).
• Tunisia - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) network in Tunisia; al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb).
• Egypt - Political Unrest/Islamist Terrorist Insurgency in the Sinai (Army of Islam; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham – Sinai Province; Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem; al-Qa’ida).
• Indonesia - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (aka Jemaah Anshorut Daulah); Jemaah Islamiyah).
• Pakistan - Islamist Terrorist Insurgency (Haqqani Network; Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami; Harakat ul-Mujahidin; Hizbul Mujahideen; Indian Mujahedeen; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham-Khorasan; Islamic State of ash-Sham – India; Islamic State of ash-Sham – Pakistan; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; Jaish-e-Mohammed; Jaysh al Adl (Jundallah); Lashkar i Jhangvi; Lashkar-e Tayyiba; Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan; al-Qa’ida; al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent).
• Bahrain - Civil Unrest, Religious Civil War (Shia v Sunni) - (al-Ashtar Brigades; Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Qods Force). 
• Syria - Political Unrest/Islamic Terrorist Insurgency.

Terrorism source - CIA The World Factbook

Non-Muslim majority countries with Islamist insurgencies 2021:

• Israel - Political Unrest/Palestinian conflict (Hamas, Hezbollah).
  
• Ethiopia - Political Unrest/Civil War with third party interference (Eritrea) and Islamic insurgency (al-Shabaab; IRGC/Qods Force)).
• Cameroon - Islamic Terrorist Insurgency (Boko Haram)).
• Democratic Republic of the Congo - Terrorist Insurgency (numerous armed groups).
• Mozambique - Islamic Terrorist Insurgency (Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham - Mozambique (ISIS-M)).
• Tanzania (Zanzibar is 100 per cent Muslim) - Islamic Terrorist Insurgency (Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham - Mozambique).
• Uganda - Islamic Terrorist Insurgency (al-Shabaab; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham - Democratic Republic of Congo (ISIS-DRC)) 
• Philippines - Drugs War and Islamic Terrorist Insurgency (Abu Sayyaf Group; Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham – East Asia (ISIS-EA) in the Philippines).
• Thailand - Malay Separatist Insurgency with strong Islamist ideals (Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi (BRN-C)).
  

Terrorism source - CIA The World Factbook 

Non-Muslim majority countries with other armed conflicts 2021:

• Mexico - Drug War (Drug Cartels).
• Colombia - Civil War/Drug War (Communists and Drug Cartels).
• Mynamar (Burma) - Political Unrest/Civil War.
• South Sudan - Political Unrest/Civil War.
• Ukraine - Russian separatists with third party interference (Russia).
  

Terrorism source - CIA The World Factbook 

In fact a large majority of all civil wars in the past decade and a half have taken place in Muslim-majority countries. Back in 2012 for example, there were just six civil wars worldwide. All took place within Muslim countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Of the nine rebel groups in these conflicts, seven had an Islamist ideology.

On top of that, Islamist groups in other countries without Muslim majorities, were performing terrorist acts with either separatist or takeover aspirations. During the years since 2012 this includes Islamic terrorist attacks in Israel, France, Britain, Spain, all lands where the Muslim diaspora had spread to get away from the problems in Muslim countries.

But by 2021 as you can see, the situation has only got worse .... most of the worlds conflicts involve Muslims, in one way or another. The reasons for this are much debated outside the Muslim world, but not apparently so much inside the Muslim world as far as I can tell. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Criticism of any aspect of Islam is almost a death sentence in many areas of the Muslim world, which makes discussion about why Islam is going through such violence, both internally, and externally within non-Muslim majority countries.

The evidence, such as it is, strongly suggests that Muslim countries are democratic underachievers and that the reasons for this are multitudinous.

• Many of these countries are characterised by a lower GDP per capita.
• Oil dependency.
• The poor treatment of women and girls (Education, Life Choices and Career Opportunities).
• State repression.
• Autocracy, and 
• All have youth population bulges, for whom jobs and opportunities are scarce. 

These issues all correlate strongly with the onset of intrastate conflict .... but its the presence of a youth bulge possibly has the greatest impact in Muslim-plurality countries, as it encourages unemployed males into religious extremism. 

The other factor that does help explain the dearth of democracy in the Muslim world has to be the treatment of women and girls .... the fact that the Taliban have immediately suppressed schooling, and jobs for women after their takeover, indicates exactly how they prefer their women (housebound and uneducated). Any society that suppresses half its population, can only ever be deeply imbalanced, and surely this is a significant factor in why Muslims turn to violence so easily. 

Of course as we have seen with the Muslim terrorists born in Europe, or those who have claimed refugee/asylum status in Europe, these excuses don't hold true, and yet many still turn to violence.

In Germany, a 27-year-old Syrian refugee attacked three people in an unprovoked knife attack, while a Somali immigrant fatally stabbed three women in the city of Würzburg in 2021. In Paris, details of the lives of the Paris attackers during their trial have shown that the majority had happy childhoods in Brussels, or Malmo, or even in Tunis. Often with immigrants parents who worked hard to give them life's comforts in the lands they had come to for better lives. 

But they threw away the advantages their parents had created for them, and often fell into a mix of petty jobs and petty crime, before turning to 'Islamist' beliefs and then killing 130 people on the night of 13 November 2015. One of the accused Salah Abdeslam said that despite the opportunities afforded him in Belgium (he gained diploma in electrical mechanics and got a job at the Brussels tram company, before turning to crime), "I decided to invest myself in another project." ... Jihadist Islam. While Mohamed Abrini, another who turned to crime, claimed that he was "dragged down by the neighbourhood." before he also turned to Islam. Most of the 14 accused have Belgian or French nationality, while four grew up in Sweden, Tunisia, Algeria and Pakistan.

The one thing they all apparently share is first turning to crime and then into Jihadist Islam. Why our politicians don't recognise the inherent danger is beyond me, but as I have said before, we will reap what we have sown.