Baku, Azerbaijan, December 26
By Azer Ahmadbayli – Trend:
35 degrees of northern latitude – 30 degrees of eastern longitude (Syria), 36° N – 70° E (Afghanistan), and 13° N – 43° E (Yemen) – these are approximate geographical coordinates of a triangle on Earth, where concentration of anger and hatred are going through the roof.
Inside the triangle the situation isn't any better: Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah enmity; Turkey fighting Kurdish PKK/YPG/PYD troops; sleeping cells and car bombings by the Islamic State in Iraq; US-Iran confrontation etc. complete the entire picture.
The total number of political and armed conflicts as well as proxy wars in the mentioned area amounts to around 20. The "deadly triangle" has the highest rates of organized violence and highest death tolls in the world.
Only the conflict hotspots in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria have a combined total of nearly 100,000 reported fatalities this year, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
The keyword here is “reported” as, according to worldwide practice, the number of fatalities should be more.
Evil found fertile ground not only inside the “triangle” – it is spreading beyond, affecting Libya, Somalia, Sudan and other countries.
It is probably important to remind that all the states in the "triangle" are Muslim, except Israel. But the most oppressive is that there is no sign of appeasement. On the contrary, escalation is going on.
The USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier entered Persian Gulf last week after a long absence. The day after the warship’s arrival, Iran launched war games in the Gulf.
Recently Iran again has begun to warn that if it cannot sell its oil due to US pressure, then no other regional country will be allowed to do so either, threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, through which a third of world’s oil, traded by sea, passes.
Though Tehran said that it did not consider the arrival of the warship as a significant threat, only one wrong move can be very costly for the entire region.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban group doesn’t cease to attack government targets and civilian facilities, killing dozens of people every week. The latest armed attack was carried out on Monday at a complex of government buildings in Kabul, resulted in at least 43 killed and 25 injured, AFP reported on Tuesday, December 25, referring to the Ministry of health of Afghanistan. As of Tuesday night, no group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hardly had the peaceful talks between the Yemeni government forces and Houthi rebels finished in Stockholm as ceasefire was broken. Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the Yemeni government have accused each other of violating a ceasefire in the port city of Hodeidah, less than 24 hours after the UN-brokered agreement came into effect, Aljazeera reported last week.
The Houthi-aligned media outlets accused forces backed by the Saudi-UAE coalition of shelling several sites, including areas east of the airport. Meanwhile, the UAE media, quoting a Yemeni source, said that the Houthis fired mortar bombs and rockets at a hospital in the eastern suburbs, Aljazeera says.
Let’s proceed now to the western corner of the “Deadly triangle” and see what’s going on in Syria.
Syrian regime forces and allied militia bombed opposition-held areas in the de-escalation zone in Idlib in a new breach of the Sochi agreement, local sources said, according to The Middle East Monitor.
Counter to the opposition, the Syrian Government sources say that the Syrian army stopped the attempts of rebel gangs to seize positions in the South-East of Idlib province, Sana news Agency reported. According to media reports, Syrian soldiers stopped militants who tried to enter the demilitarized zone.
Who to trust?
During the past two weeks the international community followed developments around tunnels dug by Hezbollah from the territory of Lebanon and crossing the state board of Israel – another action that could bring the region to a conflict or war.
There are a dozen things more that may lead to a big explosion in the Middle East, with a little sense to count them all.
Ultimately, despite the influence of external actors, the governments of the regional states are held responsible for what is happening. Many conflicts could have been avoided if they had shown their will, but the crisis of statehood in many countries of the region and excessive ambitions of those in power are only getting the situation worse.