War

Belgian anti- terror police have released new footage of the third suspect in last months Brussels terror attacks. The Mirror reports: The suspect – who is believed to have discarded his suicide bomb after it failed to detonate – is seen walking away from the carnage before ditching his jacket in a bid to escape detection. The chilling footage has been released by Belgian anti-terror police at a news conference today. Brussels was hit by suicide bombings at the airport and on the Metro which killed 32 victims and wounded 270. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group.

Andrew Bacevich has written an excellent article on the need to end our ongoing “war for the Greater Middle East.” This part jumped out at me in connection with the debate over the Libyan war:

A particular campaign that goes awry [bold mine-DL] like Somalia or Iraq or Libya may attract passing attention, but never the context in which that campaign was undertaken [bold mine-DL]. We can be certain that the election of 2016 will be no different.

The Iraqi army’s effort to retake the northern city of Mosul from ISIS has been put on hold. The first phase of the campaign to liberate Mosul is running into difficulties as the army is short of men, training and tactics to be able to act independently from the more battle hardened Shiite and Kurdish militias. Reuters reports: Almost three weeks into the operation, Iraqi forces have retaken just three villages from Islamic State in the Makhmour area, which is set to be a key staging ground for a future assault on Mosul, around 60 km (40 miles) further north.

As Bloomberg reports, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is out with their latest military spending report, and it looks as though many countries around the globe are preparing for more conflict in the coming years, if only based on the recent jump in military-related spending.    In aggregate, world military expenditures rose to $1.7 trillion in 2015, an increase of about 1% from last year. According to SIPRI, this was the first increase in global military spending since 2011.