When anti-immigration demonstrators and counter-protesters clashed, police in Australia used pepper spray. Nationalist “March for Australia” rallies were attended by thousands of people all over the nation, which the government decried as “spreading hate.”
Iran’s network of Middle Eastern allies has suffered severe blows over the past two years. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria fell apart. Hezbollah faced mounting pressure to disarm in Lebanon after being forced to lay down its weapons under a ceasefire negotiated by the United States. After US forces massively bombarded infrastructure and civilian areas in Yemen, the Houthis were forced to stop preventing maritime traffic through the Red Sea. Ahmed al-Rahawi, their prime minister, and several other ministers were killed on Thursday in an Israeli attack.
Iran’s once-formidable deterrent has dramatically decreased. And now it appears that its influence in Iraq is waning by the day. The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a group of predominately Shia paramilitary units, are under increasing pressure from the US to rein in Iranian allies.
Although it may be difficult and risky to integrate the PMF into the Iraqi army, it could if it were to be done. However, it could help to advance the country’s sovereignty and state.
The PMF’s brief history  exemplifies Iraq’s wider setbacks of trying to balance pressures from the US and Iran with its wider situation.
In response to the country’s security vacuum, which was directly at the root of the country’s rise of ISIL (ISIS) in 2014, it established its paramilitary organizations. After the US invasion, the Iraqi army was disbanded in 2003, and the reconstituted force lacked the morale and readiness to defend the nation.
The PMF succeeded in halting ISIL’s advance where the regular army had failed, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) co-opted many of its members as regional influence tools.
The PMF still has a significant influence in Iraq today. It includes hardline groups that are unwaveringly loyal to Iran and groups that genuinely seek integration with the Iraqi military.
Mohammed al-Sudani, the prime minister of Iraq, is being under increasing US pressure to overthrow his own ruling coalition, which has strong support from the PMF.
The proposed American strategy, which would allow compliant units to join the regular army and remove militia leaders from positions of authority, is nothing less than a complete overhaul of Iraq’s security structure. Some Iraqi lawmakers have pushed the PMF to become a military force for the first time in the process by passing legislation that would permanently enshrine it.
The PMF’s integration bill, which was introduced in March, aims to make it a permanent, independent military body with a budget, a command structure, and a military academy. Additionally, it would give the PMF commander a ministerial rank, institutionalizing what Washington perceives as Iranian influence within the Iraqi government.
The bill was temporarily withdrawn from parliament thanks to US pressure. Marco Rubio, the US’s secretary of state, made a clear warning that a comprehensive analysis of US-Iraqi relations, possibly involving sanctions, would result from passing such legislation. Given Washington’s recent 35 percent tariffs on Iraq, this threat had weight.
The processing of electronic transactions by Iraqi state-owned Al-Rafidain Bank caused a disruption in the payment of PMF fighters’ salaries in June, which was brought on by US pressure.
US lawmakers have been calling on Al-Rafidain Bank to be sanctioned for a 2022 corruption scandal, in which $2.5 billion in state funds were allegedly stolen from it because of allegations that people close to the PMF were involved.
No longer is it about whether the PMF should remain in its current form in Baghdad. In Washington, that query has been resolved. Al-Sudani is under a lot of pressure to stop the Iraqi state’s parallel army from aligning with Iran.
Iraq’s course of action is clear. Under constant American pressure, Iran’s political order, which has long been dominated by its allies and endured systemic corruption, isundergoing fundamental change. Washington appears to be determined to not leave the outcome in the hands of Tehran’s final significant regional stronghold.
Because of his lack of other options, Al-Sudani will cling to American pressure. The regular army will include all factions who are willing to distance themselves from Tehran. Refusing to participate will be isolated, destroyed, or their funding will be severed for those who refuse. Not when, but when will determine this outcome.
There are a lot of risks. Iranian-affiliated paramilitary organizations may violently repress dissolution. Despite its weakened regional standing, Tehran can still stoke chaos across Iraqi territory.
Iraq may yet be hurled back into civil conflict as a result of the ghosts of 2006 returning. However, if Iraqi institutions are able to withstand the storm, stronger sovereignty would result in a state that has been sorely lacking since the US invasion of 2003.
The Global Sumud Flotilla has left Barcelona, Spain’s port city, with the intention of “reversing Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.”
Around 3:30pm on Sunday, the boats started leaving the port, and there were crowds of supporters, supporters, and well-wishers waiting to see the crews.
“Nobody was expecting so many people to wave goodbye to the volunteers,” remarked Mauricio Morales, who was on board the Familia, one of the Flotilla boats. In this particular boat, people are strangers, and the spirits of each have a distinct role.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and other prominent individuals who were sailing with the Flotilla spoke out hours before their departures about Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
Israel’s statements regarding their genocidal intentions are very explicit. They want to oust Palestine as a whole. Thunberg criticized politicians and governments for “failing to uphold international law” and said they wanted to take control of the Gaza Strip.
She claimed that they are breaking their most fundamental legal obligations to take action to stop their complicity and support of the Palestinian occupation and genocide.
Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek criticized Israel’s use of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza. He claimed that because of a government’s intentional starvation, “Palestinians are being starved to death.”
According to Abukeshek, “the government intentionally bombs Palestinian children and families every day to kill as many Palestinians as possible.” Your main objective is essentially to eliminate the presence of the Palestinian population when you bomb hospitals, bomb schools, or bomb educational facilities.
As part of its plan to overtake Gaza City and forcefully retake the area’s population, Israel stepped up its efforts to seize the city and forcefully retake the area, which was followed by the United Nations declaring a state of famine in Gaza this month.
Thunberg mentioned “dozens” of vessels, but the Global Sumud Flotilla, which describes itself as an independent organization unaffiliated with any political party or government, did not specify how many would sail or when would the ships would arrive.
Sumud in Arabic means “persistence.”
Everyone who signed up for the Flotilla has a strong belief in its goal.
From aboard the Familia, Morales said, “It was difficult to say goodbye to my two kids, but I’m doing this because I think keeping track of what our colleagues in Gaza and the West Bank are doing… this is easy compared to what they endure every day.”
The flotilla, which is made up of delegations from 44 nations, will be joined by “many more boats from different ports” in Greece, Italy, and Tunisia, according to Yasemin Acar, the organizer of the flotilla.
By mid-September, the maritime convoy is anticipated to arrive in Gaza along with activists, European legislators, and prominent public figures.
The flotilla was “a legal mission under international law,” according to left-leaning Portuguese lawmaker Mariana Mortagua, who will join the mission, last week.
Israel had previously blocked two attempts by activists to send aid by ship to Gaza.
12 activists on board the Madleen were detained by Israeli forces 185 kilometers (115 miles) west of Gaza in June. Acar and Thunberg were among the passengers who were detained and eventually expelled.
21 activists from 10 nations were detained on a different vessel, the Handala, as they attempted to get to Gaza in July.
We attempted to sail with the Handala two months ago, according to the Madleen. And the Zionist entity also targeted, abducted, and brought our way against our will. However, Acar claimed that they did say they would return.
The flotilla was “an important act of symbolic resistance” that would “create a spectacle,” according to Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, with Israel likely finding it “logistically challenging” to deal with the number of vessels arriving at the same time.
They will ultimately be intercepted, they say. They will be detained or otherwise returned, he said. The famine won’t be solved by this, says one expert. Governments doing their jobs to stop genocide and deliberate starvation are ultimately what will solve the famine.
In the most recent of the country’s recent rail accidents, a passenger train derailed in western Egypt, killing at least three people and injuring 94 others, according to authorities.
The train slammed on Saturday as it headed for Cairo’s capital from Matrouh, a province in the western Mediterranean, according to railway officials, who issued a statement.
Two of its wagons slammed into the tracks, leaving only one more.
The Health Ministry provided a detailed list of deaths and injuries, and 30 ambulances were dispatched to transport injured people to hospitals.
According to a statement from the railroad authorities, an investigation is currently being conducted to determine the accident’s cause.
Egypt’s ageing railway system, which has also been plagued by mismanagement, has a high rate of train accidents and derailments.
At least one person was killed and several others were hurt when a train crashed into the tail of a Cairo-bound passenger train in southern Egypt last October.
At least 32 people died and more than 100 were hurt in a collision between two trains in southern Egypt in 2021, which resulted in the deaths of at least 32 people and injuries.
Relief workers carried out a massive rescue operation in eastern Pakistan, reporting that nearly half a million people had been displaced by flooding after days of heavy rain had swollen rivers.
More than 2,300 villages have been affected by the swollen transboundary rivers that pass through Punjab province, which borders India.
The Punjab government’s relief services, led by Nabeel Javed, announced on Saturday that 481 000 people had been evacuated along with 405 000 livestock and that 481 000 had been stranded by the floods.
More than 1.5 million people, including those in Lahore, the provincial capital and the second-largest city, have been affected by the flooding overall.
At a press conference, Irfan Ali Khan, the provincial’s director of disaster management, said, “This is the biggest rescue operation in Punjab’s history.”
He claimed that more than 800 boats and 1,300 rescuers were evacuating families from the affected areas, the majority of which were rural areas close to the three rivers.
He claimed that there have been 30 fatalities in the most recent monsoon flooding since the start of the week, with hundreds more still missing throughout the heavier-than-usual season that started in June.
“No one is unattended with their lives,” the statement read. According to Khan, “every kind of rescue effort is still going on.”
Families and their livestock can now find shelter in more than 500 relief camps. Difficulty families gathered in a school in the impoverished town of Shahdara, which is near Lahore, after fleeing their homes’ rising water.
More than 400 Pakistanis were killed in just a few days in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the only province held by the opposition to the federal government, in the course of a matter of days as a result of torrential rain on the other side of the nation.
As the Global Sumud Flotilla prepares to leave for Gaza from Barcelona, activists addressed the media and urged the region to receive urgent food and supplies. Diffusion of boats and “deliberate denial of basic survival needs” has been reported by Greta Thunberg in her report.