The US has inexplicably removed Nigeria from its State Department list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). To some, that may sound like innocuous paperwork or an ambassadorial feel-good gesture. But, in fact, this de-listing of Nigeria’s CPC designation is an outrageous betrayal of an already brutalized Christian community.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has revived a decades-old term to refer to a key goal that China is now eager to achieve: “common prosperity.”

The Autonomous Administration for North and East Syria (AANES) is seeking international recognition as a legitimate government, but currently it is campaigning the US to lift sanctions on its territory.

Among the voluminous commentary on the Taliban’s return to power, only a few observed its apparent desire to emulate the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Turkey has nothing that contradicts Taliban’s faith,” said Turkey’s president, a country that is also a NATO member. The comments…

China is brimming with optimism about the Taliban in Afghanistan. But a bombing that killed scores of people, including 13 American troops, outside the Kabul airport on August 26 has led many to distrust the Islamic group’s promise to not let anyone use the land-locked country’s soil to target another.

Around 350,000 people have been killed due to violence in northern Nigeria as of the end of 2020, according to new UN estimates. Many of those killed were Christians.

The photographs and reporting from Kabul, the besieged airport there, and from other places in the broken land of Afghanistan are surely most troubling. But they indicate in no way American defeat.

Let’s take a look at the players, the victims, the outbidding cycle, and why ISIS-K is likely to ramp up the violence in Afghanistan. All of this suggests much more violence that will target Christians and Shia Muslims, as well as more oppression of highly (Western) educated people, women, and others who may not bend to the new social order.