For more than a year, there have been numerous reports of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. This includes reported incidents which occurred in late March, as thousands of Syrians fled the city of Idlib in the face of a government-rebel stand-off. According to witnesses, chemical weapons were used. UN resolutions condemning the use of chemical weapons, however, do not imply immediate action to stop such use. The use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria thus goes on — and there is so far little evidence that the world’s major powers have the wherewithal to bring those responsible to justice. Continued geopolitical wrangling over Syria leaves those documenting the continuation of war crimes there almost completely powerless to stop what is happening. For now, the best we can hope for is that relevant organizations are allowed to continue to gather evidence for future trials —– and that pressure is put on all states to prosecute suspected perpetrators. This is to ensure that those who are committing such atrocities know that they will eventually be held to account.

Canada’s national anti-terrorism program, which aims to identify signs of radicalization in young people and then connect them with social services, has been long-delayed, leading some communities to institute programs of their own with outside assistance.

As Kenya is trying to cope with the grief following last Thursday’s al-Shabaab massacre of 148 Christian students at Garissa University in north-east Kenya, analysts and scholars are focused on the implications of the attack for the future of Kenya. These analysts say that the intensifying terror campaign by the Islamist al-Shabaab may gradually, but inexorably, deepens the religious divisions in Kenya, a country which was once seen as an island of stability and progress in a volatile region. Since independence in 1963, successive Kenyan governments have purposefully neglected the Muslim north-east, a region mired in debilitating poverty and lack of opportunity. As is the case with Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria, al-Shabaab, too, is exploiting regional grievances and the sense of alienation to establish itself as the champion of the marginalized Muslim communities in the north-east. Since 2011, the central government has begun to allocate more funds to development projects in the north-east, but the steady departure of thousands of Christians, many of them professionals – teachers, medical personnel, engineers, agronomists – from the dangerous north-east for safer places in central and south Kenya, has undermined these efforts.

When the FBI arrested two Chicago-area cousins last week on terrorism related charges, it was the 64th post-9/11 case of Islamic terrorists plotting to strike on U.S. soil, according to a new report from the Heritage Foundation.Like many post-9/11 terror attacks planned against Americans at home, the Chicago plot was thwarted by law enforcement deploying aggressive counterterrorism measures. Analysts, however, warn that the number of attempts will continue to increase unless similar measures are deployed abroad.

Nigerians have chosen General Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, over incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, to be their president. Buhari will face daunting challenges, as the general political and economic situation in Nigeria is problematic. Nigeria is home to a corrupt government. The economy is in crisis: Nigeria has an unhealthy dependence on its oil exports, which represent more than 80 percent of its national income. The World Health Organization recommends that governments spend 15 percent of their budget on health, but Nigeria spends only 6 percent of its budget. The situation in northern Nigeria is critical, and Nigeria’s neighbors have been more active than the Nigerian government in fighting Boko Haram. The way the government has addressed violence in the north has been abysmal. Muslim clerics identified lack of good governance as the primary reason Boko Haram succeeded in recruiting members. With these conditions Boko Haram filled a vacuum. The militants will now be much harder to remove but ultimately, the next government can take steps to start tackling the problems that allowed them to gain a foothold.

A new report issued last week by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security shows that terrorist plots involving Muslim-Americans accounted for only a small fraction of the threats to public safety in the United States. The 2014 report shows that growth in terrorism cases involving Muslim-Americans can be attributed to individuals seeking to join terrorist groups in Syria. Of the twenty-five Muslim-Americans associated with terrorism in 2014, six plotted or engaged in violence in the United States. This number equals the lowest total since 2008. “We have not seen mass radicalization of Muslims in the United States,” the report’s author says. “That’s worth taking note of.”

The leaders of the Arab League announced yesterday (Sunday) that they were forming a joint military force to fight fundamentalist Sunni Jihadist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. It was also clear that the joint force would tackle pro-Iranian Shi’a groups which are helping Iran to expand its regional influence. Arab allies of the United States see the proposed nuclear accord with Iran as a betrayal of U.S. commitment to their security. Egyptian security officials have said the proposed force announced on Sunday would be made of up to 40,000 elite troops based in either Cairo or Riyadh. It would be backed by fighter jets, warships, and light armor.

People often confuse “security” and “safety,” but conceptually, these terms are different from each other. Security offers protection from intentional attacks, while safety is to prevent from natural accidents. While some security incidents can be accidental, or made to look accidental, some element of usually malicious intent is involved. The trade-off in both security and safety risks in this context is hard because the probability of accidents can be modelled while human intention cannot. One could try to estimate the probability of someone having bad intentions, especially pilots, but in the end it’s not possible to square one with the other — it is to compare apples with oranges. The Germanwings flight 4U9525, in which the pilot was locked out of the cockpit, shows that we need to reassess the risks and arguments around safety and security in the context of aviation, and find ways of bringing together hardware, software, and the flight crew themselves — perhaps through health monitoring devices — in order to ensure that both these demands work together, and do not become a threat in themselves.

Dozens of Saudi Air Force jets, accompanied by fighter jets of several Gulf States, yesterday (Wednesday) launched a series of attacks against Shia’ Houthi insurgents in Yemen in an effort to beat back to progress of the Houthi forces across Yemen. The Saudis’ ultimate goal is to defeat the pro-Iranian Houthis, but the immediate Saudi worry is the growing presence of the Houthis – who hail from north Yemen – in and around the port city of Aden in south Yemen. The Saudi air strikes, carried out after consultations with the United States, are the first step in a broad military campaign which will include ground forces and will see the participation of other Arab states. Iran, through its regional agents – the Shi’a government in Baghdad; the Alawite Assad regime in Damascus; and the Shi’a Hezbollah militia in Lebanon – already calls the shots in three Arab countries. It appears that the Arab Sunni states have decided the draw the line in Yemen in order to deny Iran yet another regional gain and check the growth of Iran’s regional sway.