At a Glance:

Currently, the Iraqi security sector has relied on international assistance over the past years to combat terrorism within the country through capacity building, military trainings and financial assistance. With current tensions in the region, Iraq has called for a withdrawal of all foreign military troops, which could have widespread consequences that impact the future stability of the country.  

As Libya’s war enters 2020, dynamics within the war-ravaged country took a dramatic turn when the Turkish parliament, a regional ally of the GNA[1] in Tripoli, approved on 3 January 2020 the deployment of Turkish ground-forces in support of the GNA’s position. Since then Turkey has sent military advisors, and Syrian rebel forces allied with Turkey, in support of Fayez al-Serraj’s[2] administration.

Coercive Engineered Migration corresponds to an attempt from a challenger to obtain political, economic or military concessions from a target through the instrumentalization of a migration “crisis”. It generally appears as an asymmetric weapon by a weak actor against a stronger one and may, in some cases, be considered as a punishment strategy. Usually the favorite target in this exercise of coercive diplomacy is defined by a democratic mode of governance.

Tensions are escalating in the Middle East, as Iran and the United States have reached the most critical point in their relationship since the hostage crisis in 1979. As promised, Tehran did not let the assassination of General Soleimani go unpunished. After three days of mourning, which were punctuated by numerous threats of retaliation, Iran has finally decided to take its revenge. 

BIC President, Ambassador Marc Otte, welcomes new EU leaders with words of advice on three key issues that will shape an audacious agenda for a stronger and smarter Global Europe, and ensure that the EU demonstrates true leadership in an unpredictable geopolitical arena with emerging actors and new challenges (

On Friday, January 3rd, 2020 the United States launched a drone strike that killed top Iranian military official, Lieutenant General, Qassim Soleimani near the Baghdad airport in Iraq.[1] Soleimani was head of the Iranian Quds Force, the military intelligence unit in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).[2] Soleimani was killed along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, Hashd al-Shaabi), which is an Iranian-backed Iraqi mi

Turkey announced its plan to engineer a ‘safe zone’ in northern Syria, an initiative that, according to Turkey, mainly emanates from the country’s discontent from the presence of armed Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) on its southern borders. At their essence, safe zones are employed by states to pursue politically motivated objectives. In the case of northern Syria, Turkey’s ambitions go beyond pushing the Kurds away from its border.