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CounterVortex

CounterVortex

Primary focus: World

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Latest coverage from CounterVortex

Nigerian jihadists turn to AI

The technical prowess of jihadi groups in West Africa is well documented—from the use of surveillance and attack drones to Elon Musk's Starlink and cryptocurrencies. The adoption of generative AI, then, should come as no surprise. New research details how the jihadist movement in Nigeria has become adept at using AI operationally in attack planning, weapons calibration, and the design of explosives. Initial training was delivered through transnational jihadist networks, but Nigerian groups now have dedicated AI teams staffed by trusted personnel drawn from senior operational and technical roles, including bomb-makers, gun specialists, and engineers. Trial and error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy, a recently demobilized ex-combatant explained to researchers at the Cambridge Programme on AI Science Policy (CASP). (Photo via TNH)

1 hour ago

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Israeli agent?

Operatives from Israel's spy agency Mossad met several times with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2023 in an effort to install the former Iranian president as a new leader for the country, according to a New York Times investigation. Staunchly anti-Zionist during his 2005-2013 presidency, Ahmadinejad reportedly distanced himself from Iran's Islamist government in recent years after being blocked from running for additional terms, and came to see the economic sanctions punishing Iran over its nuclear program as an unacceptable burden. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quashed disagreements within his administration in order for the recruitment of Ahmadinejad to proceed. However, after being brought to a Mossad safehouse in Tehran amid US and Israeli strikes in February, Ahmadinejad balked at the regime-change plan and absconded, and is now being held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (Photo: Khamenei.ir via The Media Line)

23 hours ago•
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Mahmoud Khalil sues US officials, pro-Israel groups

Prominent Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a lawsuit in US federal court alleging a coordinated conspiracy between senior Trump administration officials and three private organizations—the Heritage Foundation and online surveillance or doxxing groups Canary Mission and Betar—to target him for deportation over his advocacy work. Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who became the public face of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism following his detention by ICE last year. (Photo: Office of Rep. Jim McGovern via Wikimedia Commons)

2 days ago•
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Publishing Activity

Daily article output trend

Podcast: Resist digital hegemony! IV

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's executive order imposing a one-year moratorium or pause on new hyperscale data centers seems to be a ploy to undercut a more stringent measure passed by the state legislature. But it still represents an important victory—of course being met with outrage by the Trump regime. Monterey Park, Calif., has meanwhile become the first US city to impose an outright ban on data centers via ballot initiative. There is a growing municipal revolt against data centers in the Golden State—although Gov. Gavin Newsom is still wedded to the AI agenda, placing him in line with the Trump White House. The turn of public opinion is slowing expansion of the industry, which is a real sign of hope. The challenge is to translate this into a popular repudiation of artificial intelligence altogether, and build a movement for abolition. In Episode 337 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case. (Photo: Food Water Watch via Waging Nonviolence)

2 days ago•
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US pushes ‘Donroe Doctrine’ at Cuzco defense summit

Representatives from over 30 countries gathered in the Peruvian city of Cuzco for the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas, where top Pentagon official Elbridge Colby used the occasion to defend the Donroe Doctrine. As at other regional security summits, including the Shield of the Americas conference held in Florida in March, Trump officials cast drug trafficking and irregular migration as threats to US security, urged regional governments to increase military spending, and called for deeper security collaboration with Washington. An increasing number of the right-wing governments in attendance have embraced closer military ties with the United States through joint strikes and new military bases—even as militarized policies fail to curb organized crime and violence in countries like Ecuador, a key testing ground for the administration's renewed war on narcoterrorism. (Photo: Martin St-Amant via Wikimedia Commons)

3 days ago•
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US to seek dismantling of International Criminal Court

The US will launch a diplomatic campaign aimed at dismantling the International Criminal Court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio wrote that the US will work alongside allied governments to take the Court apart brick by brick, if necessary, using all tools at the government's disposal. He said the campaign's message to other governments will be a choice of sovereign states over globalism, and pledged that the administration will protect US service members from ICC jurisdiction. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

4 days ago•
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Pakistan launches new offensive on Baloch rebels

Pakistani authorities say that more than 100 insurgents have been killed in Balochistan province over the past week as security forces intensify a large-scale campaign against the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and other militant groups. The campaign, dubbed Operation Shaban, was launched after a series of attacks on security personnel. The army, Frontier Corps and Balochistan Police have been deployed in coordinated aerial and ground assaults across the province. (Map: PCL)

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US blocks funding for AU mission in Somalia

The blocking by the US of UN funding to African Union (AU) forces in Somalia starting next year is a body blow to a mission that has long been on financial life-support. The UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) provides the logistical backing critical to the functioning of the AU mission. Without that underpinning, it's hard to see how the AU's 11,800-strong force can continue. That became evident when Washington vetoed the application to Somalia of UN Resolution 2719 on peacekeeping cost-sharing. The AU's near two-decade mission has done significant work. Despite heavy casualties, it succeeded in ousting al-Shabab from Mogadishu—a daunting task the UN and the rest of the international system was unwilling to take on—and continued to protect Somalia's fractious political elite from the jihadist insurgency. But the inability of Somalia to grow and deploy its own security forces to consolidate territorial gains secured by the AU resulted in deadly mission creep and effectively tore up any putative exit plan. Instead, the AU has soldiered on in the absence of a workable political strategy, and with ever-shrinking sources of financing. (Photo: AUSSOM)

6 days ago

UN investigation finds genocide in Sudan

The UN fact-finding mission for Sudan has produced a follow-up to its February investigationinto atrocities by the Rapid Defense Forces (RSF) in El Fasher, finding at least three of the material crimes of genocide overwhelmingly present. After a prolonged siege, the UAE-backed paramilitary army launched an October 2025 assault on El Fasher, which was the last major Darfur city where the Sudanese army and allied forces were in control. Since the February publication, the mission said it has received new information, especially on the abduction and mass rape of women and girls. It says survivors were raped by RSF forces in the presence of corpses, including of family members, and were targeted along ethnic lines. The mission also received new information on the high number of people—up to tens of thousands—who remain missing or unaccounted for. With the RSF planning a new assault on the North Kordofan capital, El Obeid, the mission said the same patterns are repeating, and called for the lessons of El Fasher not to be ignored. (Map: PCL)

1 week ago

Mexico to seek charges over deaths in ICE custody

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government plans to seek criminal complaints in the United States over the deaths of Mexican citizens while in immigration custody or during anti-immigration operations. Since President Donald Trump launched the current immigration crackdown, at least 14 Mexican nationals have died in the custody of US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), and three more have reportedly died in arrests conducted by the agency. (Photo of Houston protest against ICE: Jessica Bolanos via Wikimedia Commons)

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