Justine Fleischner

Senior Conflict & Sanctions Investigator | Geopolitical Risk, Arms Tracing & Emerging Threats | Former UN Security Council Sanctions Expert

[AFP News Agency @AFP]

The loyal, lonely keepers of Sudan's pyramids.

Mostafa Ahmed Mostafa is the heir to a long line of groundskeepers who have guarded Sudan's ancient pyramids of Meroe. Now, three years into the war between the army and paramilitary forces, he stands near-solitary sentinel over his heritage
https://t.co/WaSrVINFih

[CBS News @CBSNews]

12-year-old Imrain Paktiawal told CBS News' @camiloreports he still has no explanation for how his father, Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, died just one day after being taken into ICE custody in Texas. The 41-year-old Afghan immigrant was detained while preparing to take his children to school and died the next day at a Dallas hospital. His family says he was healthy and that he came to the U.S. legally under the Biden administration's Operation Allies Refuge, which welcomed tens of thousands of Afghans it evacuated from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. ICE said Paktiawal's parole status expired on Aug. 20, 2025 and that he was detained after two arrests by local authorities on fraud and theft charges. He was not convicted. https://t.co/wxTMoDZYBx

[Badr Albusaidi - بدر البوسعيدي @badralbusaidi]

Oman’s constructive neutrality compels us to speak our mind to all in pursuit of peace. This article in the Economist seeks to contribute to a serious conversation about solutions.

[Robert A. Pape @ProfessorPape]

Iran’s new Supreme Leader may make this war more dangerous than the one he replaces.

History shows that when leaders are killed at the start of conflicts, their successors often escalate to prove authority.

It’s a pattern I call the Harder Successor Problem.

A thread.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

Something very bizarre just happened

The Jerusalem Post claimed the UAE struck Iran. And not any target, but a desalination plant

If true (which it isn't), Iran may decide to retaliate, and may also target an Emirati desalination plant

Gulf nations depend on these desalination plants for their supply of fresh water

A UAE official just denied those claims, But the question remains:

Why did the Jerusalem Post make such an outlandish claim without verifying?

Claims like this are what could turn this war into a regional war. And only one country benefits from this...

[Justine Fleischner @fleischnerj]

@CalibreObscura @azelin https://t.co/joHpQXEPKL

This should be a stable link! Lmk if you have any issues 🙏

[Aaron Y. Zelin @azelin]

From the new UN report on al-Shabab/IS-Somalia

[small arms survey @SmallArmsSurvey]

Published today, our new #SituationUpdate on Balkh Province, #Afghanistan
While the Taliban has tried to regulate arms possession and seize stocks of non-Taliban-aligned elements in the northern border province, weapons markets continue to operate there: https://t.co/QBvZzelp4i

[Harun Maruf @HarunMaruf]

Somalia welcomes the full lifting of #UNSC arms embargo, says move marks a pivotal moment in Somalia's journey towards enhanced national security and stability

[Aseel @ASEELApp]

Devastating news out of Afg: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook Zenda Jan in Herat, killing 1,000 and injuring thousands more. 4,200 people are now homeless.

We are on the ground! Support us at https://t.co/z4CkQyC9Go

#earthquake #herat #afghanistan #help #aid #afDevastating news out of Afg: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook Zenda Jan in Herat, killing 1,000 and injuring thousands more. 4,200 people are now homeless.

We are on the ground! Support us at https://t.co/z4CkQyC9Go

#earthquake #herat #afghanistan #help #aid #afDevastating news out of Afg: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook Zenda Jan in Herat, killing 1,000 and injuring thousands more. 4,200 people are now homeless.

We are on the ground! Support us at https://t.co/z4CkQyC9Go

#earthquake #herat #afghanistan #help #aid #afDevastating news out of Afg: An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook Zenda Jan in Herat, killing 1,000 and injuring thousands more. 4,200 people are now homeless.

We are on the ground! Support us at https://t.co/z4CkQyC9Go

#earthquake #herat #afghanistan #help #aid #afg

[jehanne henry @jehannehenry]

The #UN is missing in action in #Sudan, and this month's high-level meetings are a chance to step up. The SG must appoint an effective envoy + find concrete ways to advance accountability at the root of the war, I argue for @MiddleEastInst
https://t.co/SZqZuex4Yp

[Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor @KhalafAlHabtoor]

I am unable to express the disappointment I feel now as The Afghan female students, whom I had provided an educational scholarship in collaboration with the @uniofdubai presented by Dr. Eesa Al Bastaki @ebastaki, were unfortunately unable to reach #DubaiAirport this morning to continue their studies due to Taliban’s interference. This has left me lost for words to describe the disappointment I currently feel.

We've been eagerly anticipating this day for a while; after months of unceasing efforts among @AlHabtoorGroup’s team members and I to secure university admissions, accommodations, transportation, health insurance, and an array of comprehensive services aimed at ensuring the utmost comfort and safety for the female students, our aspirations were crushed. The authorities in #Afghanistan, without justification, prevented their departure, unjustly curtailing their freedom.
This stands as a profound tragedy, a blow against the principles of humanity, education, equality, and justice. I request all involved parties to quickly step in and help rescue and assist these struggling students.

@UN @UNICEFAfg @UNHumanRights

[Asfandyar Mir @asfandyarmir]

My piece on the terror threat from Afghanistan and implications for US policy on two years of Taliban rule.

[Afghan Peace Watch @APWORG]

Two years of Taliban rule: Afghan women should contribute to the economy and have political participation in the country. There should be equal rights between men and women.

[ACLED @ACLEDINFO]

NEW REPORT | Two Years Of Repression: Mapping Taliban Violence Targeting Civilians in #Afghanistan

Read it here ▶️ https://t.co/l0bDlxV0Ya

[small arms survey @SmallArmsSurvey]

Two years today since the Taliban seized the Afghan arsenal. Some of the arms are moving, and leaving the country  Read more in our recent Situation Update on #Afghanistan by @APWORG : https://t.co/FN3Z3zwhTc

[Katharine Houreld @khoureld]

The ADF rebel group has been active in Uganda and Congo for years. But a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State reinvigorated it after the arrest of its leader. This has been its deadly year yet https://t.co/PpLOVdQ1Yq

[Amrullah Saleh @AmrullahSaleh2]

On several occasions during my time as Director General of the NDS I had to share folders containing actionable intelligence on terrorist compounds & bomb making workshops run by Tajmir, the current deputy chief of Talib's GDI in sub-urban sites within Pakistan with the ISI General Directors i.e. Gen Keyani & later on Gen. Shuja Pasha. This was part of the US/NATO mediated effort to convince or enable Pakistan to act. They naively or mis-calculatedly believed that Pakistan would act. They thought the ISI would act against its own “virulent arm” the Haqqani terrorist group as labeled by US Admiral Mike Mullen. The US authorities knew by heart that the Afghan government was right that the Pakistan army was a culprit & perpetuator of terrorism not a recipient of its harm. Yet our fact-based analysis would be bypassed or skipped. Each time we would locate Tajmir & tell the ISI to act all that would happen subsequently was for Tajmir to change his location and contact numbers based on tips from the ISI headquarters. My detailed & nuanced commentary on this matter was published by PBS in " The Spy Who Quit". series 2011. Assisted by the ISI, Tajmir was running a network of terrorists responsible for most of the deadly & mass casualty attacks in Kabul Capital Region. I never fully understood what gave the Pakistani establishment the confidence that terrorists would only hurt Afghans or others inside Afghanistan. Did they believe that their bombs & terrorists were genetically modified or what? Today as I heard the mass causality bombing in Bajur what immediately came to my mind was names Keyani, Pasha, Tajmir, Faiz Hameed, Mulana Fazul Rehman of the JUI, scores of others & all the celebrations these people had for massacring of the Afghan people. The current defense minister of Pakistan Khaja Asif openly congratulated the Taliban victory which literallly means massacre of the Afghan people and subjugating them to tyranny & barbarism. Actually, the Pakistani army and the ISI plus madrasa systems that trained the Taliban & celebrated the return of barbarity to Afghanistan ARE IN NO MORAL POSITION to condemn these terrorist attacks. It is their own Frankenstein Monster. It was just yesterday that the so-called Consul General of the Taliban in Peshawar openly thanked the Pakistan army and the ISI for sponsorship of Taliban. I can guess the type of comments the ISI sponsored trolls will drop here. Truth is bitter. Very dear Pakistani people If you want to be believed, then you have to swallow the truth and confess to the wrongdoing of your estalibshment & force them repent for the crimes they have committed and still commit against the Afghan people. What happened in Bajur is a terrorist attack. You want to know how these attacks happen then you have to assign a non-ISI, non-army commission to investigate the Frankenstein Monsters created over the years & even decades. Then make that report public and stop the wrong policies. Else your narrative won't be believed.

[William Carter @WillCarter_NRC]

I remember those halcyon days in Khartoum just before this civil war. Sips of sweet tea, sunlit palm trees, spiralling inflation, and scents of tear gas as nonviolent civilian demonstrators were dying for their democracy outside my office doors, whilst our field teams were rushing to respond to burned down villages in Darfur … wait, actually it wasn’t all great back then either ‘just before this all started’.

There’s so much at stake in the renewed talks in Jeddah, to perhaps end or pause this war, or at least reduce people’s suffering by affording better protection of civilians and humanitarian access—regardless of ceasefires. But it shouldn’t return the situation to the status quo before it started in April: a repressive instability and unworkable impasse in the centre of the country whilst its obscured peripheries simmered with neglected atrocities. It mustn’t.

These talks should ideally set a way forward that breaks the cycles of conflict and suffering, not one that predestines a repeat of them … a mediation offer enabling *that* destiny might just be a mistake. It’ll take some masterful mediation to frame and coach it in a way that builds a different vision for the future. Frankly, it’s improbable—the pressures and odds are stacked high against the mediation teams, and people of Sudan. But it’s eventually possible.

So while there’s definitely a risk that no deal is reached, or that a deal reached is then disrespected (like the prior promises of enabling humanitarian access), there’s also a risk that a bad deal is reached, one that might pause the violence right now but protracts its conflicts and civilian suffering over yet another generation when it might have otherwise definitively ended sooner. Unfortunately, some ‘bad deals’ might be in the ‘zone of possible agreement’ for the two main warring parties, but might well not be in the long-term interest of the 45+ million Sudanese civilians who really are not represented at these talks that affect their fate as well. It’s not only about pushing for ceasefires at all and any costs.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from Sudan’s modern history it’s that we haven’t really learned, yet. Even when it’s been glaringly obvious or unsurprisingly predictable. One of these unlearned lessons was not to shut the door on civilians for expedient peacemaking, as inevitably there is more and longer war, a lack of imagination beyond military or ‘security’ solutions — ‘peace kills politics’, to borrow a counterintuitive phrase (and lesson) from @sharath_sri.

There have been many ceasefire and peace talks convened and competing in the last few weeks - Jeddah, Addis, Cairo, Lome (?). My only observation is that these are all ‘Track 1’ mediation efforts between only top leaderships of the warring parties. But, Track 2 and 3 efforts, for regional and grassroots level mediations, as far as I can see are still largely unsupported — despite there having been organic examples of temporary local ceasefires being reached (including between SAF, RSF, JPA signatory armed groups, civilians) in the last few months without international or national support/interference, even examples of informal inter-positional forces dividing/stabilising cities in some parts of Darfur (although, what about Kordofan)? Where’s the curiosity and initiative to help galvanise these locally-led efforts? Where are the women? Where are the youth? A more robust peacemaking and/or Protection of Civilian strategy would work not only on Track 1 (plus, that space is crowded now), but should diversify and include Tracks 2 and 3 too (this space is empty now). So, if the stakes are too high in Jeddah, it’d be prudent to consider placing some bets at other tables (and tracks) too.

(video from 6 Apr 2023 Khartoum of pro-democracy protestors ‘dispersed’)

[Ryan O'Farrell @ryanmofarrell]

Some interesting details in Treasury's designation of IS-Somalia's finance emir Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf today.

Biggest one is that IS-S raised $2.5mil in 2021 and $2mil in the first half of 2022, roughly $140k-335k per month. https://t.co/6tJ46vSCut