AQAP pulls back without a fight

Al-Qaida militants in Yemen are pulling out of two coastal cities east of the key southern port of Aden following tribal-led negotiations, security officials and witnesses said on Thursday.
The pullout from Zinjibar and Jaar is which is expected to take less than a week, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters while the witnesses did so out of safety concerns.
The development comes after forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government last month drove out al-Qaida militants from what had been their stronghold further down the coast, the city of Mukalla, a year after they captured it.

Suddenly al-Qaeda in Yemen no longer hold's a third of the country and no blood was shed in the process. I'm not sure what this means, except that al-Qaeda and ISIS are very different.

an al-Qaeda Emirate in Syria

Al Qaeda has big ambitions in Syria. For the past three years, an unprecedented number of veteran figures belonging to the group have arrived in the country, in what can only be described as the covert revitalization of al Qaeda’s central leadership on Europe’s doorstep. Now the jihadi group’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front — having spent nearly five years slowly building deep roots in the country — is laying the groundwork for al Qaeda’s first sovereign state.

Afghanistan got worse at the fastest rate in the world

Afghanistan suffered the biggest increase in fatalities of any war zone in the world in 2015, although Syria's conflict remained the bloodiest with 55,000 dead.
Britain and the US withdrew most of their combat units from Afghanistan in 2013, handing over responsibility for security in almost all of the country to the new army and police force. In that year, the Taliban insurgency claimed 3,500 lives.
In 2015, however, the death toll jumped more than fourfold to reach 15,000, according to the Armed Conflict Survey compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

I hope this isn't what Mosul has to look forward to

As the US escalates its air strikes on Mosul, the largest city occupied by Islamic State, reports of hundreds of civilians killed by air strikes reveal some of the human costs of the US air war and the new rules of engagement.
Award-winning Iraqi environmental scientist and Mosul native Souad Al-Azzawi (Ph.D. Colorado School of Mines) has compiled a partial list of air strikes that have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure from reports by Mosul Eye, Nineveh Reporters Network, Al Maalomah News Network, other Iraqi media and contacts in Mosul:

Two large dairies were bombed, killing about 100 civilians and wounding 200 more.
Multiple daytime air strikes on Mosul University on March 19th and 20th killed 92 civilians and wounded 135, mostly faculty, staff, families and students. Targets included the main administration building, classroom buildings, a women’s dormitory and a faculty apartment building.
50 civilians were killed and 100 wounded by air strikes on 2 apartment buildings, Al Hadbaa and Al Khadraa.
etc. etc.

At the very least, U.S. air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure that people depend on for their lives in already dire conditions. And yet by all accounts, this is only the beginning of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to retake Mosul. One and one-half million civilians are trapped in the city, 30 times the UN’s estimate of the number of civilians in Fallujah before the November 2004 assault that killed 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly civilians. Meanwhile ISIL prevents civilians from evacuating the city, believing that their presence protects its forces from even heavier bombardment.

This is how bad it could get in Mosul

The destruction extends to nearly every part of Ramadi, once home to 1 million people and now virtually empty. A giant highway cloverleaf at the main entrance to the city is partially toppled. Apartment block after apartment block has been crushed. Along a residential street, the walls of homes have been shredded away, exposing furniture and bedding. Graffiti on the few homes still standing warn of explosives inside.
When Iraqi government forces backed by U.S.-led warplanes wrested this city from Islamic State militants after eight months of IS control, it was heralded as a major victory. But the cost of winning Ramadi has been the city itself.
The scope of the damage is beyond that in other Iraqi cities recaptured so far from the jihadi group. Photographs provided to The Associated Press by satellite imagery and analytics company DigitalGlobe show more than 3,000 buildings and nearly 400 roads and bridges were damaged or destroyed between May 2015, when Ramadi fell to IS, and Jan. 22, after most of the fighting had ended. Over roughly the same period, nearly 800 civilians were killed in clashes, airstrikes and executions.

What is going on in Brazil?

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ruled on Thursday that the powerful lawmaker who orchestrated the effort to impeach President Dilma Rousseff must step down as he faces graft charges, ratcheting up tensions in the country.
And in a further blow to Brazil’s scandal-plagued political establishment, Vice President Michel Temer, the man preparing to take control of the government from Ms. Rousseff, had his conviction on charges of violating limits on campaign financing upheld earlier this week, a ruling that makes him ineligible to run for elected office for eight years.
The rulings are not expected to save Ms. Rousseff’s presidency. Support for her ouster remains strong in the Senate, which is preparing to vote next week on whether to remove her from office and put her on trial over claims of budgetary manipulation. But the decisions reflect the potential for greater political turmoil in the country