Foreign Policy In Focus

Everybody loves Dexter. He’s handsome. He’s helpful. He works at the Miami Metro Police Department, and he’s very good at his job as a blood-splatter analyst. Oh, did I mention that he moonlights as a serial killer? Don’t worry: he only kills bad guys. That’s part of the code that Dexter’s adoptive father, himself a police officer, passed down to his son. As a child who had watched his mother die a horrendous death, Dexter couldn’t overcome the murderous impulses that surged within him. His father, channeling those impulses in the only constructive way he could think of, created a better monster of his son’s nature: a serial killer of serial killers.

It was a January evening when his Syrian army unit raided a house near the city of Zabadani, not far from Damascus, the former sergeant recalled.  A 70-year-old man wearing a hospital gown was brought to the house, and the soldiers, including a colonel, interrogated him. When he wasn’t able to respond to their satisfaction, one of the guards beat him ferociously in the face with a helmet.

Algeria’s instability claimed another self-immolation victim, Rechak Hamza, on April 29. Hamza set himself on fire in Jijel, in eastern Algeria, suffering third-degree burns. He was airlifted to a hospital in Constantine before succumbing to his injuries. His funeral was held on May 2.

The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are is a compilation of essays edited by Robin Wright that examines the backgrounds, worldviews, and positions on political, economic and social issues of Islamist political parties across the Middle East and North Africa. The success of Islamists in elections indicates that these parties enjoy support from large sections of the Arab world. Although Islamists did not initiate the “Arab Spring” or participate in the early protests, they are now using this democratic awakening in the region to acquire power.