标签： Asia

As the United States prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a new national poll has laid bare deep partisan divisions over the decades-long legacy of the post-9/11 “war on terror” and the domestic surveillance and security infrastructure it spawned.

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized control of four commercial airliners, launching coordinated attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, destroying the iconic complex; a third struck the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.; the fourth crashed into a rural field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

In response to the attacks, then-President George W. Bush launched sweeping changes to U.S. national security architecture that reshaped American life for generations. The administration created the new Department of Homeland Security, established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which introduced widespread airport screening protocols still used today, signed the Patriot Act granting law enforcement broad authority to surveil citizen communications, and secured congressional passage of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). That open-ended military authorization remains in effect 23 years later, and has been invoked by every subsequent administration to launch military operations across at least seven sovereign nations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen.

The new YouGov poll, published Wednesday, surveyed 1,098 U.S. adults aged 18 and older between August 20 and 23, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. When asked whether post-9/11 counterterrorism measures—including overseas military operations and expanded domestic security and surveillance—have been “worth the cost”, 48 percent of respondents answered yes, 25 percent said no, and 27 percent reported being unsure.

Partisan affiliation drove starkly different views: 71 percent of Republican respondents said the measures were worth the cost, nearly double the 36 percent of Democrats who agreed with that assessment. That partisan divide extends to perceptions of national safety: just under half of all respondents (49 percent) said the U.S. is safer today than it was before the 9/11 attacks, but that number jumps to 60 percent among Republicans, while only 20 percent of Republicans say the country is less safe now.

Maha Hilal, author of *Innocent Until Proven Muslim*, a book documenting the human costs of the war on terror, attributed widespread acceptance of the “safer now” narrative to decades of sustained government propaganda and little visible disruption to daily life for most Americans. “It’s pretty easy to convince people that they’re safer now because their ability to maintain the same sort of lifestyle has been relatively unchanged, especially as Americans tend to be quite apathetic anyway,” Hilal told Middle East Eye.

The poll also found that a narrow majority of Americans—52 percent—recognize that Muslim Americans have faced worse treatment than followers of other faiths in the post-9/11 era. That finding also splits sharply along partisan lines: 71 percent of Democrats agree that Muslim Americans have been mistreated, compared to just 28 percent of Republicans. This gap comes as Muslim community leaders and experts report that current anti-Muslim rhetoric from leading Republican figures is more extreme today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

When asked which ideological group has carried out the most violent attacks within U.S. borders, 25 percent of respondents correctly identified right-wing extremists, while 19 percent blamed Islamic extremists, 17 percent pointed to unaffiliated lone wolves, and 13 percent named left-wing extremists.

Hilal noted that the decades-long success of the war on terror narrative has made it difficult even for progressive critics to center the harms of Islamophobia, which is often framed as an accidental side effect of counterterrorism rather than a core, intentional feature of the policy. “It has been to reiterate over and over again how this war has been a success, and how it has stopped numerous acts of terrorism,” Hilal said. “Even among leftists and liberals, it has been difficult to communicate the idea that Islamophobia has been a part and parcel to the war.”

The ongoing resonance of post-9/11 biases has been highlighted by a recent controversy at CBS News, which faced internal backlash from current and former staffers over its coverage of Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, who is running in the 2024 November election. Critics accused the network of overt racism and poor journalism for publishing a pre-anniversary story highlighting old, deleted social media posts from El-Sayed. In the posts, El-Sayed compared the more than 1 million U.S. deaths from COVID-19 to the nearly 3,000 deaths from 9/11, and called for the same level of national mobilization to address poverty and the pandemic that the country deployed after the attacks. He also mourned both the victims of 9/11 and the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the post-9/11 wars that followed.

New research from Brown University’s Costs of War project has underscored the staggering human toll of those post-9/11 conflicts. A 2023 report from the project estimated that at least 4.5 million people have died as a direct or indirect consequence of post-9/11 wars across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Of those fatalities, between 3.6 and 3.7 million are classified as indirect deaths, caused by collapsed economies, widespread food insecurity, destroyed public health infrastructure, environmental contamination, and ongoing intergenerational violence and trauma that follow armed conflict. Even after the U.S. withdrew its formal military presence from Afghanistan in 2021, Afghans continue to suffer and die from war-related causes at higher rates than at any point during the conflict, the report found. Many of these indirect deaths could have been prevented if not for the collapse of basic services brought by war, researchers noted.

While casualty counts for post-9/11 conflicts remain a topic of heated political debate, independent estimates have consistently pointed to massive death tolls: a 2015 report from Nobel Prize-winning organization Physicians for Social Responsibility estimated that more than 1 million people had been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone by that point.

A sharp diplomatic standoff between Israel and the United Kingdom has intensified in recent days, as top Israeli officials have issued explicit warnings that any new British sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank will trigger a swift and proportional retaliation from Jerusalem.

The public escalation began during an interview with Israeli domestic news outlet Ynet this Tuesday, when Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar laid out Israel’s position amid growing tensions over Israel’s recently announced plan to expand settlement construction in the West Bank’s highly contentious Area E1. Sa’ar levelled criticism directly at the UK’s current Labour government, accusing the administration of pursuing a coordinated agenda against Israel. He noted the government has already restricted Israeli defense imports and imposed punitive measures on senior Israeli ministers, actions that set the stage for the current crisis.

The Labour government first imposed targeted sanctions in June 2025, when it blacklisted far-right Israeli cabinet members Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for their role in inciting settler violence against Palestinian communities during Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. This Tuesday, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband formalized plans for further action during an address to British Members of Parliament, confirming his government would roll out a “comprehensive” package of sanctions in the coming weeks.

Miliband emphasized that Israel’s proposed E1 development – which would connect Jerusalem to the existing Ma’ale Adumim settlement and other Israeli built communities east of Jerusalem, effectively splitting the core territory Palestinians have earmarked for their future independent state – poses an existential threat to the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “This government will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution,” Miliband told lawmakers, confirming that concrete measures would be outlined in the near term.

The proposed E1 project has been a flashpoint for international criticism for decades, as its implementation would permanently cut off the geographic contiguity of the West Bank, making a sovereign, viable Palestinian state functionally impossible. Sa’ar rejected Miliband’s announcement outright, framing the planned sanctions as an unjust attack on Israeli interests. “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain,” Sa’ar told Ynet. “They will be making a big mistake. Israel will not be a passive victim of this policy, and we will defend our rights, our interests and our people.” Sa’ar added that Israeli authorities are already making preparations for potential sanctions and finalizing their retaliatory response.

This public exchange is the latest high-profile clash between the two countries’ top diplomats: just last month, Sa’ar and Miliband traded critical remarks over the E1 settlement expansion plan, opening the rift that has now widened into a full diplomatic crisis.

According to a Monday report from Israeli right-wing newspaper Ma’ariv, Israeli officials have already privately warned London that any new sanctions on settlements will be met with a “substantial” response. The report noted that Israeli leadership has not yet finalized the form of retaliation, with multiple options on the table including diplomatic and economic measures. One option reportedly under active consideration is the expulsion of British representatives from the US-led International Gaza Support Centre (IGSC), the multinational body established to monitor the ongoing Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

This would not be an unprecedented step for Jerusalem: just last week, Israel expelled Dutch officials from the IGSC in response to the Netherlands’ recent ban on imports of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements. Earlier this year, Israel similarly removed Spanish representatives from the body, accusing the Spanish government of “obsessive anti-Israel bias.”

Still, Ma’ariv reported that Israeli leadership is weighing the potential long-term risks of a harsh retaliation against the UK, noting that future British governments led by the Conservative Party or a Reform UK-aligned administration are widely expected to adopt a far more pro-Israel stance. The report also confirmed that the United States administration has been working behind the scenes as an intermediary between the two governments, actively pressuring London to abandon its planned sanctions package.

In the wake of catastrophic flash floods and landslides that have devastated cross-border regions of Nepal and Tibet’s Xizang Autonomous Region, ongoing rescue operations have been overshadowed by a heated social media dispute over media coverage and information control of the disaster.

The controversy ignited after a report from Laura Bicker, the BBC’s China correspondent, claimed that Chinese authorities had scrubbed viral footage of a massive flood and mudslide surge that swept through Gyirong Port, a key border trading hub on the Tibet-Nepal border. Bicker argued the removal was rooted in Beijing’s concerns over potential social unrest in the politically sensitive Xizang region.

Critics of the BBC’s reporting quickly pushed back, with social media users sharing screenshots proving the same footage cited by Bicker had already been broadcast by multiple domestic Chinese outlets. One Chinese journalist publicly accused the outlet of spreading blatant misinformation, while other online observers noted nuanced, middle-ground perspectives are often erased in polarized debates over Chinese media censorship.

Long-standing tensions frame this conflict: Beijing has repeatedly condemned what it frames as systemic bias in Western media reporting on Xizang, and pro-government social media users have amplified this narrative this week, centering their criticism on the BBC. At the same time, domestic and overseas Chinese social media users have long documented widespread state control over information in China, a pattern that has reemerged in the aftermath of the floods.

As Bicker outlined in her report, the most tangible evidence of content restrictions is the removal of user-shared footage showing the flood wave swallowing Gyirong Port. While the clips initially spread across domestic platforms WeChat and RedNote, they were later made inaccessible to users. Beyond content removal, independent and foreign journalists are systematically barred from accessing the disaster zone. Allyson Horn, a correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, confirmed she had submitted multiple requests to visit the affected area and was rejected each time, with other international reporters facing identical blocks.

This blanket access restriction makes independent verification of official Chinese accounts of the disaster impossible for outside outlets. The combination of removed social media content and barred independent reporting has left Chinese state media with full control over the public narrative of the floods.

State media coverage of the disaster has followed China’s long-standing crisis reporting playbook, which prioritizes content that avoids public panic or perceived threats to social stability. Coverage has centered almost exclusively on People’s Liberation Army rescue missions, President Xi Jinping’s oversight of the response, and Premier Li Qiang’s official visit to the affected region. Reporting has also included updates on road repair efforts and the delivery of relief supplies to impacted communities, but as The Guardian has observed, there has been a stark lack of coverage detailing the disaster’s impact on local residents, their destroyed homes and damaged communities. This stands in sharp contrast to the Nepali side of the border, where international reporters have been allowed to interview survivors without restrictions.

Critics also accuse Beijing of concealing the true casualty toll from the disaster, but the restricted access to the region means no outside observers can confirm or refute competing claims about the number of fatalities.

To contextualize current information controls, it is worth examining shifts in Chinese emergency reporting over recent decades. In some historical cases, Beijing has allowed far more open coverage of large-scale disasters: the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, which killed over 70,000 people and left millions homeless in Sichuan province, saw Chinese state media launch extensive live coverage within hours of the quake, a practice that continued for weeks. China Central Television published regular updates to the death toll and covered rescue efforts in depth. While foreign reporters raised questions about the collapse of poorly constructed school buildings and calls for accountability for victim families, domestic Chinese outlets even covered some of these controversies, including debates over whether local officials had conducted proper construction quality inspections. This early coverage was widely hailed by international observers as an unprecedented breakthrough in open Chinese disaster reporting, with many noting the extraordinary level of transparency on display. Within weeks, however, the government cracked down on discussions of the collapsed schools over fears the issue would fuel anti-government sentiment.

Over time, the standard approach for state media during crises has solidified: outlets are mandated to focus exclusively on “positive reporting,” while online censors remove any content that criticizes the government’s response or suggests official culpability. The 2011 Wenzhou high-speed train crash, which killed dozens of people, serves as a clear example of this model. Academic research shows that unlike the relatively open early coverage of the 2008 earthquake, the government enforced strict controls on permissible coverage of the crash. Officials ordered outlets not to deploy reporters to the scene, limited how often outlets could cover the incident, and barred any coverage that linked the crash to broader national high-speed rail expansion. Journalists were also forbidden from investigating the root causes and human impact of the crash, or sharing personal commentary on the incident on social media. Instead, they were instructed to prioritize heartwarming stories of bravery and collective action, such as local residents donating blood for victims, to encourage feelings of national unity and compassion rather than criticism.

Since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, concerns over potential threats to party rule have led to even stricter controls on both traditional media and social platforms across China. The restricted, positive-only coverage of the Tibet floods aligns fully with this tightened policy framework.

The ongoing dispute has also been amplified by growing geopolitical distrust between China and Western nations, which has deepened perceptions of biased coverage on both sides. Logistical barriers to accessing the disaster zone and first-hand sources have only further muddied the information landscape. China’s access restrictions leave Western journalists unable to independently confirm details on the ground, creating an information gap that fuels suspicion of censorship in the West and criticism of Chinese state media narratives. In turn, this criticism reinforces Beijing’s long-held claim that all Western reporting on Tibet is inherently biased, creating a feedback loop that justifies further information restrictions.

In a public conference appearance this week hosted by Israeli media outlet Ynet and the Israel Democracy Institute, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz made an explicit public case for relocating the entire Palestinian population out of the Gaza Strip, framing mass emigration as the only viable long-term resolution to the ongoing conflict in the coastal enclave.

Katz’s remarks marked one of the most high-profile endorsements of a long-simmering Israeli policy that has drawn fierce international condemnation over fears it amounts to forced displacement of Gaza’s residents. “There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without migration,” Katz told journalist Moran Azoulay during the on-the-record discussion. He went on to lay out a timeline for advancing the plan, saying momentum for relocation would pick up after Hamas fails to meet its commitments under existing agreements, clearing the way for Israel to escalate military and territorial action to facilitate the population movement.

To back up his claim that relocation enjoys broad support among Gaza’s population, Katz asserted that consistent public opinion surveys show roughly 80 percent of Gazans want to leave the enclave. That figure aligns with a May survey conducted by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit that falls directly under Katz’s own defence ministry. The COGAT survey found that nearly 80 percent of respondents expressed interest in learning more about processes to resettle in third countries via the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

Katz acknowledged that the plan has so far been held up by two key barriers: Hamas blocks Gaza residents from leaving for resettlement, and no foreign nations have stepped forward to accept the displaced population. “We are fully prepared to move them out if it becomes possible — by sea, by air, by every way possible,” the minister said, adding that Egypt has already ruled out allowing relocation through its territory. He also noted that potential host countries are waiting for formal backing from the United States before agreeing to take in Gazans, explaining that former President Donald Trump froze the initiative rather than cancelling it entirely, amid heavy pressure from Arab nations opposing the plan.

The controversy over Israel’s relocation plan has already forced the government to rebrand the initiative in an effort to blunt international criticism. At the end of June, Israeli officials confirmed that the plan would drop its original label of “voluntary migration” in favor of the rebranded “Freedom of Movement Plan.” Israel’s Channel 13 reported that Israeli security agencies including the Mossad were ordered to stop using the original terminology, which had sparked global backlash over allegations it masked a policy of forced ethnic cleansing. Reporting from Israeli newspaper Haaretz around the same time revealed that Shmuel Ben Ezra, head of Israel’s National Security Council, called an urgent meeting to discuss efforts to advance resettlement, with Mossad officials openly admitting they had yet to identify a single country willing to accept large numbers of displaced Gazans.

Beyond his comments on Gaza relocation, Katz also addressed rising regional tensions during the conference, confirming that Israel is actively preparing for a potential large-scale attack from Iran during the upcoming Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, which falls between September 11 and 13 this year. The defence minister stressed that Israeli security forces are fully prepared to respond with overwhelming force if Iran or its proxy groups launch an attack on Israeli territory during the holiday period.

A prominent UK-based international aid organization is at the center of a high-stakes regulatory investigation after a pro-Israel advocacy group formally accused it of ties to the proscribed militant group Hamas, prompting firm denials from the charity and renewed scrutiny of partisan efforts targeting Palestine solidarity work in Britain.

The Al-Khair Foundation, which delivers critical humanitarian aid to vulnerable populations in Gaza, is now the subject of parallel probes by the Charity Commission for England and Wales and the UK Department for Education. The investigation was launched following a formal complaint submitted by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), an advocacy group that has long targeted organizations and individuals critical of Israeli government policy.

The chain of events that led to the probes began in July, when Mohammad Yousef Hasna was arrested in the UK at the request of American federal law enforcement. US prosecutors have charged Hasna with providing material support to Hamas, which is listed as a banned terrorist organization by both the US and UK governments. Al-Khair Foundation has clarified that Hasna was never a direct employee of the organization, noting he worked for a separate partner charity that carries out humanitarian relief work in Gaza. No charges have been filed against Al-Khair itself in relation to the case.

Within hours of learning of Hasna’s arrest on suspicion of terrorism-linked offenses, Al-Khair proactively submitted a mandatory serious incident report to the Charity Commission — a step the organization took before the regulator opened its formal inquiry. In an official statement released this week, the charity forcefully pushed back against all allegations of connections to Hamas or any other proscribed group.

“We unreservedly condemn violence and extremism of all kinds,” the statement read. “Al-Khair Foundation as an organisation categorically denies any allegation of channelling support to, supporting or assisting Hamas or any proscribed entity in Gaza or elsewhere.” To address the inquiry fully, the charity has appointed an independent consultant to conduct a full factual review, with findings to be shared alongside all required legal and operational documentation for the investigation.

The Department for Education’s parallel investigation centers on four schools operated by Al-Khair Foundation: three based in London and one in Oldbury, West Midlands. The charity emphasized that the school network operates completely independently from its international humanitarian aid programs, and has no connection whatsoever to Hasna. “The schools recognise the need for questions from the Department for Education and are responding to all of them,” the organization added.

This investigation is not an isolated incident: for years, the Israeli government has repeatedly leveled unsubstantiated accusations of Hamas links against international charities that deliver aid to Gaza, where a decades-long blockade and escalating humanitarian crisis have left more than two million residents dependent on outside assistance. Al-Khair reaffirmed its commitment to serving vulnerable communities in the territory, noting its programs have reduced food insecurity and sustained life-saving support for thousands of families amid extremely challenging operating conditions. “We hope the inquiry process will allow us to present evidence that will establish the facts of the work of AKF, and the realities of our humanitarian operations in Gaza,” the charity said.

Behind the complaint lies a long pattern of advocacy by UKLFI, which was founded in 2011 and has become a leading actor in pressuring UK-based organizations and individuals that express support for Palestinian rights or criticism of Israeli government policy. The European Legal Support Centre’s Britain Index of Repression, which documents systemic efforts to suppress Palestine solidarity activism across the UK, lists UKLFI 128 times. The centre’s research shows that UKLFI frequently acts as an initiating or escalating actor in campaigns against Palestinian solidarity activity, using formal complaints, legal threats, and public pressure to push schools, universities, employers, and public bodies to launch disciplinary proceedings or cancel planned events. This pattern of activity, the centre argues, has created a “chilling environment” where even lawful Palestine-related organizing is often abandoned out of fear of costly legal action and professional reputational harm.

As record-shattering summer heat pushes Tunisia into a dual crisis of widespread infrastructure collapse and growing public fury, President Kais Saied’s administration has intensified a sweeping, systematic crackdown on the country’s already beleaguered civil society sector, a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigation has found. In a 49-page report published Wednesday, the global rights watchdog warns that the escalating targeting of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is not isolated harassment, but a deliberate campaign to eliminate independent civil society from the North African nation entirely.

The report lays out a detailed timeline of repression that began between May and December 2024, when authorities arrested 14 staff members from two types of groups in particular: organizations that provide support to asylum seekers, and anti-racism advocacy groups. From 2025 through the first half of 2026, at least 47 individuals linked to targeted NGOs have gone through prosecution in Tunisian courts, the investigation found. At least 10 of those people have been held in pre-trial detention for periods longer than the 14-month maximum allowed under Tunisian national law, a clear violation of domestic legal standards.

One of the highest-profile cases highlighted in the report is that of Saadia Mosbah, a leading Tunisian human rights defender. In March 2026, Mosbah was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay a substantial fine on what HRW calls “abusive charges of financial crimes” that are widely seen as politically motivated. Five additional employees of asylum support organizations have also been convicted on similar fabricated charges tied directly to their professional work assisting vulnerable populations, the report confirms. All targeted organizations have been forced to cease operations entirely, leaving critical gaps in services for marginalized communities across Tunisia.

Saied’s government has also weaponized existing counterterrorism and anti-money laundering laws to criminalize even basic assistance to foreigners living in Tunisia with irregular immigration status, turning humanitarian work into a criminal act.

The government’s crackdown on dissent has done little to quell growing public anger, which has boiled over into mass street protests in recent weeks amid an unfolding climate and infrastructure emergency. This summer, temperatures in Tunisia have repeatedly climbed close to 50 degrees Celsius, driving unprecedented demand for electricity for cooling and increased strain on water supplies. To cope with constrained generation capacity, the Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas rolled out rolling, rotating power cuts across multiple regions of the country.

Those outages have triggered a cascading crisis that has hit the country’s water distribution network, which depends on electric-powered pumping stations to deliver supplies to homes and businesses. The outages have added extra pressure to a water system already severely weakened by years of persistent drought. Compounding the crisis, power cuts and shortages of raw plastic have disrupted production of bottled water, leaving communities without reliable access to safe drinking water during the record heat wave.

The public health system has been pushed to breaking point as a result. Emergency departments across the country are already overwhelmed treating heat-related illnesses, and on August 29, the Tunisian Organisation of Young Doctors issued a statement warning of an “unprecedented” spike in heat-related deaths, and calling on the Saied administration to declare an official national health emergency.

Facing growing public outrage over the failures of basic services, Saied has responded by blaming unspecified actors for sabotage, a familiar pattern of conspiratorial rhetoric from the president. He has claimed the outages and shortages are “premeditated acts aimed at inflaming the situation by any means necessary, spreading lies and rumours to sow confusion” and “mistreating citizens even in the most basic services” — but has failed to produce any public evidence to back up these claims.

The current crackdown on civil society is part of a broader erosion of democratic norms that began shortly after Saied’s July 2021 power grab, when he dissolved the sitting parliament, seized executive authority, and moved to consolidate power under his personal control. Since that time, Tunisian civil liberties have deteriorated to what multiple local and international rights groups describe as an “alarming” state, with widespread condemnation of what they call Saied’s “authoritarian drift” and the sharp, systemic erosion of fundamental rights across the country. Dozens of journalists, opposition politicians, and human rights defenders have been arrested, with many handed lengthy, heavy prison sentences in recent years.