Major cities around the world have ramped up security, increasing police presence and even using drones to monitor crowds expected at May Day rallies.

International Workers’ Day, which is commonly known as May Day, celebrates the international labor movement on the first day of May every year. It’s a national holiday in more than 80 countries around the world.

France, which has been recently rankled by violent anti-government yellow vest protests, plans to deploy more than 7,400 police and dozens of drones in Paris. 

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said there was a risk that “radical activists” could join anti-government yellow vest protesters and union workers Wednesday in the streets of Paris and across the country. He said the goal was to protect demonstrators with “legitimate aspirations” and defend Paris from calls on social media to make it “the capital of rioting.”

He said other cities around France were also on alert.

In Germany, more than 5,500 officers will be deployed in Berlin where protesters, led by the “1 May Revolutionaries,” have been for weeks calling on people to demonstrate. As many as 20,000 activists are expected to protest against gentrification in the eastern district of Friedrichshain.

Across the world in Jakarta, police spokesman Commander Argo Yuwono said there will be 1,500 personnel deployed for a protest in the Istora Senayan area and 25,000 for a protest near the State Palace. He said more than 40,000 protesters are expected to take to the streets of Indonesia’s capital.

Turkish police have barricaded Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where May Day demonstrations have been held for years. The square was blocked off even though city authorities denied permits for rallies there this year. Taksim Square gained notoriety on May Day in 1977, when 34 demonstrators were killed when shots were fired from a nearby building. Hundreds of others were injured, but no one has been brought to justice for the shooting. 

In Iran, 12 members of the Free Workers Trade Union of Iran have been arrested as they met to plan International Workers’ Day celebrations, local media reported. Iran does not recognize labor unions independent of government-sanctioned groups. 
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In a suburb of Tripoli on Monday, two gunshots ring out kilometers from where the fighting was the day before.

“Sounds close,” my colleague says, as a young man walking through a sandy lot ducks and runs. Around the corner, another man continues his stride as if nothing happened.

A police car pulls into the street, and officers who appear to be in their early 20s jump out, telling civilian cars to turn around. The road is now closed, they say, as military trucks fly by.

More police arrive quickly, telling us the battle is hot and we cannot go any closer. 

About three weeks ago, Khalifa Haftar, who leads Eastern forces known as the Libyan National Army, announced he would take the capital, Tripoli, by force. Since then, the U.N.-recognized government in the West, known as the Government of National Accord, has mostly held them at bay. 

 

But over the weekend, airstrikes hit Tripoli city and clashes intensified in the suburbs. By early afternoon Monday, the LNA overran a military camp, Yarmouk, just south of the city. By late afternoon, soldiers from the GNA said they had taken the area back.

Later in the day, airstrikes hit a restaurant near a prison, and fighting in another suburb began anew.

“They brought tanks, machine guns and anti-aircraft missiles,” says Mohammad Turkey, a GNA special forces soldier guarding a checkpoint in an abandoned neighborhood that was packed with residents only a month ago. Armored trucks, a few Humvees and pickup trucks carrying soldiers whip past the recently made berms as Turkey and his men keep civilians out of the battle zone.

A woman pulls up in a small white sedan and tells him that she wants to see if her nearby house is still standing, and unscathed.

“No one can go in,” says Turkey. 

 

Displaced

Several kilometers inside the city, among breezy tree-lined streets, many of the people displaced by the conflict bunk at schools fashioned by local aid workers into displacement camps.

Men stay on the ground floor and women reside upstairs with the children, waiting for the battle to end. The U.N. says 42,000 civilians have been displaced, and at least 22 have been killed since the fighting began.

Twelve-year-old Takwa wears a white baseball cap over her long, curly ponytail. She can list the major players in this and three other complex Libyan wars she has lived through since 2011, when she was 4 years old.

This battle, she says, seems particularly brutal. Before she fled her home with her mother and siblings less than two weeks ago, three or four bullet holes pierced her bedroom wall.

“My 6-year-old brother pretends to shoot weapons,” she says. “We have no childhood.”

A few rooms over, Nadia Mohammad, 31, sits on a mattress on the ground in a pink T-shirt and soft pants. Her five children roam in and out of the room but don’t leave the floor. Nadia also remembers the details of every war, and every time they feared for their lives or for their livelihoods. 

 

Before 2011, when 40-year leader and strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in a widespread uprising, life in Mohammad’s quiet suburb was stable and secure. She doesn’t name Haftar as her choice for successor, but she has doubts about Libya’s long-beleaguered peace process. 

 

Her country is now divided in two, with two separate governments leading armies that are coalitions of armed forces that not too long ago fought among themselves. Families like hers are often caught in the crossfire.

“In my opinion, we should have one leader, one boss and one everything,” Mohammad says. “The situation in these past years is not what we want.”

WATCH: Libya Battle Intensifies After Tripoli Airstrikes

​Decentralized government

Many of Tripoli’s local leaders and activists, however, have an opposite vision for the future. The goal, they say, is to unite the country and create a decentralized, democratic government, leaving behind Libya’s history of one-man-rule.

Peace talks that were scheduled in April may have moved the country closer to a unity agreement. But when Tripoli was attacked, negotiations stalled and the peace talks were canceled.

So far, the war has not turned out as Haftar planned. The swift takeover has turned into a drawn-out, violent stalemate. 

But efforts to build a functioning democratic system continue, says Nabil Mohammed el-Khamri, a civil society activist in Tripoli. Officials continue to hold municipal elections across the country, hoping to establish local governments in nearly every Libyan district. 

 

This, he says, will create a structure from which a national parliament and a head of state can be elected.

“The steps of creating a democratic system have been ongoing since 2011,” el-Khamri explains. “The problem is the decentralized government in the West and the centralized government in the East are crashing together.”

Asked if he hopes a government emerges that resembles established democratic systems like The Netherlands, England or France, el-Khamri says: “Libya will set a new way. Why should we not do it the way we see is right?”

Foreign meddling

Outside the Tripoli Ministry of Foreign Affairs the next morning, there is a sign that this idea could be popular. Protesters gather, demanding an end to foreign meddling in Libya — which is seen as hypocritical at best, and at worst, a direct assault on the nation.

“We have paid a lot of blood for our dreams,” says protester Jamal Harizi. “But the international community is not committed to our needs.”

The international community is divided, with some countries supporting Haftar, even though the U.N. supports the Tripoli government. The U.S. opposed the attack on Tripoli, but that position has been muddied by U.S. President Donald Trump’s well-publicized phone call with Haftar last week. 

 

At the berm on the outskirts of the battle, Turkey, the special forces soldier, says he has little interest in the tangled politics of his country. His duty, he tells us, is only to serve and to provide for his family.

“If I’m still alive after this, I will go back to my children,” he says. “If I die, they can be proud I died defending their homeland.” 
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The recent ouster of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir after decades in power is threatening a key Turkish strategic project on the Red Sea.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s close ties to Bashir lay at the heart of Ankara’s goals of expanding its influence and challenging Saudi Arabia in the region, and all could be in jeopardy, analysts warn.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy hastily issued a denial that its redevelopment of Sudan’s Suakin Island had been canceled by a transitional military council currently running the country. 

Suakin, located in the Red Sea close to Saudi Arabia, was once a key naval base of Turkey’s former Ottoman empire.

In 2017, Bashir and Erdogan agreed Turkey would redevelop the island, including a port and dock for civilian and military use.

Last week, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling military council, reaffirmed control of Suakin, describing it as an “inseparable part of Sudan.” Burhan appeared to rule out any Turkish military use of the island.

“Its value cannot be measured with a material price. Its history cannot be sold,” he said. “We emphasize that we care about the sovereignty of our territories. We will not accept the presence of a foreign military existence in Sudan.” 

Military base

While Turkey has never formally announced plans to build a naval base, pro-government media frequently report Suakin is a key part of Ankara’s policy of expanding military influence across the region and serving its expanding navy. 

Turkey already has established bases in nearby Qatar and Somalia.

“This [Suakin] is concerning Turkey’s wider strategic and security interests,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “They just want a military base there [in the region], and Sudan was providing that opportunity. 

“But now, the cards are mixed up [with Bashir’s removal], and it will be difficult [to build a base on Suakin],” he said. “It [Suakin base] was definitely for Turkey and a big step forward to get a stronger position in Africa. But now, it will probably not be so. There is a big disappointment on the Turkish side, and the [Turkish] president’s statements prove that.”

Erdogan criticized the overthrow of what he described as the “democratically elected” Bashir; however, Bashir said Bashir’s removal “was aimed at Turkey.”

Pro-Turkish government media weighed in, with the Islamist Yeni Akit running the headline “Zionist Coup,” while Yeni Safak pointed at Riyadh, claiming Sudan’s new ruling military council was backed by Saudi Arabia.

Turkish, Saudi tensions

Bilateral tensions between Ankara and Riyadh are on the rise, exacerbated by a rivalry between Erdogan and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, analysts say.

Relations hit rock bottom following last year’s murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate. Khashoggi was reportedly close to Erdogan.

Ankara’s development of Suakin should be viewed through a prism of escalating Saudi-Turkish regional rivalry, said Emre Caliskan of Oxford University’s international relations department.

“Turkey thinks that it’s positive for Turkish influence to have this island,” Caliskan said. “The Turkish opening in Sudan may secure political goals, political gains for Turkey.”

Caliskan argues that it’s not clear whether Ankara would follow through and build a major naval base on Suakin, but says the threat of a Turkish base near Saudi shores may be enough diplomatic leverage to unnerve Riyadh.

“Turkey wants to control the area [Red Sea]. This is a kind of reaction to Saudi Arabia,” he said. “Turkey sees the growing influence of Saudi Arabia or groups supported by the Saudis in Turkey’s back yard. So, Turkey is giving a reaction in the Red Sea area — ‘I am going to be an influence in your back yard, as long as you are going to be an influence in my back yard.'”

Ankara accuses Riyadh of supporting rival groups in Syria’s civil war, including Kurdish forces that Ankara says have links to an insurgency inside Turkey.

‘Bloc against Turkey’

Bagci warns that Erdogan’s loss of his close ally, Bashir, is a major blow to Turkish foreign policy.

“We have now Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries, Israel and Egypt as a bloc against Turkey,” Bagci said. “Only Qatar is on Turkey’s side and is not enough to play a much bigger role in the Middle East.

“Turkey loses, at the moment, influence in political, economic and security terms. This is not good for Turkish foreign policy as the rivalry is increasing with Saudi Arabia.”

In an apparent effort toward damage control, Ankara appears to be seeking to reach out to Khartoum.

“The demands of the Sudanese people are our demands,” said Omer Celik, head of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). “Sudan is a friendly and brotherly country. Our hope is that the Sudanese people will achieve their democratic aspirations and that Sudan will never experience an internal conflict.”

Some analysts warn, however, that given Ankara’s past support of Bashir, any Turkish diplomatic efforts to curry favor with Khartoum will be a struggle, especially given Riyadh’s likely opposition.
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The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group says a U.S. service member has died in a non-combat incident in northern Syria.

The coalition’s statement gave no other details pending notification of next of kin but said the death occurred on Monday. It said further information will be released as appropriate.

 

The U.S. military currently has around 2,000 troops stationed in northern Syria, where they have been for several years, assisting and advising its local partners in the fight against IS.

 

President Donald Trump said in December he intended to withdraw all American forces from Syria, although the White House said later the U.S. will keep 200 troops in the country for now.

 
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