Police Take Down ISIS-linked Servers Across Europe, US

A commander from the Iraqi Special Forces 2nd division calls his men back as they come under fire from ISIS militants in Mosul, November 16, 2016. (AFP / Odd Andersen)
A commander from the Iraqi Special Forces 2nd division calls his men back as they come under fire from ISIS militants in Mosul, November 16, 2016. (AFP / Odd Andersen)
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Police Take Down ISIS-linked Servers Across Europe, US

A commander from the Iraqi Special Forces 2nd division calls his men back as they come under fire from ISIS militants in Mosul, November 16, 2016. (AFP / Odd Andersen)
A commander from the Iraqi Special Forces 2nd division calls his men back as they come under fire from ISIS militants in Mosul, November 16, 2016. (AFP / Odd Andersen)

Police across Europe and the United States have in the past week taken down a large number of servers that supported media outlets linked to ISIS, European police and justice organizations Europol and Eurojust said on Friday.

Servers were taken down in the US, Germany, the Netherlands and Iceland, while Spanish police arrested nine "radicalised individuals", the organisations that coordinated the actions said, Reuters reported.

The servers supported websites, radio stations, a news agency and social media content with a global reach, they added.

"They communicated directives and slogans of ISIS in over thirty languages, including Spanish, Arabic, English, French, German, Danish, Turkish, Russian, Indonesian and Pashto. Several terabytes of information were uncovered," Europol and Eurojust said.



Study: Highest Number of Conflicts Worldwide in 2024 Since 1946

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Study: Highest Number of Conflicts Worldwide in 2024 Since 1946

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, during their funeral in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The world saw the highest number of armed conflicts in almost 80 years in 2024, dethroning 2023 as a record year, a Norwegian study published Wednesday showed, highlighting the risks linked to a US disengagement.

Last year, 61 conflicts were registered in the world across 36 countries, with some countries experiencing several simultaneous conflicts, the report by the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (Prio) said.

In 2023, there were 59 conflicts in 34 countries, AFP reported.

"This is not just a spike -- it's a structural shift," said Siri Aas Rustad, the main author of the report which covers trends in armed conflicts in the period 1946-2024.

"The world today is far more violent, and far more fragmented, than it was a decade ago," she said.

Africa remained the most ravaged continent, with 28 conflicts involving at least one state, followed by Asia with 17, the Middle East with 10, Europe with three and the Americas with two.

More than half of these countries experienced two or more conflicts.

The number of deaths resulting from fighting remained around the same level as in 2023, at about 129,000, making 2024 the fourth-deadliest year since the end of the Cold War in 1989, the study said.

The death toll was led by the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, as well as clashes in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

"Now is not the time for the United States -– or any global power -– to retreat from international engagement," Rustad said.

"Isolationism in the face of rising global violence would be a profound mistake with long-term human life consequences," she said, a reference to US President Donald Trump's "America First" campaign.

"It is a mistake to assume the world can look away. Whether under President Trump or any future administration, abandoning global solidarity now would mean walking away from the very stability the US helped build after 1945," she said.

The study is based on data compiled by Sweden's Uppsala University.