Middle Orient

ToplinesIran is likely prioritizing ballistic missile production due to both organizational inertia within the Iranian defense apparatus and the need to restore deterrence in what it views as an ongoing war with Israel. The reconstitution appears to be an effort to restore deterrence against Israeli attack, though a reconstituted ballistic …

Six months after Operation Rising Lion, Iran’s ballistic missile threat to Israel is once again intensifying. While Israel, with decisive U.S. support, dealt a severe blow to Iran’s nuclear program in June, the campaign left Tehran’s conventional missile infrastructure badly damaged but not eliminated. Iran has retained a residual production …

Two civilians were killed and seven others injured in artillery shelling that Enab Baladi’s correspondent in Aleppo attributed to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positioned in the al-Ashrafiya and al-Sheikh Maqsood neighborhoods of Aleppo city. Clashes erupted around the al-Layramoun and Shayhan roundabouts in northern Aleppo today, Monday 22 December, …

Many want to share in a possible boom after the toppling of Assad ended civil war and global isolation, but access is limited Scouting the old quarter of Damascus for a shop to expand his business, gold merchant Mahmoud Radwan encountered both high rents and the open hostility displayed towards …

Guns, ammunition and banknotes seized in raid on ⁠’terrorist hideout’ after deadly attack on US troops Syria announced on Sunday it had dismantled an ISIS cell in a Damascus suburb and arrested seven people, as part of a move to step up operations against ⁠the group after a deadly attack …

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says move aimed at ‘burying’ idea of Palestinian state Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has advanced plans to build a settlement in the E1 area surrounding East Jerusalem and derail the creation of a Palestinian state. The minister said on Thursday he would approve tenders …

Israeli cabinet voted to grant 19 settlements legal status on Friday The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is at its highest level since at least 2017, when the UN began tracking the data. In 2025, “plans for nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, …

Israel’s security cabinet has approved 19 more settlements in the occupied West Bank, bringing the number granted permission the past three years to 69. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, revealed the latest proposal had been passed after pushing it through the cabinet. Mr Smotrich openly says the new …

Internal Security Forces affiliated with Syria’s Interior Ministry, working with the General Intelligence Directorate, carried out what the ministry described as a well coordinated security operation in Daraya, southwest of Damascus, on Sunday, 21 December, targeting an Islamic State group site. The operation led to the arrest of the cell …

The Druze community in Syria now faces a severe trial that threatens its very existence and destiny. This ordeal has arisen from the convergence of three intertwined and contradictory factors. The first is the emergence of a new authority in Damascus, one with a jihadist-Salafi background that embraces narrow sectarian …