During a regular press conference held just hours after Taliban forces entered Kabul, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stated that China stands “ready to continue to develop good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation with Afghanistan and play a constructive role in Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction.”[1] But is China anxious to fill the …

With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid victory of the Taliban, some observers have pronounced the commencement of a new Chinese-led regional order. China, they say, will sweep in and develop road and rail infrastructure to extract Afghanistan’s vast mineral and rare earth wealth and thereby emerge as …

The ongoing (and largely overblown) controversy over the decision by congressional progressives to block the inclusion of $1 billion in additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, over and above the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid Israel already receives, has exposed ruptures within the Democratic Party as …

The images of desperate Afghan citizens trying to leave their country, beyond highlighting a massive human tragedy, may become a symbol of the so-called war on terror. Many of those Afghans already understand the feeling of abandoning their homes, because their families experienced it. They know what happens when foreign …

The return of Taliban rule over Afghanistan will have significant consequences for the region and international politics more broadly. For the Islamic Republic of Iran, Washington’s Afghanistan fiasco is about more than just the victory of the Taliban; it has been touted as confirmation that U.S. policy in the Islamic …

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. Following multiple attacks targeting the “apostate Taliban militia” in Afghanistan,[1] the Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan, known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), continued to ramp …

In early May, a high-speed boat pulled alongside the Rio Mitong, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel, just off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Using ladders to board the ship, a group of assailants kidnapped two crew members, taking them back to the shore, where they subsequently held them for ransom. Another …

Following Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s approval last month of a new naval base to be built on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, official Kremlin statements have billed the facility as a logistics center that will be defensive in nature—for principal use as a resupply station for Russian warships. In spite …

Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted much international outrage but little meaningful action. President Vladimir Putin was able to forcefully redraw his country’s borders, shrugging off the international sanctions that the United States and European Union imposed in response. Putin’s success augmented “the belief among some …

In mid-March, Turkey and Egypt confirmed they’d had their first diplomatic contact since breaking off relations in 2013. Though the talks were described by Egyptian sources as preliminary, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying, “Contacts at the diplomatic level have started.” The thaw comes after a decade …