Over the past decade, Iran’s regime has been involved in collaborations with criminal actors across the world, seeking to assassinate critics and adversaries, procure materials to advance its nuclear programme, circumvent international sanctions and money-laundering controls, and fund armed groups and terrorist organizations that have carried out horrific attacks. JR-Malley-Irans-critical-statecraft-How-Tehran-weaponizes-illicit-markets-GI-TOC-October-2024Download

Georgia is at the center of a political and geopolitical confrontation, with allegations of electoral fraud fueled by suspicions of pro-Russian interference. While President Salome Zurabishvili denounces vote rigging, imprisoned pro-European former President Mikheil Saakashvili calls for mobilization to protect the country’s European future. This crisis raises crucial questions for …

Bulgaria is back in very familiar territory. The October 27 parliamentary elections gave former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s center-right GERB party the most votes, but not enough to form a government on its own. Borisov will certainly try. But despite winning five out of seven parliamentary elections since 2021, GERB …

The Iran-led “Axis of Resistance,” composed of a coalition of armed and political groups across Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, has been striving to play a significant role over the past year amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The military operations, tactics, and strategies of Hezbollah, a key player in …

Hamas after Yahya al-Sinwar: According to reports, Hamas would not elect a new head toits political bureau until March 2025 and would rely on the leadership of a committeecomposed of five senior members. The southern front: IDF forces continued operations in the northern Gaza Strip, focusing onthe Jabalia refugee camp …

Georgian Dream’s message that the parliamentary elections were a chance for Georgians to choose between war and peace clearly proved more convincing than the opposition’s narrative of a choice between Russia and the EU. The parliamentary elections that took place in Georgia on Sunday were billed as the most important …

Polish President Andrzej Duda can’t be smeared as a “Russian agent” by any stretch of the imagination or suspected of even being remotely sympathetic to that country after all that he’s done to help Ukraine fight against it since 2022. French-born President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili, who also used to …

Civil war veteran Samir Geagea hopes the Shiite militia will be pressed into a position where it has no choice but to disarm. There’s no love lost between Lebanese Christian leader Samir Geagea and Hezbollah. Geagea’s escaped his fair share of probable assassination attempts by the Shiite militant group over …

The leader of the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeast Syria in an interview with The Associated Press called for international mediators to continue pushing for diplomatic solutions to the complex web of conflicts in the Middle Eastern country, including the escalating Turkish bombardment of Kurdish areas. Turkey has intensified its …

ISIS carried out at least 16 confirmed attacks in September in the Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Raqqa, and Deir Ez Zor governorates. These attacks killed at least 32 pro-Assad regime soldiers and one civilian and wounded at least 21 others. There were also five high quality* attacks carried out during the …