Iran

CTP-ISW continues to assess that Iran and its Axis of Resistance will likely conduct a coordinated strike targeting Israel in retaliation for the death of former Hamas Political Bureau head Ismail Haniyeh on July 31. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has continued to communicate that Iran will retaliate “forcefully” against …

Acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani defended Iran’s impending retaliatory strike against Israel while signaling that Iran seeks to avoid a regional war during an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on August 7.[i] Bagheri Kani argued that Iran “has no choice” but to exercise its …

Islamic religious leaders, politicians, and jihadi organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan have reacted strongly to the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, offering condolences, calling it a terrorist act, and accusing Israel and America of violating international law and eliminating their opponents. Islamic religious leaders from …

Following the July 31, 2024 assassination of Hamas political bureau head Isma’il Haniyeh, the Qatari government press, and especially the Al-Sharq daily, published many articles that praised him and glorified resistance, martyrdom, and jihad against Israel, while stressing that Haniyeh’s path of resistance is “the right path that must be …

Latest Developments The Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, reportedly conveyed a personal message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Iranian leaders while he was in Tehran on August 5. The message urged the regime to refrain from taking military action against Israel. According to an unnamed Iranian …

Latest Developments The United States charged a Pakistani national with a thwarted Iran-backed plot to assassinate American government officials, the U.S. Justice Department disclosed on August 6. The defendant, 46-year-old Asif Merchant, had hired purported hitmen who were actually undercover U.S. law enforcement officers, according to the U.S. complaint unsealed …

Iranian armed forces-run Defa Press published a list of potential civilian and military targets in Israel on August 5, which likely aims to decrease Israel’s ability to effectively defend against an Iranian attack by causing Israel to air- and missile-defense assets and creating panic among civilians.[1] The list includes Israeli …

Latest Developments The secretary of Russia’s Security Council arrived in Tehran on August 5 as fears of an Iranian strike on Israel continued to grow. Sergei Shoigu, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was shown on the Russian Ministry of Defense-controlled Zvezda TV channel meeting Rear Adm. Ali …

Gorbachev had a thin resume as an apparatchik who had risen in the party by doing nothing, in fact, by being nobody. When he came to London to be promoted by Margaret Thatcher, his 10-line resume introduced him as the Central Committee’s agricultural tsar who had risen to be party …

Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated during a visit to Iran in what the terror group claimed was an “airstrike” directly on his room that was conducted by Israel early Wednesday. His death dramatically escalates tensions in the Middle East and raises the specter of all-out war between …