Middle Orient

The muhajirin file, or foreign fighters, has become a thorny issue for the new Syrian state, caught between loyalty to the fighters who formed a “hard core” within Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the external interests of the state over which HTS came to hold sway, and between honoring its …

The assassination of Haitham Ali Tabtabai, Hezbollah’s top military commander, deep inside Beirut’s southern suburbs has dramatically reshaped Lebanon’s internal security scene. Hours after the strike, Israel’s Alma Center published an updated chart of Hezbollah’s command structure that included senior political figures such as Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary …

The world is watching a famine develop in Gaza that could kill many times more than the 24,000 Palestinians who have already perished in Israel’s merciless blitzkrieg. Last month, more than 90 percent of Gaza’s population was estimated to be facing high levels of acute food insecurity, categorised as Phase …

A Sky News investigation has uncovered new details about Israel’s support for a Palestinian rebel group with extremist ties and a history of looting aid trucks. As negotiators debate who will run Gaza after the war is over, Israel is already shaping a new reality on the ground. In recent …

Mazlum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has said he is ready to travel to Turkey and meet with jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder Abdullah Öcalan, as Turkish lawmakers plan to make the first parliamentary visit to his island prison under a new peace initiative. Abdi …

Under a golden autumn sun, Abdallah Ibrahim harvests fistfuls of hard, green olives with evident delight. “We were denied this pleasure for the last 14 years,” he sighs. Barrel bombs and constant shelling caused his family and most of the residents of his village, Al Ghassaniyeh, to flee during the …

Hezbollah has confirmed senior commander Haitham Ali Tabatabai was killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburban area of Beirut on Sunday. The group said “the great commander” was killed in “a treacherous Israeli attack on the Haret Hreik area in the southern suburbs”. Mr Tabatabai was deputy to …

Toplines Some Syrian General Security Service (GSS) units are improving their counter-insurgency approach in rural minority areas by relying on relationships with locals. The GSS arrested a large Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Assadist cell in Sheikh Bader, Tartous Province, on November 12.[1] Independent Syria researcher Gregory Waters reported on …

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have violated phase one of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on at least eight occasions between November 13 and November 21, according to reports from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Since the ceasefire’s implementation on October 10, Palestinian groups have violated the deal 32 …

Iranian-backed political parties are preparing to form the next Iraqi federal government after winning over a third of the seats in the recent parliamentary elections. These parties may exclude or at least weaken Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani, despite his coalition winning the plurality of seats. Sudani could try …