Middle Orient

Saudi Arabia said Monday it deposited $5 billion into the Turkish central bank, likely helping Ankara firm up its long-weakening currency, the lira, after last month’s massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and northern Syria. The deposit provides a capstone for just how far relations have improved between the kingdom …

The Right—and Wrong—Lessons of the Iraq War “The whole horrible truth about the war is being revealed,” wrote the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1923, just five years after World War I had ended. “Every new book destroys some further illusion. How can we ever again believe anything?” Americans had once …

White House officials have previously boasted that Washington ‘owns’ one third of Syria’s territory, in particular the resource-rich northeast The US occupation army renewed its oil smuggling campaign in northeast Syria three weeks after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake ravaged the war-torn country. According to eyewitness reports from the countryside of …

Extremist group HTS wishes to establish full control over the economy of Syria’s northern region A 23 February report by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar suggests that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist group, formerly the Al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front, has been attempting with external support to consolidate its power in Syria’s …

The Cradle s’est entretenu avec un haut responsable militaire du Hezbollah en Irak sur le rôle crucial joué par le défunt commandant iranien de la Force Quds, le général de division Qassem Soleimani, dans la conduite de la résistance contre Daech. Qassem Soleimani, le commandant iranien de la Force d’élite …

The Balkans presents a crucial junction for Tehran as an access point to Western Europe and an avenue for advancing its regional political and economic interests. The Balkan region is strategically important for western countries as a geographic bloc through which they can increase their influence in former Soviet Eastern …

Abstract: Once allies in the same organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Islamic State have an interesting history that turned them into ‘frenemies’ from April 2013 to February 2014 and then outright enemies over the past nine years. This led to a broader global fight between al-Qaida and the …

Iraqi forces have tracked down and targeted ISIS remnants in their hideouts during a series of operations in provinces across the country. Iraqi forces have been tracking down and killing key leaders of the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) in a series of operations targeting the group’s remnants …

Iran has vowed to cooperate with the UN’s nuclear watchdog to resolve outstanding issues after inspections reportedly showed that Tehran had enriched uranium to near nuclear-weapons grade, a joint statement from both sides said. “Iran expressed its readiness to…provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues,” a …

“U.S. support for demonstrations in Tel Aviv isn’t about the future of Israel’s judiciary. It’s about handcuffing Israel while Iran gets the bomb.” — Lee Smith, Tablet Magazine, March 2, 2023. In reality, Iran’s mullahs will most likely blackmail the Biden Administration for billions of dollars not to use their …