Middle Orient

Turkey’s security establishment remains immutably opposed to the consolidation of any form of Kurdish autonomy in Syria that would mirror Kurdish gains in neighboring Iraq. Turkey’s overtures to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with last week’s meeting in Moscow between the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers, continue to …

Syrians are speaking out against a potential Turkish-Syrian rapprochement, with opposition-held areas holding vigils and protests across Aleppo and Idlib governorates. Protesters held a vigil in Idlib on Tuesday in protest of the Turkish rapprochement with the Syrian government. Protests have been taking place across different Syrian cities in Aleppo …

Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, asked the international community and the Muslim world to stand with the people of Afghanistan following a meeting with Afghan Shiites. A group of Shiite clerics from Afghanistan met with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, this week, as he urged the …

Local militias have resumed threatening the US presence in Iraq this week, leaving Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani in a difficult position. Sudani was nominated by the Coordination Framework, a bloc that includes Iran-backed militant groups and allied political groups. The alliance provides essential political support to Sudani who relies …

The Cradle has previously deconstructed the Pentagon’s online bot and troll operations targeting Iran. These wide-ranging efforts, over many years, sought to destabilize the Iranian government by disseminating and inciting negative sentiment against it, on a variety of social media platforms.

Local sources confirmed that there were likely casualties among US forces, as the missiles reportedly struck the facility’s housing section Washington’s military base in the occupied Al-Omar oilfield in Syria’s eastern governorate of Deir Ezzor, came under intense rocket fire late on 30 December in what has been described as …

The IRGC’s intelligence agency is currently identifying other members of this network that are operating both inside and outside the country Seven individuals active during the recent riots in Iran’s Kerman Province with ties to the United Kingdom were detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on 25 December, …

According to the Syrian news agency SANA, demonstrations against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US occupation in Syria continue to grow. The protests, which are still ongoing on 27 December, demand the expulsion of US forces and their regional allies from the Deir Ezzor province. Activists quoted …

Experts say US sanctions failed to reach their ultimate objective of forcing Iran into major political and military concessions The Islamic Republic of Iran will receive an entire squadron of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia as Tehran and Moscow strengthen their defense and economic collaboration in defiance of broad …

The Turkish foreign minister also vowed to continue the fight against ‘terrorism’ in Syria Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told media on 29 December that Ankara is willing to withdraw from the territory it occupies in northern Syria and hand it over to Damascus in the event that “political stability” …