Middle Orient

The president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, condemned a draft resolution proposed by the United States, Britain, France and Germany that was passed late last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors, that calls on Iran to cooperate with the IAEA’s investigators …

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu said in a statement in parliament on 18 November that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was an arm of US intelligence and reiterated his earlier comments by denouncing Washington for its support for the Kurdish militia.

On 14 November, US occupation troops in Syria looted a new batch of the country’s oil from the al-Jazira region, in coordination with their Kurdish proxy militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “The American occupation forces took out a new batch of stolen Syrian oil, in 76 tankers, to their …

On 14 November, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar posted an article that disclosed documents exposing Saudi, Bahraini, Emirati, and US involvement in the Iran riots. The article recalled a statement by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2017 about moving the battle to the Iranian territories to keep the kingdom …

In what it called retaliation for the deadly Istanbul blast on 13 October, the Turkish military launched over a dozen airstrikes against Kurdish positions in northern Syria in the late hours of 19 November and into the morning of the next day, killing members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces …

On the evening of 16 November, two members of Iran’s security forces were killed and at least eight others were injured in the neighborhood of Khane Esfahan in the city of Isfahan. The assailants who carried out the attack reportedly drove by on motorcycles and opened fire on the security …

In the past few days, social media has been flooded with unsubstantiated reports alleging that the Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced 15,000 protesters to death in the wake of street protests and violent riots sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. The misleading allegations largely stem from a 6 November …

On 5 June, 2014, hundreds of ISIS militants launched a lightning assault on Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. As a result of the mass surrender and desertion of the Iraqi forces, ISIS took full control of the city on 10 June, just 5 days later. The group looted banks, freed …

Throughout the 20th century, it was frequently said by residents of West Asia, “lift up a mullah’s beard, and you’ll see the words ‘Made in England’ written underneath it.” Such cynicism is understandable, given Britain’s history of covertly co-opting Imams and sheikhs to further its malign interests across the region.

Following Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in the Second Karabakh War in late 2020, Iran has doubled down on its long-standing diplomatic provocations, economic warfare, and threats of military aggression against Azerbaijan. The qualitative increase in its support for Armenia against Azerbaijan manifests in each of these areas.