Middle Orient

Iranian leaders are considering the possibility of offering concessions while simultaneously escalating their crackdown against protesters in an effort to quell the three-month-old uprising. Hardliners in the regime believe that executing protesters will cause the woman-led unrest to subside.Regime moderates have criticized the executions and seek to end enforcement of …

After a bloody war that saw hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced over a decade, Syria has been effectively divided into spheres of influence and de facto protectorates controlled by regional and international powers. Foremost among these has been Iran, which has come to exert huge influence not only …

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Tuesday announced the arrest of several Islamic State (ISIS) suspects during a recently-launched operation against the group in northeast Syria (Rojava). The SDF on Thursday announced a new anti-ISIS mission dubbed Operation al-Jazeera Thunderbolt, targeting the terror group’s hotspots in northeast Syria’s al-Hol …

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, …