Middle Orient

A massive attack on detention facilities in northeastern Syria under US-backed, Kurdish-led forces has ended after almost a week of fighting, though the fate of some hostages remains unclear. The “F-16s, tanks and guns” that had resounded for almost a week near the Sinaa prison in Hasakah fell silent after …

The Islamic State launched a massive attack on a Kurdish-run prison in Hasakah in northeastern Syria with the aim of releasing about 5,000 inmates. The Islamic State (IS) launched an attack against Al-Sinaa prison in northeast Syria on the night of Jan 20-21. The prison, located in Hasakah’s Ghweran neighborhood, …

The faces of Mujahedin-e-Khalq leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi briefly disrupted state TV programming. State TV in Iran acknowledged a brief hack of its channels on Thursday that appeared to be the work of an exiled dissident group in the run-up to the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution. For roughly …

Large-scale exercises in the Mediterranean are meant both to increase capabilities in Syria and to send a message to NATO. The Kremlin continues to put pressure on the West, demanding impossible security guarantees in Europe, building up troops near Ukraine and conducting military exercises one after another. Syria is also …

Turkey’s drones are a big morale booster for Ukraine as a potential Russian invasion looms. As Western leaders scramble to stave off a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, a pair of air force colonels in this medieval town in southwest Ukraine are showering praise on Turkey’s globally coveted combat drones, …

A decision by Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri to step away from Lebanese politics opens the way for Shi’ite Hezbollah to extend its already deep sway over the country, rendering it ever more a bastion of Iranian influence on the Mediterranean. Three times prime minister, Hariri declared on Monday he …

Amid reported piecemeal progress toward a potential deal, the Iranian government says it has been offered direct talks with the United States in the course of the ongoing multilateral nuclear negotiations in Vienna. Spokesperson for the Iranian government Ali Bahadori Jahromi said at a briefing in Tehran on Jan. 25 …

Syrian Kurdish-led fighters have advanced slowly into the Hasakah prison amid reports of hostages. Kurdish-led fighters freed nine hostages on Tuesday after entering northeast Syria’s largest prison holding Islamic State detainees the day prior. Fighters from the multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces began clearing cell blocks on the fifth day of …

The families of detainees in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s prisons in Syria’s Idlib province organized a series of protests, demanding that the group free their relatives, amid rumors that some of them will be executed. The number of protests demanding the release of detainees from the prisons of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham …

As tensions between Washington and Moscow keep rising, Israel prepares contingency plans for Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. On the backdrop of growing tensions and speculation over an imminent Russian invasion, Cabinet ministries in Jerusalem prepare for the possibility that thousands of Ukrainian Jews would want to immigrate to Israel. Reports …