Middle Orient

High-level diplomacy has intensified among competing Middle East regional powers, a flurry of bilateral talks that increasingly suggests what a “Plan B” would look like if, as seems likely, the U.S. and Iran fail to revive the deal that briefly constrained Tehran’s nuclear program. The pace of contacts and meetings …

With the failure of the US backed TPLF Terrorist coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Ethiopia the USA is facing it’s greatest strategic blunder since losing Iran in 1979. The Ethiopian Army and its allied militias have in the last 10 days of fighting regained all the territory …

A top Iranian official attributed the ouster of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq to Tehran-backed militias while claiming that Washington seeks to revive the extremist group. The secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council has said the United States is seeking to resurrect the Islamic State across …

The kingdom is asking allies to resupply its Patriot missile munitions as Riyadh and Yemen’s Houthis trade bombardments. Saudi Arabia is pressing allies to supply additional missiles for its US-made Patriot air defense systems as its conflict with Yemen’s Houthi rebels once again intensifies. Riyadh has asked both the United …

The Sinjar Resistance Units is a member of the Popular Mobilization Units, making it officially part of the Iraqi security forces. Turkey killed a Yazidi commander in Iraq today. Marwan Badal, who commands the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), was killed in a Turkish airstrike in Sinjar in western Iraq. The …

Populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is seeking to close the deal among Iraq’s Shiite parties. The United Nation special representative in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, met today, Dec. 7, with the Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose party won the largest numbers of seats in the recent parliamentary elections. The UN is trying …

Ali Bagheri Kani may wait for the other side to bring “something to the table” now. It’s a deja vu moment in Vienna, where talks between Iran and world powers have resumed to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement. Aside from the lockdown, the freezing temperatures, the new faces, and a …

Israeli politicians and media intentionally exaggerate the ‘threat’ posed by the Gaza protesters to Israel’s security. A large Israeli army campaign is taking social media by storm. The unstated aim of what is known as the “#Untie_Our_Hands” initiative is the desire to kill, with no accountability, more Palestinian protesters at …

Lawyers have accused Turkish authorities of unjustly detaining people for alleged Revolutionary Peoples’ Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) links. Turkish police conducted raids targeting a far-left armed group today. Police detained 25 individuals for alleged ties to the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) in Istanbul, Ankara and other parts of the country. …

A recent string of attacks on Iraq’s Kurdistan Region peshmerga forces have raised concern over how effective long-discussed coordination with the central government is in the country’s flashpoint disputed territories. Peshmerga forces operating in territory disputed between the central government and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) have in recent …