Middle Orient

The Israeli military on Friday said it fired interceptor missiles and protectively scrambled warplanes after what it described as a drone launched from Lebanon crossed its tense northern border. Hours later, investigations concluded the drone managed to return to Lebanon, the Israeli military said in a statement, stopping short of …

Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency said 16 people of different nationalities were wounded Monday at an airport in the south as a result of the interception and destruction of a drone carrying explosives launched from Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition that’s battling Yemen’s Houthi rebels was quoted as saying that the …

Efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal cannot succeed unless Washington lifts “major” sanctions, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, as sources said indirect talks between Iran and the United States were reaching a final stage. Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna …

Syria supports the decision of its ally Russia to recognise two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Syrian state TV quoted the Syrian foreign minister as saying on Tuesday.

A ground-breaking initiative has been launched to expose Syrian crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court. For the first time, a primary focus is the culpability of Iran and its proxies. Lawyers have said that Tehran’s support for Assad had come “at the cost of hundreds of thousands of …

Industrial enterprises in crisis-hit Turkey have faced energy price hikes of up to 400% over a year, atop other economic blows, and many might not survive the turmoil, experts warn. Massive price hikes on electricity and other energy items have dominated Turkey’s public agenda for weeks, aggravating costs in an …

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is pressuring foreign jihadis in Idlib and giving them two choices: Leave, or integrate into the local community. Since early February, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has stepped up its crackdown against Arab and foreign jihadis opposed to it in its areas of control in Syria’s northwestern province …

Expected interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve to rein in inflation will deal further blows to Turkey’s economic turmoil. Following a January increase of 7.5% in US year-on-year consumer prices, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates in its March meeting in a bid to rein …

The administration, however, then made an astonishing announcement: that it is unfreezing $29 billion to the Iranian regime, despite that Iran is still, according to the State Department, an officially designated state sponsor of terrorism. The move is apparently part of a US effort to appease the mullahs into redoing …

Multiple outside powers and domestic actors are pursuing their interests simultaneously through armed action on Syrian territory. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has largely prevailed over what many regarded as a civil war in the country, but it has limited sovereignty over much of Syrian territory and most of …