Middle Orient

Is Russia sending a message to Israel or to the US, or is someone else trying to create controversy? What is the goal of Iran here – or the Syrian regime or other regional powers? Russia could be moving to pressure Israel to stop airstrikes in Syria. Reports began to …

Moscow wields enormous influence in the middle east and is parked squarely on Israel’s doorstep in Syria. This presents a test for Israeli diplomacy. Much has been written since Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid came to power six weeks ago about how a new government presents …

An Iranian flotilla, including Sahand destroyer and Makran forward base ship, has arrived in Russia to participate in the naval parade on the occasion of Russian Navy Day, Iran’s envoy in Moscow said, On the invitation of the Russian Minister of Defense, Iran Army Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi …

An entire network that planned and executed a suicide bombing in Sadr City which killed dozens of people on Monday has been arrested, Iraq’s prime minister said on Saturday. A suicide bomber targeted shoppers in a crowded market in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on the eve of Eid …

Israel rejected Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s request to mediate with Ethiopia over its Renaissance Dam, Israeli Maariv newspaper reported. Jacky Hugi added that although every now and then someone in Egypt claims that Israel is secretly mediating between Cairo and Addis Ababa over the dam issue, this is a …

Following Israeli lobbying for intensifying raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas warned Israel not to test its patience because it is ready to defend the Palestinian holy sites, land and property. In a statement sent to media, Hamas called on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian …

Diplomats the world over blinked in disbelief on Tuesday, July 13 when the news broke that the previous evening Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had phoned Israel’s newly elected president, Isaac Herzog, to offer his congratulations. The surprise was all the greater when it emerged that the call between the …

Until relatively recently, Turkish policy meant that Muslim peoples from the USSR or the Russian Federation kept a low profile and researchers were largely blocked from studying them. But that has now changed, and this most important source for the study of the Muslims of Russia has become more accessible. …

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is redeploying and building new bases and prisons in its areas of control in northeastern Syria after coming under repeated Israeli and US airstrikes. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) opened its own prison in the Zamla gas field in the countryside of Raqqa in …

The serious allegation marked a new episode in the ex-president’s confrontations with the Revolutionary Guards and its powerful intelligence branch. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused a “corrupt ring” inside Iran’s intelligence apparatus of maintaining “a systematic link” with foreign espionage agencies. “They have to brace for trials,” Ahmadinejad, who …