Middle Orient

This time last year, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey appeared to be on opposing sides of a range of issues spanning the broader Middle East and North Africa region. But recently, leaders from the two countries have started to talk again. Concerns in 2019 and 2020 that a regional …

In a little more than a month, on Dec. 24, Libyan voters will go to the polls to elect a new president, and after a decadelong civil war it is probably stating the obvious to say that they face tough choices. Among the candidates they can vote for are Gen. …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist ambitions seem to be seeking an international role in post-U.S. Afghanistan in alliance with the Taliban, Qatar, Pakistan and Malaysia. The trouble is, Turkey, among the new sharia alliance in the making, is the only country with institutional ties to the Western world. Biden …

On 7 November, outgoing Iraqi prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt, casting a shadow over the country’s recent elections. While the attack remains unclaimed, pro-Iranian Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) groups are suspected of being involved following their party’s (the Fatah Alliance) rejection of the election results. The attack …

CIA Director Bill Burns held a rare conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, to convey “serious” US concerns about Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border and to attempt to determine Russian intentions, two sources with direct knowledge told CNN. Putin’s spokesperson also confirmed there was …

Attacks on weapons shipments and Iranian interests in Syria don’t appear to be of much concern to Assad either, and the Americans have more pressing matters to attend to – including the NSO scandal and Israel’s response to it Israel’s alleged aerial strike in Syria on Monday would be the …

Russian military vehicles have unloaded large numbers of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines in northern Syria’s countryside of Tal Rifaat, which is controlled by the YPG/PKK, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday. Members of the YPG/PKK group, designated a terror group by Turkey, were seen planting the mines in northern Syria. This …

Russia arranged for the Syrian army to enter into some areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in an attempt to organize the situation in the east of the country. Earlier, Russian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Moscow is exerting intensive efforts to contain the military escalation …

More than 900 pro-Turkish Syrian fighters have returned to Syria after the end of fighting in the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, a British-based Syrian war monitor said Wednesday. A November 9 truce ended more than a month of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the ethnic Armenian enclave that broke …

On the evening of Tuesday 9 November, Turkish warplanes targeted separatist elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the Syrian city of Qamishli. The drone attack is not the first of its kind in the city, as it was preceded by similar attacks in the city and Ain Al-Arab …