Middle Orient

Alternate prime minister Yair Lapid departed to UAE for first official visit since Abraham Accords * Bennett and Biden’s meeting to take place in coming weeks Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House in July or August, Bennett’s spokesman said …

On June 29, 2021, Al-Malahem, the media arm of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released[1] the first issue of its Inspire magazine since 2017. This issue of the magazine, titled “Praise and Guidance,” praised the Colorado shooter Ahmad Al-Aliwi Al-Issa, perpetrator of the March 22, 2021 mass …

Iraqi resistance forces have pledged revenge after the United States conducted deadly airstrikes on the Iraq-Syria border. U.S. warplanes attacked three targets allegedly belonging to Iraqi resistance groups along the border between Iraq and Syria at around 6 pm Eastern Time Sunday in the early hours of Monday in the …

Opposition groups backed by Turkey clashed in-between themselves and with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, according to Athr Press. Local sources told Athr Press that the Mu’tasim Division group had tried to expel the families of fighters from other groups within the area it controls in Ras al-Ain city, in …

A university professor tried to use his connections to be enrolled as a mercenary in Libya, as the economic situation in Syria worsens, according to al-Modon. It is only in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria where one can find a university professor looking for intermediaries to give up his respected and prestigious …

Russia has awarded the al-Qaterji militia an investment contract lasting five years, for the al-Taym and al-Ward oil wells in Deir-ez-Zor, each producing 2,500 barrels per day. Russian forces gave the investment of the al-Taym and al-Ward oil fields in the Deir-ez-Zor governorate to Arfada company. Last year, this company …

On Saturday evening, unknown assailants assassinated one of the most prominent leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, in Daraa. They shot and immediately killed him on the Saida-Ghariya road. Jahmani is Hezbollah’s first man in Daraa since 2019. He welcomed several Hezbollah and Iranian generals in mid-2019 and called prominent …

The Turkish-backed opposition is trying to benefit from the experience of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in establishing a new security apparatus to pursue terrorist cells in the areas under its control in north Syria. A new security apparatus is coming together in the areas controlled by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army …

Incoming Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi is widely discussed as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s successor, but there may be rumblings of a power struggle in the conservative camp. Two days after the Iranian presidential election June 20, Vahid Haqqanian, a senior official in the supreme leader’s office, provided his analysis of …

CENTCOM is trying to deter militia attacks without starting a war. The United States launched airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria before dawn on Monday, in response to a series of drone attacks on facilities used by American personnel in Iraq, the Pentagon said. The three targeted sites — …