Middle Orient

Hurras al-Din, affiliated with al-Qaeda in Syria, claimed responsibility for an attack against a Russian base in northern Raqqa and pledged to expand operations outside its areas of deployment in Idlib.

Turkey feels vindicated as al-Ula Declaration ends the blockade against Qatar. The Kuwaiti emir’s proposal to end the more than three-year-old Qatar blockade was accepted just as the Gulf Cooperation Council summit started on Jan. 5 in the historic city of al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. All four states — Saudi Arabia, …

A presidential decree has paved the way for Turkish police to use military and intelligence resources to crack down on public protests. A recent presidential decree concerning the weapons and other assets of Turkey’s military and security bodies has generated little debate in Turkey but might have crucial consequences down …

With the Horn of Africa increasingly becoming an integral part of the Middle East’s security landscape, the fallout from Ethiopia’s current crisis will have a significant impact on states of the region. The Gulf Arabs recognize a strategic reality that has eluded the stove-piped US foreign and security policy bureaucracy …

“Iraqi ISIS members do operate in Syria as well. Many have been killed and arrested in the last few months during SDF and International Coalition raids.” The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Friday announced they killed three Iraqi members of the so-called Islamic State during an operation in the eastern …

Syrian regime forces, with Russian support, kicked off a wide operation in the vast Badia (desert) in retaliation to the rising number of attacks launched by ISIS remnants in the area.

Turkish police detained people suspected of ties to the Islamic State militant group in an operation targeting a total of 35 foreign suspects in Istanbul on Thursday, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.

Civil wars and strife often witness smaller wars and conflict between parties fighting in the same camp. This took place, for example, between Christian parties during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil when the Kataeb and National Liberal Party waged bloody battles for dominance. They culminated in the defeat of the Tigers …

A car bomb exploded in a vegetable market in the northeastern Syrian town of Ras al Ain close to the border with Turkey, with reports of several killed and wounded, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

Assault reportedly targeted Syrian regime soldiers returning to their posts in Deir ez-Zor, near Iraq border At least 37 people in Syria have been killed in one of the biggest attacks carried out by Islamic State since the fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate last year.