Middle Orient

Turkey has evacuated seven military observation posts in northwest Syria, pulling back troops from territory controlled by the Syrian government to areas held by insurgents and Turkey-backed rebels, a Turkish source said on Friday.

Of all the pressing issues in the volatile Middle East—wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya, unstable Iraq, imploding Lebanon, and the 10,000 ISIS fighters and other al-Qaida franchises still on the loose—the most pressing for President-elect Joe Biden will be Iran’s controversial nuclear program. He has repeatedly promised to rejoin …

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara will “take steps” to respond to the US sanctions unveiled this week. Turkey won’t back down from its purchase of Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile defense systems, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday, adding that Ankara is weighing how to respond to …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi committed to enhanced cooperation on terrorism, trade and energy, although Turkey’s ongoing military operations in Iraqi Kurdistan may remain a source of contention between the two neighbors.

Faisal Mikdad has held a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and discussed the situation in Syria and future relations writes SANA. Foreign and Expatriates Minister Faisal Mikdad confirmed that Syrian-Russian relations advanced in recent years, especially in the domain of combating terrorism and deepening the strategic relations, clarifying …

Bashar al-Jaafari has lashed out at the UN and demanded that foreign powers end their occupation of Syrian lands and halt support for separatist movements reports Al-Masdar.

The Omran Center for Strategic Studies published a study on Thursday that identified several factors preventing Syrian refugees from returning to Syria, some of which are related to the security and military component, and others to the economic component.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah Obtained Pilot Training and Researched How to Hijack Aircraft in Order to Conduct a 9/11-Style Attack at the Direction of al Shabaab

Hamas’s call on Moroccans to revolt against their leaders contradicts its own declared policy that it does not intervene in the internal affairs of the Arab countries. “Hamas does not meddle in the internal affairs of Arab and Muslim countries,” said senior Hamas official Salah Bardaweel. If true, why is …

As the Biden team begins its work next month, it needs to reassess American policy in Syria, Robert Ford, former U.S. Ambassador to Damascus writes Last week a senior official from the US Department of State told a congressional committee that the enduring defeat of ISIS (or Da’esh) in Syria, …