Middle Orient

The UN’s atomic watchdog says Iran has again breached its nuclear deal with major powers by firing up advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges installed underground at its Natanz site. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi told a press conference on November 18 that centrifuges in a buried part of …

Qatar’s foreign minister also stressed a “united front” of Arab states on the Israel-Palestine issue and discussed Qatar’s relations with Israel. Qatar’s foreign minister said at a Monday forum that the Gulf state does not have a position on its neighbors the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain normalizing relations …

Several Shiite armed groups, which in recent months have targeted the US presence in Iraq, are setting up youth groups to prepare the next generation. Little-known armed groups — possibly linked to pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah — have in recent months targeted “vice” in Baghdad by attacking shops selling alcohol while …

One child was killed and at least five other people were injured, the Iraqi military said. Five people were injured and a child was killed after a barrage of rockets landed in Baghdad on Tuesday evening, shortly after the Pentagon announced the United States would pull another 500 troops from …

In recent months, “Islamic State” extremists have been demanding tax payments from residents of towns and villages in eastern Syria. Clashes in the Syrian desert between Russia-backed Syrian government forces and “Islamic State” (ISIS) group extremists killed 11 regime loyalists Wednesday, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based …

Several fronts on which the Turkish state has participated in recent years and months have gradually subsided. In Syria, the action is going according to plan, and attacks on Turkish convoys are already happening, although Russia is keeping Ankara’s actions short in this region.

Clashes in the Syrian desert between Russia-backed Syrian government forces and Islamic State group jihadists killed 11 regime loyalists Wednesday, a Britain-based war monitor said. Mobile IS units have remained active in the Badia desert since the jihadists lost the last shred of their self-proclaimed caliphate in March last year.

The 2016 UN Security Council Resolution 2334 called on its member states to ensure that they do not participate in actions of de facto annexation. The UN General Assembly’s Second Committee pushed back at the concept of de-facto Israeli annexation on Wednesday night, approving a draft resolution by 156-6 member …

Belgium is furious. On November 6, the Belgian government condemned Israel’s destruction of Belgian-funded homes in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Understandably, Brussels wants the Israeli government to pay compensation for the unwarranted destruction. The Israeli response was swift: a resounding ‘no’.

The United States has piled sanctions on the Lebanese movement, but to what effect? Over the past two decades, Lebanon has been under close scrutiny from the US Treasury for potential money laundering or financing of US-designated terrorist organisations.