Middle Orient

Bottom Line Up Front Over the course of the past several weeks, more Western nations have taken steps to repatriate their citizens and children of Islamic State fighters or their family members who may have been born in the caliphate.

Bottom Line Up Front A new spate of Iran-backed attacks on key facilities in Iraq demonstrates that Iran remains undeterred by the potential for U.S. retaliation. Iranian-backed strikes in Iraq suggest that Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, is struggling in his efforts to rein in Iran-backed Shia militias under …

The two fatal incidents — the killing of the terrorist by the IDF and the killing of the unarmed, handcuffed civilian by the Palestinian security forces — are a perfect demonstration of how the Palestinians twist truth until it is utterly unrecognizable to the international media while hiding their own …

Forty-two people, including former mayors of the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), were detained for their suspected links to the PKK, a designated terrorist group that has waged a decadeslong insurgency against Turkey.

A powerful Islamist militant group in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib has launched a military campaign against rival jihadist groups, local news reports and rights groups said Sunday.

The UN’s Middle East envoy warned Thursday that Israel’s aim to annex parts of the occupied West Bank may fuel extremism and ignite a regional conflict.

Iraqi security forces raided a stronghold of a powerful Iran-backed militia in southern Baghdad late on Thursday and detained more than a dozen members of the group, government officials and paramilitary sources said.

U.S. and Kurdistan Regional Government officials discussed ways to increase coordination between Kurdish and federal military forces in the disputed territories of Ninewa, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din and Diyala. Crisis Group expert Lahib Higel says that the multiplicity of competing regular and irregular forces in these areas has fueled local tensions, …

Despite strong religious and cultural ties and a long shared border, Iran has a somewhat complicated relationship with Afghanistan. Revolutionary Iran’s tumultuous birth coincided with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan some four decades ago. Since then, Iran’s attempts to preserve its interests in conflict-ridden Afghanistan have not received much …

Officials in Tehran have a lot to worry about. But they are particularly irked at the speed by which Asian states have dropped Iran as a trading partner. Iran had hoped that the East would save the country’s economy from the barrage of sanctions enacted by the administration of U.S. …