Middle Orient

On Feb. 5, al Qaeda’s propaganda arm, As Sahab, released a 45-minute video featuring the group’s global emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The bulk of the video, titled “The Way to Salvation,” is dedicated to explaining why the jihadists have not succeeded in countries that experienced the 2011 Arab uprisings. That is, …

Yesterday, a low-quality video depicting an IED attack on a regime checkpoint in southern Syria was uploaded to the internet. A relatively unknown group, the Popular Resistance, claimed credit within the video itself.

The seizure of the northern Syrian province of Idlib by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from other armed opposition groups in early January once again brings to the fore the debate over its ties to al-Qaeda (AQ). HTS grew out of the Nusra Front (NF) in 2017, when it was required …

Martin Chulov reported [1] for The Guardian yesterday, February 7, the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had survived a coup attempt last month by foreign fighters within the ranks of the terrorist organization in its holdout in Hajin in eastern Syria near the town of Al-Bukamal on the border …

The picture sent shockwaves through Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s grassroots: A poor Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan in Arabic) handcuffed by the Turkish police, put aboard a Turkish Airlines plane to fly back to Cairo, to be tortured and eventually executed. Is President Erdoğan not a staunch …

Talk to any senior European Union official and you are sure to hear the Islamic Republic in Iran designated as “a threat to regional stability.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorses Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iranian behavior as “unacceptable.”

After years of ambiguity, Israel is increasingly going public with its strikes on Syria. Retaliatory attacks carried out last week were conducted in broad daylight, a rare occurrence. In contrast to prior strikes, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) immediately took responsibility for the attacks and announced them in real time …

Turkey says it will form safe zones in northern Syria so that millions of Syrian refugees hosted by the Ankara government could return to their home country, which is now recovering from nearly eight years of foreign-sponsored militancy.

Jordan is not going to take over or monitor the US military base in the eastern Syrian al-Tanf area, located on the country’s border with Jordan, after Washington withdraws troops from Syria, since the facility is situated outside Jordan, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Sputnik in an interview.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about airstrikes on Iranian bases in Syria are baseless, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) spokesman said on Monday.