The Islamic State is threatening to kill employees in the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor if they continue to report to their jobs. Islamic State (IS) cells in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria threatened employees and workers of …
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Turkey signals new rules of engagement to Syrian Kurds, Damascus
Turkish strikes on Syrian government troops and overt Kurdish attacks on targets inside Turkey signal that both sides are changing the rules of the game as Ankara eyes normalization with Damascus. Ankara’s reconciliation overtures to Damascus have been accompanied by growing Turkish attacks on Syrian Kurdish and government forces along …
Read More »Barzani says former Turkish president wanted federation with Iraq’s Kurds
In his memoir, Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani shares that Turkey’s former President Turgut Ozal had once floated the idea of “annexing” Iraqi Kurdistan. As Turkey escalates its campaign against Kurdish militants in the north of Syria and Iraq and Kurdish politicians within its borders, Masoud Barzani, the preeminent leader …
Read More »Iran Prepares to Take Out Israel – Right after Iran Deal Is Signed
The mullahs appear convinced that once the Biden administration capitulates completely to their demands for reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, they will be able to step up their already significant efforts to eliminate Israel and export their Islamic Revolution to Arab and Islamic countries. Iran already occupies four Arab …
Read More »Jetzt den Richtigen helfen – es drängt
Gezielt jene zu stützen, die bei den derzeitigen Preissteigerungen selbst nicht mehr stehen können, das ist auch für den Zusammenhalt unserer Gesellschaft entscheidend, kommentiert Ann-Kathrin Büüsker. Im Moment gebe es aber nur ein Flickwerk an Vorschlägen. Es werde Zeit, dass die Ampel das klärt. 2,4 Cent pro Kilowattstunde Gas: So …
Read More »Syrian foreign policy in the Caucasus and Ukraine: An unbalanced, Russia-centered approach
Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in early 2011, Damascus consciously sought to pursue a relatively balanced foreign policy toward most of its neighbors. Its challenges with Israel notwithstanding, Syria tried to maintain diversified and even-handed relations with Iran, Turkey, and the Arab world regionally and with …
Read More »The Assassination Of Al-Zawahiri May Not Have Been A Good Idea – Analysis
The recent assassination of Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri is likely to create a number of ramifications. Al-Zawahiri was assassinated by two Hellfire R9-X missiles from an MQ9 Reaper drone, that had flown over or originated in a third country, in the heart of Kabul, which the US evacuated from in August …
Read More »Erdogan’s New Offensive – OpEd
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he is planning a new military offensive in northern Syria directed against the Kurds. If one authoritarian leader can defy world opinion, invade the territory of a sovereign state and incur only minor consequences, why not another? This may well have been …
Read More »The Untold Truth About Russia-Kazakhstan Relations And Kazakh Politics – Analysis
Russia may have lost most, or nearly all of its former preeminent position in shaping the outside world’s perception of the other CIS countries and all the events and processes occurring in them. Yet such a supposition, true or not, is not relevant to Kazakhstan. The most basic information and …
Read More »Status of Global War against Terrorism
Many of us have never been fans of the term “War on Terrorism” — it is difficult to articulate a war against a tactic. The successful surgical strike that killed Zawahiri, the successor to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden… and the drone strike and military operation that took out two …
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