While uncertainty lingers in the wake of President Donald Trump’s surprise ceasefire announcement in a war that has raged between Iran and Israel—and drawn in direct U.S. intervention—another archnemesis of Tehran lurks in the shadows. The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) operates both east and west of Iran and has …
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Stateless Fighters, Stated Goals: Syria’s Precarious Balancing Act
The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 has not ended Syria’s security challenges, as episodes of sectarian violence and Islamic State resurgence persist, exacerbated by foreign fighters embedded within fragmented militia networks. Initial international efforts to expel foreign fighters fell short, leading to a policy shift toward integrating …
Read More »Iran-Israel Conflict Shifts Regional Geopolitics
The Iran-Israel conflict confirmed a shift in the regional balance of power away from Iran, but might set the stage for further combat. U.S. and Israeli officials have defined a “new normal” in which either will take further military action if Iran tries to advance its nuclear program. Gulf and …
Read More »What U.S. Diplomats Thought After Meeting Syria’s Jihadist-Turned-Statesman Ahmad al-Sharaa
Less than two weeks after rebel forces led by Ahmad al-Sharaa ousted Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, a U.S. State Department delegation arrived in Damascus to talk with the country’s new leader. It was a meeting few could have predicted. Roughly a decade earlier, the U.S. had declared al-Sharaa — …
Read More »West Bank: Israeli forces arrest, injure Palestinians in raids as settlers also attack
The West Bank on Sunday witnessed heightened levels of Israeli violence with arrests, vows to continue home demolitions and settler attacks. Israeli forces carried out a series of raids on the occupied West Bank early on Sunday, arresting and injuring almost a dozen Palestinians, including children. In the Hebron governorate, …
Read More »The “Resistance Axis” and the Israel-Iran War
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Read More »Iran Update, July 5, 2025
An unspecified high-ranking Iranian official cited by Amwaj Media on July 4 reported that Iran plans to resume indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States, but the conditions that Iran will reportedly present would require unspecified guarantees that the United States would not strike Iran.[1] Such a guarantee would be …
Read More »Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 5, 2025
Russian forces recently advanced northeast of Pokrovsk and may attempt to advance further toward Dobropillya as part of a mutually reinforcing effort to envelop Pokrovsk and bypass Ukraine’s fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast from the west in the coming months. Geolocated footage published on July 4 indicates that Russian forces …
Read More »After this, can Iran’s Axis of Resistance ever make a comeback?
In the aftermath of US & Israeli strikes, Iran is at a crossroads. As well as a weakened ‘Axis of resistance’ the regime faces many internal challenges. The Iranian regime recently faced a critical reckoning. For 12 days, it operated in survival mode amid escalating conflict with Israel and, by …
Read More »Over 500 killed around GHF aid distribution sites in Gaza: UN
More than 500 people have been killed in the vicinity of the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s sites since late May, the United Nations said on Friday. An officially private effort, the GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than …
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