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Russia and Hamas: a strategic alliance of convenience

Hamas has asked Moscow to act as guarantor to a Gaza ceasefire. Growing Russian ties with West Asia’s resistance actors should be no surprise; within the context of the global power standoff, they share common enemies. In the past few years, Russia’s expanding ties with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas …

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Axis of Resistance: from Donbass to Gaza

The resistance in Donbas and Gaza share an essential common vision: overthrowing the unipolar hegemon that has quashed their national aspirations. During my recent vertiginous journey in Donbass tracking Orthodox Christian battalions defending their land, Novorossiya, it became starkly evident that the resistance in these newly liberated Russian republics is …

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Iran Updates

The Iran Update aims to inform national security policy by providing timely, relevant, and independent open-source analysis of developments pertaining to Iran and its Axis of Resistance. This update covers political, military, and economic events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. It also provides …

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Iran Update, February 17, 2024

Key Takeaways: Northern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces continued operations in and around al Nasser Hospital in western Khan Younis on February 17. Israeli special operations forces arrested 100 individuals at the Hospital and killed Palestinian fighters operating nearby.Negotiations: An unspecified senior Hamas member told al Jazeera on February 17 that …

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Could Marwan Barghouti be the key to a Hamas-Israel ceasefire in Gaza?

Whenever Hamas and Israel negotiate on prisoner exchanges, the name of Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Fatah leader labelled Palestine’s Nelson Mandela, is at the top of the list. In 2011, his name was put forward to be part of an exchange deal that saw over 1,000 Palestinians freed for Israeli …

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Senior Hezbollah commander and deputy killed in targeted IDF strike in south Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday it had eliminated a senior Hezbollah commander in the terror group’s elite Radwan Force responsible for a March 2023 bombing in northern Israel, along with his deputy, in a strike in southern Lebanon the previous night. The IDF said its fighter jets struck a …

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Enduring myths of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Few events in our lifetime are as shrouded in myth and conspiracy as the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Forty-five years later, however, we now have a much clearer picture of the dramatic events that played out on the streets of Tehran before a worldwide television audience. Certain myths have retained an …

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The implications of Red Sea instability on the global LNG market

In recent weeks, maritime attacks carried out by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea, along with retaliatory strikes by the United States and its allies, have significantly increased global shipping risks and raised the ire of many foreign governments. More than 40 …

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US response to Tower 22 attack in Jordan: Less intense, more restrained than anticipated

On the evening of Saturday, Feb. 3, local time, US warplanes bombed facilities used by Iranian forces and Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, in retaliation for the death of 3 US service members in a Jan. 28 drone attack on Tower 22, a US military base in northeastern Jordan …

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