A U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a commander of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group this week highlighted the ambiguous status of the country’s Iran-allied armed factions. Some operate simultaneously as a part of the official security forces and outside of state control. That has put the government of …

The commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces warned Thursday there’s been a “spike” in ISIS activity in Syria recently, as ISIS tries to take advantage of tensions in the Middle East. Gen. Mazloum Abdi Kobane, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, told reporters in a Zoom briefing Thursday that …

A New Pan-Islamic Front May Be America’s Biggest Challenge The war in the Gaza Strip is clearly no longer limited to Israel and Hamas. On December 25, an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in the Shiite-controlled Sayyida Zaynab neighborhood of Damascus. On January …