Middle Orient

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 …

On Jan. 18, Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement, gave a televised sermon on the Iran-backed militia group’s television channel. It was just the latest in a series of public appearances, this one aimed at addressing the coordinated US-UK airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen and the Biden …

Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip is getting worse by the day. Leena, a sixth-grade Palestinian student at the Ramallah Friends School (RFS), passed us a folded, handwritten note. “Palestine is witnessing a genocide right now,” it read. “A child is dying every five minutes of the day. Gaza needs …

The IDF’s recent airstrikes on civilian areas in Rafah mark the beginning of the final phase of Israel’s massive ethnic cleansing project. On Monday, Israel bombed a number of locations where Palestinian refugees were huddled in tents after fleeing Israel’s onslaught in the North. Videos of the destruction appeared on …

The Israel-Hamas confrontation is spreading to the wider Middle Eurasian region. This marks a turning point in the on-going reconfiguration of geopolitics in Middle Eurasia. Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen, the latter disrupting maritime trade through the Red Sea which carries nearly 30% of …

Recent U.S. retaliatory strikes on Iran-aligned militia forces in Iraq have fueled pro-Iranian political and militia leaders to accelerate their efforts to force a U.S. withdrawal. The government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is working to reflect public opposition to U.S. strikes on Iraqi territory while remaining engaged with …

Russian Republic of Tatarstan Head Rustam Minnikhanov paid an official visit to Iran, likely to discuss Russo-Iranian defense industrial and military cooperation. Minnikhanov visited unspecified “large industries and industrial towns” in Esfahan Province and met with the provincial governor on February 14.[i] Several prominent defense industrial and military sites, including …

Latest Developments An Israeli airstrike killed two senior Hezbollah operatives overnight in retaliation for the Iranian-backed terrorist group’s lethal shelling of IDF Northern Command’s headquarters in Safed. Israel published the identities of the targets of its airstrike, which hit the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh: Ali Muhammad al-Debes, a regional …

A broken economy, a political vacuum and spreading regional violence have left the Lebanese people stuck between the Israeli military and Hezbollah “Disastrous”, “decimated” and “impoverished” – these are just some of the words used by Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister and deputy governor of Lebanon’s central bank, to …

Iranian Judiciary Chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei discussed the removal of US forces from Iraq, counterterrorism, and border security with senior Iraqi politicians in Baghdad on February 13 and 14. Iranian judicial officials rarely travel abroad. Acting Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohsen al Mandalawi claimed that the Iraqi Parliament will pass …