Middle Orient

Senior Iranian regime officials condemned Israel for the escalation of attacks in the GazaStrip. Iran’s Supreme Leader called Israel “a dangerous and deadly cancerous tumor that mustbe uprooted.” The Iranian foreign minister met with a Hamas delegation and condemned theinternational community’s impotence in the face of Israel’s actions. Iran’s ambassador …

Israeli security officials reportedly held direct talks with representatives of the Syriangovernment in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan; the IDF denied the meeting. Syrian PresidentAhmed al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Julani) reportedly approved the transfer of the Syrianarchive on the late Mossad agent Eli Cohen to Israel as a goodwill gesture. Syrian …

“Tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria,” President Donald Trump told interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh on May 14 — just after lifting all U.S. sanctions on Syria. Yet on May 18, Syria’s Defense Ministry welcomed the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), an al-Qaeda-linked Uyghur jihadist group active in Afghanistan …

A joke has it that Syria’s self-proclaimed president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus to make up for the two New York towers that Al-Qaeda, al-Sharaa former organization, destroyed on 9/11, killing 2,753 Americans. Times are changing. Since October 7, Iran has been begging America for …

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced on Monday its dissolution after a forty-year insurgency against the Turkish state, a move Turkish officials claim was made without new negotiations — though some observers remain skeptical. Türkiye has conducted increasingly aggressive military campaigns against PKK strongholds in northern Iraq and Syria in …

A ceasefire between the U.S. and the Houthi (Ansarallah) movement of Yemen, announced by President Trump on May 6, will not soon restore freedom of navigation through the Red Sea. The Houthis sought an end to the intensive and continuous U.S. strikes since mid-March, but U.S. acceptance of a ceasefire …

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The process of rebuilding the Syrian army after the change of the Assad regime faces structural and political challenges to the formation of an inclusive national military institution, where the current Syrian military scene suffers from sharp divisions, in addition to concerns about the ideological identity of the emerging army, …

Ankara is hosting a high-level trilateral summit Sunday, bringing together the foreign ministers of Syria, Turkey, and Jordan to discuss regional security, economic cooperation, and the future of joint counterterrorism efforts. The meeting—chaired by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan—includes the participation of Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman …

Despite the fall of the Assad regime and the formation of a transitional government in Syria, armed groups previously backed by Turkey continue to commit serious human rights violations in northern Syria, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement released on Wednesday. The watchdog warned that integrating these factions …