A ceasefire declared between the Afghan government and Taliban on the eve of the Islamic celebration of Eid has been devastated by an attack on a meeting between Afghan Security Forces and Taliban representatives in Nangarhar province. Already over 20 have died in the terrorist attack. This represents a further attempt by a terrorist force- almost…
The US rejected Russia’s warnings that Daesh is assembling in northern Afghanistan and getting ready to pose a threat to Central Asia. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov drew attention to this threat during a speech in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe earlier this month at the “Countering Terrorism and Preventing Violent Extremism” two-day conference,…
A crucial question has been consuming policymakers in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon: Does the Trump administration have a strategic plan for the Middle East or not? Few are more apt to answer than Saadallah Zarei, dean of the Institute of Strategic Studies Andishe Sazan-e Noor in Tehran. Zarei, a soft-spoken, extremely discreet man I met…
“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” ― Winston S. Churchill I will not say I predicted the emergence for a post-Daesh NATO-like coalition among those who had been targeted for destruction by the real War of Terror crowd. But I certainly…
On February 3, in Idlib Province a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft carrying out an inspection flight in the de-escalation zone was hit by an American-made portable surface-to-air missile. Its pilot, Roman Filipov, ejected from the aircraft and landed, and started to defend himself. For some time he fired shots from his service gun and finally…
A superficial reading of “Operation Olive Branch” indicates that it’s a Turkish-Kurdish war, but the details of who’s fighting make it look a lot more like a Daesh civil war in its opening stages, and that’s exactly what both Ankara and the YPG originally intended. The commencement of Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” has led to…
