The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Hezbollah, the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are preparing for a joint advance on the ISIS border strongholds of al-Bukamal and al-Qaim. On Saturday, the Iraqi Army and the PMU launched an anti-ISIS operation in the border area, liberated the border town Akashat, the H-3 station, Akashat…
The Iranian leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, made a strikingly strong statement on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar this week, berating “hypocritical” (presumably Western) governments for their double standards on human rights. Addressing a gathering of clerical students, Khamenei on Tuesday urged Muslim countries to apply pressure on the Myanmar government, which according to Khamenei…
Russia has rejected a request made by Israel to create a large buffer zone on the border of the Golan Heights in an attempt to keep Iranian forces and their militias around 70 kilometers away from Israeli territories, political sources in Tel Aviv have said. Israel had asked Russia and the US not to have…
The Wolfowitz Doctrine and the document A Clean Break, set out contemporary US policy against Russia, China and the Middle East dating back to the 1990s. These documents, while still influential in Washington, have been abject failures on many fronts. In the 1990s, US officials, all of whom would go on to serve in the…
Sixteen years after 9/11, and the subsequent US bombing that toppled the Taliban, where do we stand? Osama bin Laden is no more. Al-Qaeda is not in Afghanistan but swarming Idlib province in Syria, metastasized into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Jabhat al-Nusra; 30,000 jihadis with combat experience who absorbed brigades from other “moderate…
Israeli media is awash with rumours that a Saudi prince visited Israel last week and held consultations with senior Israeli officials. A few outlets and journalists have alleged that the prince in question was none other than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS, in common parlance), the most powerful figure in Saudi Arabia. An Israeli…
