The renewed agreement entails further steps to reform peshmerga forces as Pentagon aims to prepare Iraq’s forces for long-term self-sufficiency.
The United States renewed its agreement with Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Wednesday to continue providing security support in the wake of the war against the Islamic State (IS).
Tunisian authorities arrested a number of officials linked to Ennahda, the main opposing party to President Kais Saied, in connection with the deportation of Tunisians to fight in Syria.
On the morning of Sept. 21, Tunisian authorities released the deputy head of Ennahda movement, Ali Laarayedh, after he was detained on Sept. 20 for questioning in the case of deporting Tunisian jihadists to combat zones a decade ago.
Botched suicide bombings came less than two weeks after the top US general in the Middle East sounded the alarm over security and humanitarian conditions at al-Hol camp.
The continued instability in the global oil market will not only strengthen the unity between the key OPEC+ players but also force them to focus primarily on ensuring their own interests, before taking those of their consumers into consideration.
Amid the ongoing circus over efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, two rumors have started to gain traction inside and outside Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is on his deathbed and preparations are being made for his son, Mojtaba, to succeed him.
The latest round of mass protests in Iran erupted over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman. She died on Sept. 16 at the hands of the so-called morality police for allegedly violating Iran’s rules on mandatory veiling in public.
Russia’s war in Ukraine entered the summer of 2022 with no clear military victor in sight. What began as a war of expected bold Russian maneuvers coupled with a paralyzing aerospace and cyber campaign has degenerated into a massive tube-and-rocket-artillery duel, a World War I-style battle of attrition on a battlefield largely confined to the eastern Donbas region and along the Ukrainian border north and west of Crimea.
The war in Ukraine signals a return, with a vengeance, of the hider-finder game of air warfare, both for airspace superiority and to exploit the air for battlespace effects. Against what appeared at the onset to be a resurgent great power seeking to overwhelm a significantly weaker neighbor, Ukraine has relied on airpower, modern system tactics and training, and passion to at least level the playing field against the Russian onslaught to enable them to readily evade (‘hide’) from conventional force attacks and Russian air defense sensors while more efficiently finding conventional military targets. Though the war is far from over, it has already yielded numerous lessons that airpower advocates and joint-minded leaders should apply to other conflicts. Counter-land drone tactics and greater reliance on coordinated fires from multiple domains suggest that significant challenges are ahead for military operations. Long-simmering US doctrinal feuds that the US military has largely sidelined during the war on terrorism need to be directly addressed now in order to anticipate the future battlespace.
What does the US president need to know? Our new “memo to the president” series has the answer with briefings on the world’s most pressing issues from our experts, drawing on their experience advising the highest levels of government.
The Heads of Turkey and Syria’s intelligence agencies have recently met in Damascus, according to Asharq al-Awsat.
Head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Hakan Fidan and Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk have recently met in Damascus.