Month: January 2024

Key Takeaways:

Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian fighters claimed clashes with Israeli forces. Hamas and other Palestinian fighters have contested Israeli raids in certain areas of the northern Gaza Strip throughout January 2024.
Central Gaza Strip: Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s militant wing targeted an Israeli supply line with mortars and rockets.

Southern Gaza Strip: The Israel Defense Forces 98th Division destroyed weapons warehouses and clashed with Palestinian fighters in western Khan Younis. Several Palestinian militias, including Hamas, continued to execute a deliberate defense against the Israeli ground operations in Khan Younis, particularly west and south of the city.

For those who remember their high school textbooks, the issue of America’s imperial history is very clear cut. American imperialism, the textbooks told us, was that fairly brief period in American history that lasted from 1898 to 1945. This was the period during which the United States acquired a number of overseas territories, including the Philippines and Puerto Rico, among others. The era of imperialism, we are told, ended in 1945 when the Philippines was finally granted full independence from Washington. Even more dubious—the textbook writers tell us—is the idea that the US is or has been a colonial empire. After all, American citizens did not set up any colonies in the Philippines or in Puerto Rico in the way that British migrants populated Virginia or New England.

The Indian Navy led by the INS Visakhapatnam was among the first rescue team to respond to the stricken Marlin Luanda after it was hit by a missile fired by the Houthis. It was reportedly on fire for a lengthy amount of time, by some accounts over six hours, before the blaze was extinguished by the Indian Navy.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and dozens wounded in a drone strike by a pro-Iranian militia on a U.S. outpost in northeast Jordan overnight, President Biden said in a statement on Sunday.

Why it matters: This is the most serious attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack and it is the first such attack in Jordan.

What is Arab?

Understanding Arab culture and the values based on it are the crucial points for the proper understanding of the modern region of MENA (composed of the Middle East and North Africa) and its fundamental features. Nevertheless, it must be noticed that all people in the region of MENA are not Arabs like Turks, Jews, some North African tribes, or Iranians. The Arab League (or the League of Arab States) is composed of 22 Arab countries. Even though Arab states are, in fact, from a very cultural viewpoint considered to be Middle Eastern (in a broader sense), not all of them belong to the Middle East (in a narrow sense), and not all Middle Eastern or MENA countries are Arab.

US Central Command claimed Sunday that three US soldiers were killed and 25 injured in a drone strike against a US base in Jordan near the Syrian border. US officials told the New York Times that the strike hit a barracks housing troops at a US base known as Tower 22.

A drone attack that killed three American troops and wounded at least 34 more at a base in Jordan has increased fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East – and the possibility that the U.S. may be further drawn into the fighting.

Following is the December 2023 installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. A review of developments throughout 2022 and 2021 can be found here and here. The January 2023 edition of ISIS Redux can be found here, February’s here, March’s here, April’s here, May’s here, June’s here, July’s here, August’s here, September’s here, October’s here, and November’s here. A full background and analysis of ISIS’s resurgence in Syria, including the methodology used to collect this data, can also be explored here, here, and here.