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Some Syrian General Security Service (GSS) units are improving their counter-insurgency approach in rural minority areas by relying on relationships with locals. The GSS arrested a large Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Assadist cell in Sheikh Bader, Tartous Province, on November 12.[1] Independent Syria researcher Gregory Waters reported on November 21 that locals originally tipped off the GSS to the cell’s presence at their compound in Sheikh Bader.[2] The two GSS officers who led the investigation said that the local tip-off and local community support were critical to the GSS’s dismantlement of the Assadist cell and to stability in the surrounding area.[3]

Washington and its allies are waiting for Beirut to acknowledge the difficult but unavoidable truth: that war will resume unless serious action is taken to target all the pillars of Hezbollah’s power, bolster Shia political alternatives, and otherwise satisfy the ceasefire’s most important requirement: disarming the group.

Hamas official said terror group was transferring hostage’s body, but no official statement made; Qatar says it hopes to push Israel and Hamas to next phase of truce ‘very soon’

Israel received unspecified “findings” potentially belonging to a hostage, handed over by Hamas through the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday, as Israel awaits the return of the bodies of the final two captives.

Chaos erupted among government agencies in Iraq on Thursday after Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis appeared briefly on a list of terrorist groups facing sanctions, before it was quickly retracted.

A terrorist listing would be a surprise move against Iranian allies with connections in Iraq. The Official Gazette published on the Justice Ministry website, dated November 17, listed the two groups among organisations accused of terrorism and financing extremism.

Although Washington should keep pressing the Lebanese government to seize weapons and prosecute political assassins, the chances of Beirut actually confronting the militia appear increasingly slim.

Just days before the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the government of Lebanon announced that it would provide official disability cards and full benefits to thousands of Hezbollah members injured in Israel’s now-famous September 2024 covert operation detonating pagers belonging to the Lebanese militia group. The Trump administration criticized Beirut’s decision to extend a social safety net for some Hezbollah members, and the initiative was hurriedly rolled back. But that aborted decision highlights a troubling dynamic in Lebanon more than a year after Israel smashed Hezbollah and decapitated its leadership.

On November 19, Israel’s Supreme Court gave the government 45 days to develop effective measures to combat the evasion of military service by ultra-Orthodox Jews. Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14% of Israel’s population, yet they serve almost exclusively in the army. This practice had been legal for the past 70 years. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled it unfair, but the status quo remained in place for several more years. On November 19 of this year, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the government to develop measures to address the issue within six weeks. Following the Hamas terrorist attack and the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, the debate over the draft of ultra-Orthodox Jews has become one of the country’s major internal conflicts. However, opponents of the draft have their own compelling arguments: the IDF has failed for many years to create suitable conditions for ultra-Orthodox service.

Six years after the collapse of the so-called Islamic State caliphate in March 2019, dramatic leadership changes in Washington, DC and Damascus open a rare window of opportunity to end the continuing, unlawful detentions of some 26,000 foreign ISIS suspects and family members in northeast Syria. The detainees, who come from dozens of countries, are held in camps and prisons. Most of those held in the camps are children, 40 percent of them under age 12.

As Gaza faces one of the most severe post-war humanitarian crises in modern history, a crucial policy debate emerges: will displacement camps emerge to serve as a temporary humanitarian necessity, or become long-term internment sites potentially fuelling future radicalisation and conflict?