The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that one of their positions in the town of Granij (eastern Deir Ezzor countryside in eastern Syria) had been targeted from the western bank of the Euphrates River by what they described as “factions affiliated with the Damascus government” on the evening of Sunday, 23 November.
The muhajirin file, or foreign fighters, has become a thorny issue for the new Syrian state, caught between loyalty to the fighters who formed a “hard core” within Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the external interests of the state over which HTS came to hold sway, and between honoring its commitments to Western and Eastern powers.
A new armed group calling itself “Men of Light – Saraya al-Jawad” has announced the start of its operations against Syrian government forces in the coastal region, saying its actions are “revenge for the souls of the martyrs.”
The group began posting short video clips on a Facebook page created on August 2.
More than ten civilians, including women and children, were killed and 11 others injured when the Israeli army bombed the town of Beit Jinn (in the Damascus countryside near Mount Hermon in southern Syria) at dawn on Friday, 28 November.
The Islamic Group in Lebanon has expressed surprise at Israel dragging its name into what it called the Israeli “attack” on the Syrian town of Beit Jinn (a town in the southwestern countryside of Damascus, near the occupied Syrian Golan Heights), denying Israeli accusations that it carries out any activities in the town.
Les médias traditionnels rapportent qu’un demandeur d’asile afghan, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a tiré sur deux membres de la Garde nationale près de la Maison-Blanche la veille de Thanksgiving. L’événement présentait de nombreux signes classiques d’une opération sous faux drapeau. En voici quelques-uns :
The Palestinian terror groups clearly want to hold on to their weapons: they evidently see that having weapons is the only way for them to control, directly and indirectly, any new government established in the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas is committed to disarming according to the ceasefire agreement. But Hamas is not disarming. It is rebuilding its control,” Col. Nadav Shoshani tells a group of foreign reporters gathered at a base of the IDF’s 252nd Division in Gaza.
Abstract: Iraq’s digital economy is one of its fastest-growing sectors, driven by an expanding youth population, a transition to e-governance services, and the potential for Iraq to become a regional data transit hub. As with militia monetization of Iraq’s oil sector, the telecommunications industry is attracting the attention of U.S.-designated terrorist groups. They have two motives: to generate threat finances and to control and monitor data to strengthen their grip on the population and on Western diplomatic, military, and commercial entities inside Iraq. In the year before Iraq’s November 2025 elections, the outgoing government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani revealed the extent of militia penetration of the sector by awarding sensitive telecoms contracts to a now-sanctioned militia economic conglomerate, while also offering U.S.-origin equipment to militias and channeling lucrative 5G mobile telephony licenses exclusively to militia businessmen.
Abstract: It has been more than 10 years since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended the pulpit in the al-Nuri mosque to announce that the group known as the Islamic State had, at least in its own eyes, fulfilled the requirement to become a caliphate. In doing so, he opened an era of expansion for the Islamic State in which it welcomed numerous affiliates into its fold from all over the world. While some of those affiliates remain to this day, others appear to have faded away, at least when it comes to carrying out operations. This article explores these “repressed” affiliates in an effort to provide a brief overview of potential reasons behind their decline. The stories of each of these affiliates contain both similarities and differences. The repression of Islamic State affiliates seems to be the result of a combination of factors, ranging from military power of external actors to in-group conflict to an inability to gain a foothold among a target population. The importance of nuanced counterterrorism efforts, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach, is the main takeaway of this analysis.