Author: M Barbu

Hamas, with Hezbollah’s help, is building up a military presence in Lebanon, whose ultimate consequences could be devastating.

During the past two years of turmoil in Lebanon, Hezbollah has taken to slowly overturning the accepted postwar norms regarding Lebanon’s policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian refugee camps and the Palestinian issue as a whole.

The party has spent almost two decades building up a deterrence capacity, and now may be its prisoner.

Since Hamas’ attack against Israeli towns on October 7, and the ensuing Israeli bombardment and military operations in and around Gaza, Hezbollah’s response in southern Lebanon has been mostly restrained. The party is expected to escalate if or when Israel begins its ground invasion of Gaza in order to achieve its objective of eradicating Hamas. However, given Hezbollah’s recent history, this escalation may be more forced than intended.

U.S. President Joe Biden is in Israel to lend support to the country in the midst of an already bloody war between the Israelis and Hamas, including the bombing of a Gaza City hospital that has left hundreds dead.

Abstract: Bin Laden and his co-conspirators analysed that a small amount of financing was sufficient for the 9/11 attack. Between $400,000 and $500,000 was spent planning and carrying it out. Experts account that a minute percentage of their total budget of $30 million annually is paid for weapons for AQ. Even though profits may be down as of now, AQ could still afford another attack.

Following is the September 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 can be found here, February’s here, March’s here, April’s here, May’s here, June’s here, July’s here, and August’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.

The White House has been discussing the possibility of using military force if Hezbollah joins the war in Gaza and attacks Israel with its huge arsenal of rockets, three U.S. officials and one Israeli official with knowledge of the situation tell Axios.

U.S. interests militate against keeping troops in Syria

Core U.S. interests in the Middle East are narrow: (1) preventing significant, long-term disruptions to the flow of oil and (2) defending against anti-U.S. terrorist threats.

Neither U.S. interest justifies keeping U.S. forces in Syria, which holds only 0.1 percent of global oil reserves. U.S. forces originally deployed to Syria to help annihilate ISIS’s territorial caliphate, which was achieved by March 2019.

Since then, the U.S. military presence there has transformed well beyond a counterterrorism mission with a series of murky objectives and needless risks.

Rather than an endless occupation, the U.S. should acknowledge success and withdraw the approximately 900 U.S. troops that remain in eastern Syria.

Despite far superior military capabilities, Israel could find itself trapped in Gaza.

The deadly bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night, which has killed at least 500 people according to health officials, has sparked global outrage and triggered another round of mutual accusations.

Former top national security advisors to President Trump are demanding the U.S. government revoke any security clearances provided to American officials who pose a threat to national security “based on ties to or sympathy for” the Iranian government, according to a statement shared with Semafor. The signatories include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Pentagon chief Christopher Miller, and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliff.