Author: M Barbu

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is tightening the noose on the jihadi Jundallah group and asking it to join it or leave Idlib, in what observers described as an attempt on the part of HTS to get rid of non-Syrian fighters.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, has recently worked to attract jihadi groups acting outside the limits of its authority by placing pressure on them and offering them as few as two options: either join the organization and act under its authority or dissolve themselves and leave Idlib.

As Turkey marks the fifth anniversary of the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt, the putsch has served as a founding myth for Erdogan’s “New Turkey.”

Some dates serve as milestones. For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, July 15 is one of them. The failed coup attempt to remove Erdogan on July 15, 2016, has become the founding myth of “New Turkey” in his historiography.

After the Second Karabakh War, the tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, 2020, opens a possibility for Iran to become connected to the southern railway network in the South Caucasus. As a result of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, an important part of the South Caucasus Railway, which passed through the Nakhichevan region, Syunik Province in southern Armenia, and Jabrail, Fizuli and Zangilan regions in southern Azerbaijan, was destroyed or removed from communication routes. As a result, unlike Turkey and Russia, Iran has no rail connection to the Caucasus.

While the holy month of Ramadan is of undeniable importance in Salafi-jihadi ideology, being rooted in the Quran and in the Muslim tradition, as well as in more mainstream forms of political Islam, the Islamic State (ISIS) has come to place special emphasis on the month, as is evident in the group’s media output. ISIS leadership often chooses the occasion of Ramadan to announce new operations, goals, and strategies. It was on the first day of Ramadan 2014 (June 19) that ISIS officially declared the establishment of a caliphate and appointed Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as its caliph.