Russia’s faltering war effort in Ukraine has caused regional powers to exploit this and try to expand their influence in Syria, threatening to worsen humanitarian conditions there.
Moscow has stepped up diplomacy to normalize relations with the Assad regime and reintegrate Syria into the broader Middle East region, in part by opposing an extension of the United Nations cross-border humanitarian aid program for the Syrian people.
Disinformation will continue to evolve in 2023 with several trends worth highlighting, including: Sino-Russian alignment, more state actors seeking to acquire sophisticated disinformation capabilities, and the harnessing of emerging technologies for information manipulation purposes.
“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.”
– Benjamin Netanyahu, December 30, 2023
Исмаил Шабанов
Уже сейчас иранцы видят, что вырисовываются конкретные угрозы в отношении их государственных интересов. Стремление Турции прибрать все три страны региона под свой контроль, чревато последствиями для Ирана. Это усиленно маскируется под разные формулы сотрудничества, но иранцы понимают, как в перспективе будет складываться ситуация. Они, в свою очередь, готовятся к разным сценариям. Вместе с тем, Иран заинтересован в выстраивании хороших отношений со всеми странами Закавказья, в том числе и с Азербайджаном, и с Грузией. Но учитывая то, что Азербайджан все эти годы вел в отношении Ирана политику с двойным дном, находясь под неоспоримым влиянием Израиля, Турции и Великобритании, иранцам стратегически важно иметь хорошие и тесные отношения с Арменией. И если уже и Турция вместе с Азербайджаном стремятся ворваться в стратегические сферы жизни армянского государства, то Ирану сам Бог велел не отставать, а опережать. Иран является тем государством, который может изменить расклад в регионе. Армения может сыграть в этом не последнюю роль.
Several weeks ago a wave of protests and demonstrations broke out in Syria, especially in the Al-Suwayda and Daraa governorates in the south, which are officially under the rule of the regime but where the regime’s security control is weak. The protests include expressions of opposition to the regime and its head, President Bashar Al-Assad, and slogans reminiscent of the first stages of the Syrian uprising in 2011, such as “the people want to topple the regime,” “long live Syria and down with Bashar Al-Assad,” and “Syria belongs to us, not to the Assad family.” There were also calls to expel Iran and Hizbullah from Syria.
The US Treasury Department designated four individuals and two entities accused of enabling the terrorist group’s recruitment and financial transfers.
The US Treasury Department on Thursday designated what it described as a Turkey-based financial network of the Islamic State (IS) that moved funds to and from Syria and Iraq.
Iranian leaders are considering the possibility of offering concessions while simultaneously escalating their crackdown against protesters in an effort to quell the three-month-old uprising.
Hardliners in the regime believe that executing protesters will cause the woman-led unrest to subside.
Regime moderates have criticized the executions and seek to end enforcement of some of the restrictions that triggered the uprising.
After a bloody war that saw hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced over a decade, Syria has been effectively divided into spheres of influence and de facto protectorates controlled by regional and international powers. Foremost among these has been Iran, which has come to exert huge influence not only over the Assad regime but also within Syrian society as a whole through a systematic Shiification strategy that has changed the country’s sociocultural character—a risky game in a region long afflicted by sectarian, religious, and ethnic conflicts.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Tuesday announced the arrest of several Islamic State (ISIS) suspects during a recently-launched operation against the group in northeast Syria (Rojava).
The SDF on Thursday announced a new anti-ISIS mission dubbed Operation al-Jazeera Thunderbolt, targeting the terror group’s hotspots in northeast Syria’s al-Hol and Tal Hamis. The force later expanded the campaign to Syria-Iraq borders.
Turkey’s security establishment remains immutably opposed to the consolidation of any form of Kurdish autonomy in Syria that would mirror Kurdish gains in neighboring Iraq.
Turkey’s overtures to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with last week’s meeting in Moscow between the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers, continue to resonate. Unsurprisingly, one of the most realistic assessments came from the one group that understands Turkish thinking best: the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).