An Embattled Regime Faces Mass Protests—and an Ailing Supreme Leader
Early this month, the Iranian rumor mill cranked into overdrive amid reports that Iran’s 83-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who survived prostate cancer surgery in 2014, was again gravely ill. On September 16, the New York Times reported that emergency bowel surgery had left Khamenei bedridden and too frail to sit upright, citing four anonymous sources said to be “familiar with his health situation.” In the wilder corners of Persian-language social media, claims that Khamenei was on his deathbed gave way to speculation that he had already died. As has happened for more than a decade, such rumors quickly morphed into feverish conjecture about how Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body of 88 Islamic jurists who choose the supreme leader, would select Khamenei’s successor and lively debate over the relative merits of the clerics jockeying for the role.
Syrian Kurds in the areas of the Syrian opposition welcomed the decision to launch a program to teach the Kurdish language at the opposition-affiliated Free Aleppo University in the city of Azaz.
The Free Aleppo University, affiliated with the Syrian opposition’s Interim Government, in Azaz in the northern countryside of Aleppo has started a training program for teaching the Kurdish language.
Kyrgyzstan’s use of Turkish drones in a border dispute with Tajikistan leaves Turkey in a tight spot on how to balance its ties in Central Asia, a region where it has long sought to expand its influence.
Turkey’s efforts to add strategic depth to its ties with Central Asia appear to have hit a stumbling block, albeit not a big one, amid controversy over Kyrgyzstan’s use of Turkish combat drones in border clashes with Tajikistan.
Assistant Defense Secretary Celeste Wallander met with Iraqi leaders last week to reaffirm the U.S. partnership with the nation, and to underscore the U.S. commitment to supporting Iraq in the defeat-ISIS mission.
İtalya’da erken genel seçimlerin ilk sonucu şaşırtıcı değil. Faşist lider Mussolini’nin ardılı olarak kabul edilen İtalya’nın Kardeşleri Partisi (Fdl) lideri Meloni oyların yüzde 26’sını aldı. İçinde bulunduğu aşırı sağ ittifak yüzde 44 civarında oy aldı, hükümeti çok büyük olasılıkla bu yelpaze kuracak.
Fdl 2018’de aldığı yüzde 4.4 oyu, altı kat artırdı.
An Embattled Regime Faces Mass Protests—and an Ailing Supreme Leader
Early this month, the Iranian rumor mill cranked into overdrive amid reports that Iran’s 83-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who survived prostate cancer surgery in 2014, was again gravely ill. On September 16, the New York Times reported that emergency bowel surgery had left Khamenei bedridden and too frail to sit upright, citing four anonymous sources said to be “familiar with his health situation.” In the wilder corners of Persian-language social media, claims that Khamenei was on his deathbed gave way to speculation that he had already died. As has happened for more than a decade, such rumors quickly morphed into feverish conjecture about how Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body of 88 Islamic jurists who choose the supreme leader, would select Khamenei’s successor and lively debate over the relative merits of the clerics jockeying for the role.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been named the kingdom’s prime minister, a position traditionally held by the king. Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is first in line to succeed his father as king, who announced the new position on Tuesday in a royal decree.
Two people were killed and eight were wounded on Tuesday by Turkish artillery targeting homes and workshops controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the countryside of Syria’s northern province of Hasakah, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported. SDF retaliated by shelling villages controlled by Turkish troops and Turkish-allied rebel forces in Hasakah, the London-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.