Orientul Mijlociu

Turkey has come a long way as a pillar of NATO and the West during the Cold War and has recently gone from being a credible member of the Council of Europe and a country seeking to join the European Union to a destructive and untrustworthy partner for NATO and the West. Turkey’s conflicts and tensions with European countries and the United States have escalated gradually since the justice and development party (AKP) came to power in 2002. In 2020 the Erdogan-led Turkey saw a profound shift in relations with its traditional Western partners. This transformation took place at a time when Turkish foreign policy was close to being militarily influenced by nationalist narratives in order to exert Ankara’s power to near abroad.

Riyadh and Doha are united in their opposition to normalization with the Damascus regime, according to al-Hal Net.

Political researcher Darwish Khalifa, who is close to Saudi Arabia, says that there is a conciliatory diplomatic movement in the region. It seeks to resolve the problems and overcome the differences that have ravaged the Middle East during the ten years of the Arab Spring revolutions. The UAE is a leading part of this movement, through building bridges of communication, paving the way for others, and establishing a new political reality in a conflict-exhausted region, most recently through normalization with the regime in Damascus.

Russian forces are targeting the livelihood of people in Northeastern Syria, as attacks focus mainly on infrastructures and farms, according to Shaam.

The Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, said that northwestern Syria has been witnessing a Russian escalation for a week. Warplanes do not leave the skies of the Idleb countryside, in a war on the livelihood of Syrians. They aim to impose instability and destroy infrastructure and production factors.

On Wednesday, a leader of the SDF militia was killed after being ambushed by unknown assailants in the northern countryside of Raqqa, the Zaitun Agency reports.

On Wednesday, a leader of the SDF militia was killed after being ambushed by unknown assailants in the countryside of Ain Issa town, in the northern countryside of Raqqa.

A ground operation in Idleb remains unlikely, even though the region will probably witness breakthroughs in 2022, according to Baladi News.

Russian Air Force warplanes and regime forces have been intensively bombing towns and villages in Idleb and Hama for a week, mainly targeting vital installations in the region, raising speculation of an incoming ground operation.

Iran is considering building a railway that connects the Port of Khomeini to that of Lattakia, on the Mediterranean, according to Arabi 21.

Iran plans to launch a railway connection project between Iran, Iraq, and Syria, allowing it to reach the Mediterranean. This project will give Tehran access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Syrian coastal port of Lattakia.

The U.S. military base in the al-Omar field was targeted by missiles again, a frequent occurrence this week, according to al-Watan.

On Wednesday, the U.S. occupation base in the al-Omar oil field in the northern countryside of Deir-ez-Zor was targeted by missiles. This development led to intense fires in the base and a state of alert for the occupation soldiers around it.

At the onset, 2021 appeared to be another ordinary year, one of unrelenting Israeli occupation and continued Palestinian misery. While much of that remained true, the dynamics of the Israeli occupation of Palestine were challenged by an unprecedented sense of popular unity among Palestinians, not only in the occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, but among Palestinian communities in historic Palestine as well.

An Israeli local committee has approved plans to build more than 3,500 new illegal settler units in the occupied East al-Quds, irrespective of the international outcry over the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement construction and land expropriation policies.

The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now reported that the construction of the units would largely cut off the city from the southern part of the occupied West Bank, further complicating any efforts to create a sovereign Palestinian state.

Abstract

On 3rd January 2020, Iranian General, Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in Baghdad under the orders of Former President Donald Trump. Trump argued that Iran was planning an imminent attack, although till today no proof of this claim has been provided by the US. Experts in international law have highlighted that the targeted killing of Soleimani was neither legal, nor necessary. The US failed to prove that Soleimani was a threat, that he was involved in terror operations, or that killing Soleimani was necessary to avert other terror attacks. This paper will examine the arguments presented by Trump, analyse the right to life under International human rights law, and explore the challenges presented by America’s war on terror campaign with respect to human rights and state sovereignty.