Orientul Mijlociu

The special forces linked with the US-backed SDF detained the ISIS suspects in the Deir al-Zor countryside, where the terrorist group is most active in northeast Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Monday that affiliated fighters arrested 22 suspects with alleged links to ISIS in the Deir al-Zor countryside, with support from the US-led coalition.

The United States military base at Al-Tanf in Syria was targeted with a “deliberate and coordinated” on Wednesday at approximately 7 p.m., according to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The base was hit by drones and indirect mortar and rocket fire. There were no casualties among the U.S. troops stationed at the base.

Abstract: Iran-backed militias have been scrambling to recover after the loss of their patriarchs Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 3, 2020. Attempts to preserve a top-down, Iran-directed system of command have met resistance, both from independent-minded upstarts like Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the fragmenting powerbases within Kata’ib Hezbollah. To track these trends in detail and to an evidentiary level, the Militia Spotlight was stood up at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in February 2021. This article lays out the project’s first eight months of findings, drawn from an open-source intelligence effort that fuses intense scrutiny of militia messaging applications with in-depth interviews of officials with a close watching brief of the militias. The key finding is that while the IRGC-QF (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force) still runs Iran’s covert operations inside Iraq, they face growing difficulties in controlling local militant cells. Hardline anti-U.S. militias struggle with the contending needs to de-escalate U.S.-Iran tensions, meet the demands of their base for anti-U.S. operations, and simultaneously evolve non-kinetic political and social wings.

Turkey’s latest strike comes on the four-year anniversary of the Kurdish fighters’ capture of Raqqa from the Islamic State.

A drone strike believed to have been launched by Turkey struck a vehicle in the Kurdish-controlled town of Kobani in northeast Syria on Wednesday, according to local reports.

Three people in the vehicle were injured, local ANHA News Agency reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring network, said two people were killed in the strike.

Protests erupted in Idlib against the Syrian Salvation Government, affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, amid high inflation and deteriorating living conditions.

Protests have occurred in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib in recent days against the so-called Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), which is affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS controls the province. Protesters are calling on the government to provide basic services to the province and reduce the prices of goods and fuel, namely gas and diesel.

There has long been a degree of solidarity between supporters of Kurdish autonomy and Catalan nationalists.

Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria thanked the Catalan Parliament Thursday for recognizing their autonomy.

“We offer sincere thanks to the friends in the Catalonia region and reaffirm our appreciation for their historical position,” the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria said in a press release.

The remote Tanf outpost has been quiet for years, but Iran’s pinprick provocations may once again be targeting the base, which plays a key role in Washington’s effort to obstruct Tehran’s influence.

A remote US military outpost in the southern Syrian desert was hit by a suspected drone attack on Wednesday evening, according to a US official.

The large backing by the Sunni community for the current parliamentary speaker’s party despite a tradition of voting along tribal lines may mark a break with the past.

Supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr were already celebrating in the streets the night after the Oct. 10 elections while parties more closely linked to Iran made vague threats about what might happen if they were “cheated” out of votes. A week later, relatively minor protests had begun against alleged voter fraud and some threats of violence had begun to circulate.

The victory of the coalition led by populist cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, and the rise of independent Shiite politicians, could foreshadow a new chapter in Iraqi politics.

Final results of Iraq’s Oct. 10 elections were announced on Oct. 18. The results are expected to be approved by the federal court in two weeks without a major change.