Orientul Mijlociu

On August 15, 2021, forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Afghan Taliban) advanced on the outskirts of the country’s capital of Kabul after conquering most of Afghanistan in the space of a week. Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters landed atop the U.S. Embassy in the capital to evacuate personnel to Kabul International Airport, as Afghans and foreigners scrambled to flee the country.

The leader of the hardline Islamist group HTS has said that his organisation should be allowed to enter Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria and form a “unified administration” with Turkish-backed factions there.

The leader of the Syrian Islamist extremist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has said that his organization should enter areas controlled by Turkish-backed Syrian militias and form a “united administration”.

On Thursday, Syrian politicians said that the recent developments in the city of Daraa, south Syria, reveal political and military disputes between Iran and Russia which are settled by their proxies in the region.

Yesterday, cities, towns, and villages in Daraa witnessed a mass strike following a call by local activists to stand by the Daraa al-Balad and the Tariq al-Sad neighborhoods and the internally displaced people’s camps which have been besieged by the government forces and pro-Iranian militias for more than 47 days.

Turkey is planning to send Syrian Jihadists to fight in Kashmir, a Greek journalist has claimed. Andreas Mountzouralias has detailed the plans of Turkish President Erdogan in his report titled ‘Erdogan sends mercenaries to Kashmir’ on Pentapostagama.

As the great Iranian theologian Kazem Assar put it: “Monarchy and Shi’ism are the two wings with which the Iranian eagle can soar to unimaginable heights.”

This time, however, things may turn out to be different as the Khomeinist regime has tried to clip off both wings of which Assar spoke.

The United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies control up to 90 percent of Syria’s oil-producing lands, depriving the war-torn country of its much-needed source of fuel and hard currency income. While Iran sends emergency fuel supplies to Syria to help deal with shortages, its ships have been regularly attacked by Israeli saboteurs en route.

The Syrian Arab News Agency has reported that 55 vehicles including tankers loaded with oil and escort vehicles have made their way out of Syria into Iraq via the al-Waleed border crossing over the past 24 hours.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said Syrian civilians living under a government siege in the southwestern city are suffering from shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

The United Nations’ special envoy for Syria on Thursday expressed concern over the “alarming situation” in Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian revolution, where thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes in recent weeks.

Ankara believes it has reaped strategic benefits from military involvement in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet it has paid a price as well, discomfiting both allies and adversaries. Now, Turkey hopes to rebuild ties so as to consolidate its new gains.

At least 76 people have been detained in connection with the rampage.

Millions of Syrians who found shelter in Turkey from the violence that has raged in their country since the start of the civil war there in 2011 are now facing growing hostility from their Turkish hosts amid a sharp economic downturn exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The brewing resentment toward an estimated 3.7 million Syrian refugees turned violent in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday night as hundreds of locals chanting slurs swarmed to the working-class suburb of Altindag and embarked on a vandalism spree, overturning cars, shattering windows and looting shops said to be owned by Syrians.