Orientul Mijlociu

Syrian government artillery shells struck a village in the last rebel enclave in the country on Thursday, killing seven members of the same family, including four children, rescue workers and a war monitor said.

The shelling is part of an ongoing military escalation in the area in northwestern Syria, which had been under a cease-fire sponsored by Russia and Turkey since last year. So far it is unclear what caused the escalation, which prior to the attack had already killed at least 17 children this month, according to figures confirmed by the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.

Europe’s identity crisis is not confined to the ceaseless squabbles by Europeans over the EU, Brexit or football. It goes much deeper, reaching sensitive and dangerous territory, including that of culture and religion. Once more, Muslims stand at the heart of the continent’s identity debate.

Of course, anti-Muslim sentiments are rarely framed to appear anti-Muslim. While Europe’s right-wing parties remain committed to the ridiculous notion that Muslims, immigrants and refugees pose a threat to Europe’s overall security and unique secular identities, the left is not entirely immune from such chauvinistic notions.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is tightening the noose on the jihadi Jundallah group and asking it to join it or leave Idlib, in what observers described as an attempt on the part of HTS to get rid of non-Syrian fighters.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, has recently worked to attract jihadi groups acting outside the limits of its authority by placing pressure on them and offering them as few as two options: either join the organization and act under its authority or dissolve themselves and leave Idlib.

As Turkey marks the fifth anniversary of the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt, the putsch has served as a founding myth for Erdogan’s “New Turkey.”

Some dates serve as milestones. For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, July 15 is one of them. The failed coup attempt to remove Erdogan on July 15, 2016, has become the founding myth of “New Turkey” in his historiography.

After the Second Karabakh War, the tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, 2020, opens a possibility for Iran to become connected to the southern railway network in the South Caucasus. As a result of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, an important part of the South Caucasus Railway, which passed through the Nakhichevan region, Syunik Province in southern Armenia, and Jabrail, Fizuli and Zangilan regions in southern Azerbaijan, was destroyed or removed from communication routes. As a result, unlike Turkey and Russia, Iran has no rail connection to the Caucasus.

While the holy month of Ramadan is of undeniable importance in Salafi-jihadi ideology, being rooted in the Quran and in the Muslim tradition, as well as in more mainstream forms of political Islam, the Islamic State (ISIS) has come to place special emphasis on the month, as is evident in the group’s media output. ISIS leadership often chooses the occasion of Ramadan to announce new operations, goals, and strategies. It was on the first day of Ramadan 2014 (June 19) that ISIS officially declared the establishment of a caliphate and appointed Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as its caliph.

US military vehicles, including tanker trucks laden with stolen Syrian oil, have left the Khrab al-Jir base in the northeastern province of Hasakah for Iraq over the past 24 hours.

Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in the village of Suwaydiyah in al-Ya’rubiyah region, reported that two convoys of 70 vehicles headed towards Iraq after passing through the al-Waleed border crossing.

Over the past four years, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has tried to transform itself from a faction of the Global Jihad movement into the de facto local military and governing power in north-west (NW) Syria. This shift requires the group to seek sources of funding other than al-Qaeda and its donors; consequently, HTS has undertaken a slow but steady takeover of the economy in NW Syria, from financial services and oil and gas to internet and telecommunications. This paper lays out how that process has taken place and provides a detailed look at the economics of HTS.