Iraq’s election on October 10 saw the lowest voter turnout of any of its six polls since the 2003 US-led invasion of the country.
All the same the results met one of the major demands of the young activists who had pressed for early elections, and then urged a voter boycott – a loosening of Iran’s stranglehold on the nation. The Iran-supported parliamentary bloc emerged surprisingly and significantly weaker.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric whose Mahdi Army followers battled U.S. forces during the years of the occupation, made big gains in Iraq’s parliamentary election on October 10. His victory could pose problems for the United States and Iran. But despite the Sadrist List’s electoral success, it is not a given that al-Sadr’s list will form the government, or even be the only kingmaker. USIP’s Elie Abouaoun examines the outcome of the election, the electoral process and the implications for Iraq’s future.
According to the latest results, Muqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist List has the largest number of seats in the new parliament.
Armata americană a anunţat vineri, 22 octombrie, uciderea unui important lider Al-Qaida, Abdul Hamid al-Matar, într-un atac cu dronă în Siria, la două zile după atacul împotriva unei baze din sudul ţării utilizate de coaliţia antijihadistă condusă de Statele Unite, informează agențiile France Presse şi Reuters, preluate de Agerpres.
Dans le cadre de la tournée qui l’a aussi mené en Angola et au Nigeria, le chef de l’État turc s’est rendu au Togo, le 19 octobre. JA vous livre les détails de cette étape.
Le 19 octobre, pour sa première visite au Togo, qualifiée « d’historique » par les autorités de ce pays, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, le président turc, était accompagné de son épouse, Emine, et de ses ministres Mevlüt Çavuşoglu (Affaires étrangères), Hulusi Akar (Défense), Fatih Dönmez (Énergie et Ressources naturelles) et Mehmet Mus (Commerce).
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.