Orientul Mijlociu

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.

Few have heard of it. Even fewer know how it will work. But a newly launched body could revolutionise how Saudi Arabia gives hundreds of millions of dollars of emergency aid every year.

In 2014, the Gulf state was the world’s eighth largest humanitarian donor, spending more than $736 million. Yet its funding patterns have historically been highly unpredictable, hard to navigate, and – some argued – incoherent.

After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham told the Chechen jihadi group Jund al-Sham it could either join its ranks or leave Idlib, the group’s members evacuated their military positions in the countryside of Latakia.

Well-informed sources among jihadi groups told Al-Monitor that the Chechen Jund al-Sham (Soldiers of the Levant) group has given in to pressure from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and evacuated its military positions in the Latakia mountains.

Although Turkish authorities have increased security operations against Islamic State cells in the country, Ankara’s anti-IS strategy remains riddled with gaping holes.

Increasing security operations against Islamic State (IS) cells across Turkey since June have raised the question whether Ankara is changing its oft-criticized anti-IS strategy as the latest operations indicate an increasing risk of terrorist attack in parallel with the group’s rebuilding attempts in Syria and Iraq.

Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothing!” I mean, remind me, what good have those disastrous, failed, still largely ongoing conflicts done for this country? Or for you? Or for me?