Orientul Mijlociu

As the Assad regime claws territory back across Syria from rebel and Islamist forces, it has had to mortgage its monopoly over the use of force to paramilitary groups to overcome its openly acknowledged manpower shortages. It has occasionally called on these militias to augment the army’s fighting capacity, but more often than not it has directed them to protect, and in some cases even police, areas away from the frontlines. This has been particularly true in Tartous and Latakia. In recent months, the loyalist militias tasked with providing security in these coastal areas, some connected directly to the president’s family, have challenged the regime’s primacy, prompting external intervention. The growing power of these groups and the response of Bashar al-Assad’s foreign backers illustrates how local skirmishes over smuggling routes can have much broader geopolitical implications as Russia gains ground at the expense of both the regime and Iran.

The U.S. and Iran are locked in conflict. Regardless of the details or culpability regarding the latest attack on two tankers in the Gulf, the conflict is centered on Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign and Tehran’s response that it will not sit idly by while its economy is brought to its knees. Instead, Tehran has communicated that it will inflict a heavy toll on U.S. partners in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that if it can’t export its oil, other countries won’t be allowed to export theirs either. This conflict system is likely to endure, at least until the U.S. elections in November of next year, as the Trump administration is unlikely to lift sanctions and Iran will not quietly accept its fate. Among the many questions is what shape this conflict might take in the weeks and months ahead. Below, I sketch out five possibilities.

Al Qaeda has reacted to the death of Zakir Musa, a young jihadist commander killed by Indian forces on May 23, by releasing a glowing eulogy and a video promoting the group’s efforts in Kashmir. Musa led Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH), an al-Qaeda linked outfit that was established in 2017.

La Libye, l’Irak, le Yémen, la Syrie et la Somalie figurent parmi les 10 pays les moins pacifiques au monde, selon l’édition 2019 du Global Peace Index. Si la tendance est à la diminution générale des conflits, la zone Afrique du Nord-Moyen-Orient (MENA) demeure celle où la paix est la moins garantie.

Lebanon says it fully supports the Palestinians in their fight against Israel — but would like to see them leave the country as soon as possible.

This is the modern-day version of Arab “solidarity” with their Palestinian brothers: discrimination and apartheid — no jobs, no citizenship, no health care and no social services.

Sometime in June the UN Security Council will vote to approve another six-month renewal of the mandate of the 1000-strong UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) deployed in the Golan Heights.

Yemen’s Houthi movement recently announced that it began a fundraising drive to procure funds for Lebanese Hezbollah. The fundraising campaign comes after the US levied new sanctions against the Lebanese group last month.

New Series Will Build Upon Extremism Spotlight Series

Earlier this year, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) highlighted the online presence of dangerous extremist propagandists known to law enforcement and intelligence communities as well as notorious extremist content with links to violence in its Extremism Spotlight series. Continuing to allow this material to remain online to radicalize followers and incite violence is inexplicable, especially in light of Google-owned YouTube’s decision in November 2017 to remove notorious al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki from its platform in a “watershed moment.”

On May 15, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted talks in Sochi with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, who was in Russia for a working visit. Following their consultations, the President of Russia and the Federal President of Austria held a joint news conference. During the press conference, both leaders stressed their disapproval of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.[1]

In an article titled “Talk of War against Iran – Our Country Is Not Outside the Campaign” in the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the daily’s editor, Ibrahim Al-Amin, discussed the possibility of an attack on Iran and the implications for Lebanon. He wrote that the U.S. position on Iran is not entirely clear and its moves do not necessarily herald an attack on Iran; nevertheless, America’s allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and some European countries – urge it to take military action against Iran, seeing this as the only way to get it to change its policies, and the U.S. is certainly preparing the ground for this option. Al-Amin compared the current tension between the U.S. and Iran to the tension between Israel and Hizbullah: just as Israel wants to attack Hizbullah, but experts within it warn that an attack will be costly and will not necessarily produce a decisive result, the U.S. wants to weaken Iran and its allies, but knows that war against it will come at a price. The proponents of war on Iran, he says, do not realize that Iran is very powerful on the economic, political and military levels, and has a large arsenal that can threaten even Europe, as well as fighting capabilities that can topple states. Moreover, its many allies in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine and elsewhere will come to its aid if it is attacked. He declared that, if a war breaks out, Hizbullah, as part of the resistance axis, will be a major part of it, and that the flames will reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries.