Iranian leaders fear that Türkiye, emboldened by the ousting of the Assad regime in Syria, will further advance its influence in the South Caucasus at the expense of Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister visited Tehran’s key South Caucasus ally, Armenia, last week to coordinate efforts to thwart the establishment of a Turkish-backed transit corridor that would block Iran’s land access to Armenia.
Iran continued to threaten US bases and forces, likely to try to discourage a potential US or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities amid US threats to strike these facilities. Iranian armed forces-run Defa Press published a piece on April 2 claiming that Iran “certainly has sufficient weapons” to attack Diego Garcia Island.[i] The United States has recently increased its military presence at Diego Garcia Island.[ii] The piece stated that US Air Force and Navy “strategic assets” and “4000 US soldiers” at Diego Garcia would be “at risk of complete destruction” if the United States attacked Iran.[iii] There are normally roughly 400 US military personnel and 2,000 civilian contractors at Diego Garcia.[iv] The article outlined the following options for an Iranian attack on US assets at Diego Garcia.
On February 27, Abdullah Öcalan, founding member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), called for the PKK to disarm and dissolve. This announcement, supported by various Kurdish leaders in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), has instilled a sense of hope for peace amid a long-standing conflict that has claimed countless lives and caused enduring regional instability. Yet, while the streets of Sulaymaniyah, Qamishlo, Diyarbakir, and Van have erupted in celebration, the path forward is fraught with obstacles that could derail this new opportunity.
Iran responded on March 26 to US President Donald Trump’s letter proposing nuclear negotiations.[i] Iran signaled it is open to indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States but rejects direct negotiations under the current conditions. Trump sent a letter to Khamenei on March 5 that proposed negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran responded to the letter via Oman on March 26.[ii] Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran is open to indirect talks with the United States, though it rejects direct negotiations under the current US “maximum pressure” campaign and US-Israeli threat of military action against Iran’s nuclear program. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated on March 25 that Trump’s letter to Iran proposed “direct talks” and emphasized that “there would be military consequences if there were no direct negotiations.”[iii] It is unclear if Iran’s openness to indirect negotiations will fulfill US conditions to grant sanctions relief or avoid military action against Iran’s nuclear program.
Sous la direction d’Ahmad al-Sharaa, les nouveaux dirigeants islamistes de Syrie marginalisent systématiquement les factions palestiniennes, favorisent l’Autorité palestinienne soutenue par les États-Unis, démantèlent les groupes liés à l’Iran et remodèlent la dynamique des réfugiés en s’alignant sur une stratégie plus large soutenue par les États-Unis pour neutraliser la Résistance palestinienne.
In the past two decades, the external debt of developing countries has quadrupled to $11.4 trillion (2023). It is important to understand that this money owed to foreign creditors is equivalent to 99% of the export earnings of the developing countries. This means that almost every dollar earned by the export of goods and services is a dollar owed to a foreign bank or bond holder. Countries of the Global South, therefore, are merely selling their goods and services to pay off debts incurred for development projects, collapsed commodity prices, public deficits, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inflation due to the Ukraine war. Half the world’s population (3.3 billion) lives in countries that allocate more of their budget to pay off the interest on debt than to pay for either education or health services. On the African continent, of the fifty-four countries, thirty-four spend more on debt servicing than on public healthcare. Debt looms over the Global South like a vulture, ready to pick at the carcass of our societies.
On March 21, 2025, Bayda’ Al-Muwahideen, a pro-Islamic State (ISIS) channel on Telegram, posted an article titled, “The Jewish Hostages: Are They a Card in Hamas’ Hand or a Card in the Jews’ Hand?” In it, the channel asserts that the “genocide” and destruction in Gaza provs that the dossier of hostages is without a doubt a card in Israel’s hand, used to kill Muslims on the pretext of seeking to rescue hostages.
On March 24, 2025, the recently-established Iran-backed Iraqi militia called the Awliya Al-Haqq [Supporters of Truth] Brigades posted two messages on Telegram in which it threatened to attack the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and Israeli and American interests in the country and in the region, in the event of an American or Israeli attack on “the mujahideen” in Iraq, or if the Israeli attacks on Gaza continue. The militia stated that as far as it is concerned, “the American occupier” in Iraq constitutes a target, and it urged the public and the Iraqi security forces to distance themselves from it, for their own safety.
Syria’s transitional authorities announced on Tuesday the appointment of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) military commander, Marhaf Abu Qasra, as the new defense minister, two days after naming former members of opposition factions to key positions. Among those appointed to the armed forces were foreign fighters, including Uyghurs, Jordanians, and Turks, according to Reuters. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and experts identified some of these appointees as “foreign jihadists.”
In the 14 years since the war in Syria broke out, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced from their homes or have lost their livelihoods. What began as a popular uprising in March 2011 was met by a swift and brutal crackdown by then-President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. It then morphed into a protracted armed conflict that drew in other countries and led to the emergence of extremist organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.