Qatar, US encourage legitimizing former Al-Qaeda leader in Syria: Report

Extremist group HTS wishes to establish full control over the economy of Syria’s northern region

A 23 February report by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar suggests that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist group, formerly the Al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front, has been attempting with external support to consolidate its power in Syria’s north – with the aim of establishing full economic control over the region and thereby ‘legitimizing’ itself.

US-trained Afghan special forces recruited by Wagner Group in Ukraine: Report

New reports of US-trained Afghan special forces joining the fight in Ukraine, but on the Russian side, are emerging. The Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor firm that has played a vital role in the battle for the town of Bakhmut in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, is recruiting Afghan fighters that US special forces spent decades training.

Iran’s pursuit of soft power in the Balkans

The Balkans presents a crucial junction for Tehran as an access point to Western Europe and an avenue for advancing its regional political and economic interests.

The Balkan region is strategically important for western countries as a geographic bloc through which they can increase their influence in former Soviet Eastern European states, including Russia.

In Munich: West sounds alarm over Global South stances

The recent conference on international security policy focused extensively on the significance of the Global South to the west’s security. As power competition with China and Russia intensifies, the west is compelled to reassess its approach to relations with these countries.

In a US-China confrontation, West Asia will bow out

The prospect of a US-China war has entered the realm of reality. Increased provocations from US military and political officials regarding the status of Taiwan – which China considers to be part of its historic territory – have heightened the possibility of confrontation in recent years.

Jihadi ‘Counterterrorism:’ Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Versus the Islamic State

Abstract: Once allies in the same organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Islamic State have an interesting history that turned them into ‘frenemies’ from April 2013 to February 2014 and then outright enemies over the past nine years. This led to a broader global fight between al-Qaida and the Islamic State. Yet, HTS continued to tread its own path by breaking from al-Qaida in 2016. From the spring of 2014 to the summer of 2017, the main avenue by which HTS and its predecessor group, Jabhat al-Nusra, dealt with the Islamic State was insurgent infighting. Yet since the summer of 2017, as HTS consolidated control over areas in northwest Syria and developed a governance apparatus, HTS has favored a lawfare approach to dealing with Islamic State cells in the territory it controls. Surveying the data on its arrest campaign against the Islamic State over the past half decade suggests HTS has been successful in countering the Islamic State. Yet, even if its fight against the Islamic State is deemed a net positive, HTS’ continued support for terrorism abroad and the authoritarian nature of its governance make it difficult for the West to countenance removing the group from the list of designated terrorist groups or engage with it.