The international effort spearheaded by the United States and the European Union (particularly Italy) continues to secure widespread recognition of the Government of National Accord (GNA) as the legitimate state authority in Libya (U.S. Department of State, March 22; Al-Wasat [Tripoli], February 14; Al-Wasat [Tripoli],... MORE

Since the fall of armed opposition controlled areas of the strategic northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo to the al-Assad government and its allies in December 2016, the non-militant Salafist component of the broader armed opposition movement has been severely weakened. In response to the initiation... MORE

Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS, Conquest of the Levant Front) engaged in fierce skirmishes with several armed opposition organizations throughout northwest Syria at the end of January (Arabi 21 [Aleppo], January 26; al-Hayat, January 24). JFS claims that these clashes were in response... MORE

At the conclusion of 2016 and entering 2017, two of the most powerful militant Islamist armed organizations remaining in Syria, Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Movement of the Free Ones of the Levant-HASI) and Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam-JAI), are under intense pressure. JAI, which is... MORE

Omar Abd al-Razaq The military forces and adjutant militias under the command of the al-Assad government, supported by Russian airstrikes and predominately foreign sectarian Shia militias mobilized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), are making significant progress in the campaign to seize the opposition... MORE

In October, the multi-force operation to capture Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) was launched. The operation is supported by the Iraqi Security Forces, the predominately ethnic Kurdish Peshmerga forces mobilized by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), the predominately sectarian Shia militias of... MORE

Nicholas A. Heras The campaign to recapture Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, located in the northwestern Iraqi province of Ninewah on the border of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Syria, from Islamic State (IS) will reportedly begin by the end of October (Rudaw... MORE

ON THE FRONT LINES IN EASTERN LIBYA Nicholas A. Heras The international coalition to combat the Islamic State (IS) has begun to expand its operations inside Libya in order to contain the growing power of the militant Salafist organization. Several coalition countries, led by the... MORE

CAPTAIN HASSAN IBRAHIM: DEFACTO AMBASSADOR FOR SYRIA'S SOUTHERN FRONT Nicholas A. Heras A coalition of moderate armed opposition groups in southern Syria, primarily organized within al-Jabhat al-Janoobiyya (Southern Front), are confronting the Islamic State affiliate Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk in the southwestern area of Dara’a governorate... MORE