The Middle East diplomatic crisis that has set a coalition of Arab states against Qatar has inevitably spilled over into Libya. A number of those states party to the dispute have been involved in a proxy war, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt... MORE

Egypt: The Rafah Attack and Hamas Under Pressure Militants in northern Sinai killed at least 26 Egyptian solders in a suicide car-bomb attack on two military checkpoints near Rafah on July 7 (al-Jazeera, July 8). The attack, which was claimed by Islamic State (IS), was... MORE

India first woke up to the emerging threat of Islamic State (IS) on its soil in May 2014, when four engineering students from Kalyan, Maharashtra, joined the group. In the intervening years, the security services have arrested more than 90 IS sympathizers, according to Indian... MORE

Iran: Striking Back at Islamic State A coordinated attack in the Iranian capital of Tehran, supposedly by Islamic State (IS), has prompted a furious response from the Iranian government. Among other things, this attack highlighted the sectarian risks engendered by Tehran’s efforts in Syria and... MORE

The fall of the opposition-controlled sector of Aleppo in December last year was a major blow to Syrian rebel groups who had always asserted that they would hold their ground. The city’s fall, quickly followed by a Russian-Turkish accord and the sponsorship by those countries... MORE

Missiles launched at Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi fighters have proved to be wildly inaccurate as regards their targets but largely effective in terms of their media impact, frustrating Saudi claims to have eroded the fighters’ capabilities. Indeed, concerns over Yemen’s missile stockpiles have proved... MORE

As the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) approach the northern suburbs of Raqqa, the long-running policy debate over the advisability of using as a primary U.S. partner a militia that is dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), has reached fever pitch. Dire warnings have been... MORE

Mali: Limited Progress on Sahel Joint Force The proposed anti-terror joint force of the Sahel G5 nations — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger — received a boost this month when the EU pledged the equivalent of $56 million to bolster security efforts in... MORE

With Kenyans heading to the polls on August 8, voting once again against the backdrop of the security threat posed by al-Shabaab, the recent supposed theft by militants of an electronic voting kit has raised fears that the group could seek to directly target the... MORE

Yemen is the second most heavily armed country in the world after the United States. Before the current civil war began, there were an estimated 54 guns for every 100 residents. [1] Now, the number of small and medium arms in the country is far... MORE