After each death of a Chechen in Syria or Iraq, the involvement of Chechens in Middle Eastern conflicts becomes a hot topic of discussion in the Russian media. The recent death of a high-profile Chechens from the Northern Front of the Islamic State (IS) organization,... MORE

The government of Tajikistan has long sustained a shaky narrative purporting that Central Asia is in imminent danger of being overrun by militant forces. Long menaced by the specter of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the government has more recently added a new group... MORE

On February 17, three British teenagers left their East London homes and boarded a plane for Turkey. Soon afterwards, they crossed into Syria, where they are believed to have joined the Islamic State militant group (al-Jazeera, February 21). This event has put female radicalization in... MORE

The Islamic State’s sudden capture of much of northern Iraq, including the country’s third largest city of Mosul, and the resulting collapse of the Iraqi Army, in June 2014, was a turning point for Shi’a militias in the country. Formerly sidelined, these groups have now... MORE

In recent months, the Islamic State militant group has started using ethnic Kurdish militants in operations against the security forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq and in its propaganda materials. Some Kurdish Islamic State militants have taken part in videoed killings. For... MORE

The meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has since styled itself the Islamic State in an affirmation of its broader aspirations of dominion over a self-declared caliphate beyond the territories where it exercises control, has aggravated the Middle East’s already... MORE

By late 2013, more than 90 percent of Syria’s cultural sites lay in regions affected by fighting and civil unrest, leaving them open to plunder. In addition, regions of Iraq now under the control of the Islamic State militant group and its allies include roughly... MORE

Recent events have raised fresh questions over the relationship between the Islamic State militant group and al-Qaeda. For instance, militants from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s Yemen-based franchise, are reported to have coordinated the multiple jihadist attacks in... MORE

While attention in the Middle East has focused mainly on the Islamic State or on Israel’s relationship with the United States, Russia has been busy trying to advance its own position in the region, chiefly at the US’s expense. Over the course of January and... MORE

On December 28, 2014, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the death of Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi in Samarra, Iraq. The Islamic State has since accepted responsibility for the killing of Taqavi (AFP, December 29, 2014). Taqavi was killed while on an advisory mission... MORE