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Latest Articles about Middle East
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Prigozhin’s Failed Coup and the Future of Wagner in Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA (Part One)
On July 31, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the notorious Wagner Group that had attempted an unsuccessful mutiny resulting from conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), stated, “At the moment, we are not planning to open recruitment centers. To avoid any talks and rumors,... MORE
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Water Conflict Between Iran and Afghan Taliban Stirs Sectarian Tensions
On May 27, a clash occurred between the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the “Taliban”) and Iranian border guards along the two states’ shared border. Specifically, the battle occurred in the stretch of land where Afghanistan’s Nimruz Province meets Iran’s Sistan and... MORE
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Moscow Shifting Focus to Sea Lanes Rather Than Railways for North-South Corridor
When Moscow announced plans in 2000 for the creation of a north-south trade corridor, its initial goal was to bypass the Suez Canal; however, recently, this passage has been used primarily to evade Western sanctions (Realtribune.ru, November 30, 2022). The Russian authorities have focused on... MORE
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Ukraine’s ‘Counteroffensive’ in the Global South
The low-profile and high-impact meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on August 5 and 6 was never intended to produce a road map for ending the war in Ukraine; neither was it a summit, since the invitations sent to some 40 countries specified the level of... MORE
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Al-Bara al-Shishani: Chechen Leader of Liwa al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar in Syria
There are numerous jihadist groups in Syria, some of which host or are comprised of foreign fighters from Russia and Central Asia among their ranks. Many fighters from Russia and Central Asia chose the Syrian Civil War as their theater of operations around 2012, and... MORE
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A Post-Mortem Profile of Senior ISIS Leader Usama al-Muhajir
US Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a statement on July 9 to announce that it killed an Islamic State (IS) leader in eastern Syria two days earlier. This leader, Usama al-Muhajir, [1] was killed in an air strike conducted by an MQ9 drone (centcom.mil, July 9).... MORE
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Central Asian Countries Come Together to Pursue Ties with the Arab World
Since the countries of Central Asia gained independence in 1991, the Arab world has devoted most of its attention to the region promoting the revival of Islam and thereby promoting the fundamentalist Islam characteristic of much of the Arab East. The effort has prompted the... MORE
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Propaganda and Repression Turn Against Their Creators in Russia
Conflicts continue to mount among the various “Kremlin towers,” and lately a curious trend has become discernible: Those methods previously used by the Russian authorities against dissidents have begun to turn against their creators. Thus, in mid-July 2023, former Federal Security Service (FSB) colonel and... MORE
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Suqur al-Sham’s Allegiances in Question After US Killing of Abd-al-Hadi Mahmud al-Haji Ali in Syria
On April 17, US Special Forces under Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted an operation in Syria in which they killed Abd-al-Hadi Mahmud al-Haji Ali. He was a prominent Islamic State (IS) leader, head of general security, and deputy governor of the group’s “Syria Province” (Akhbar al-Aan,... MORE
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Tehran’s Anger Over Moscow’s Position on Ormuz Islands Prompts Russia to Back Down
The growing importance of Iran for the Russian Federation and the shift in relative power between the two countries has been highlighted by a remarkable set of exchanges between Tehran and Moscow over the past week. On July 12, Moscow signed on to a declaration... MORE