Recent media reports suggest that a new phase of Syrian-Turkish military cooperation has begun against Kurdish militants of the Parti Karkerani Kurdistan (PKK - Kurdistan Workers Party) in Syria. However, a closer examination of the rapprochement between Damascus and Ankara and their respective policies on... MORE

Jihadist web forums released an audio recording by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Deputy Leader Sa’id al-Shihri (a.k.a. Abu Sufyan al-Azdi) on August 9 entitled “Ma’an li khali’ al-Sa’ud” (Together to Overthrow al-Sa'ud). The recording came as a response to a correspondence AQAP claimed... MORE

August 5 marked the fourth occasion in the last four years that the leaders of the Persian-speaking countries of Iran, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan convened, this time in Tehran, to chart the future of their trilateral cooperation. The meeting, dubbed the “Persian summit,” led to a... MORE

Background Fahd al-Quso’, from the al-Daha clan of the al-Awaliq tribe, was born in Aden, the former capital of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, on November 12, 1974. He is an Arab-Afghan veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad. During his stay in Afghanistan, al-Quso’ was... MORE

The Caspian region is becoming enmeshed in a web of overlapping political, military, trade and energy interests of countries extending from Asia, to the Middle East, to Russia, to Europe. Given the rising instability of Middle East energy supplies, the Caspian basin has emerged in... MORE

The rising tension and provocative rhetoric surrounding Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons are a matter of public record. Yet, are there other agendas being played out amidst the larger confrontation between Iran and the West? One such agenda may be found in the mountainous... MORE

President Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, by defining a goal of “disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al-Qaeda,” on the one hand gives direction to this otherwise directionless war, and on the other emphasizes targeting al-Qaeda over all other anti-terrorism efforts (Associated Press of Pakistan, August 2). Al-Qaeda, as... MORE

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi posted a eulogy on June 13, 2010, announcing the passing of his 24-year old son, Omar Izz al-Din, who was killed fighting in Mosul. In the tribute, al-Maqdisi confirmed that his son’s goal was to go to Afghanistan for violent jihad but... MORE

The United States and the European Union have imposed on July 1 and July 26, respectively, a new round of sanctions of unprecedented severity, presuming to hinder Iran’s uranium-enrichment program. Other parties, however, are wasting no time opening loopholes in these sanctions’ main dimension, pertaining... MORE

When the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution on June 9 authorizing a fourth round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran for its controversial nuclear program, the risk of conflict in the Persian Gulf also escalated considerably. One of the potential points of... MORE