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Latest Articles about Middle East
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Leader-Oriented Relations Between Russia and Turkey in Times of Pandemic
At the end of April, Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that the Ministry of Health had granted emergency use authorization in Turkey to Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine (Anadolu Agency, April 30). Sputnik V became the third vaccine to receive such approval, after China’s Sinovac and the Pfizer-BioNTech... MORE
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Moscow Cannot Find Opening to Boost Its Role in Middle East
Russia has traditionally excelled at exploiting crises in the Middle East as a way to boost its own global stature, but the sharp escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks has left Moscow uncharacteristically muted. At the United Nations Security Council, Russia ceded the... MORE
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Maximum Pressure: Turkey’s Anti-PKK Counter-Terrorism Campaigns in Northern Iraq
In late April, the Turkish military launched a large-scale cross-border counter-terrorism campaign into northern Iraq, targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its network. The push into northern Iraq followed two main axes: Operation Claw-Lightning and Operation Claw-Thunderbolt (Pençe-Şimşek and Pençe-Yıldırım). Thus far, the counter-terrorism... MORE
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Abu Walaa’s Islamic State Network and Germany’s Counter-Terrorism Prosecutions
A German court sentenced on February 24 the alleged “Islamic State leader of Germany” to a lengthy prison sentence. The trial against Salafist preacher Ahmad Abdelaziz Abdullah Abdullah, better known as Abu Walaa, lasted three-and-a-half-years and provides insights into radicalization and Islamic State (IS) recruitment... MORE
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Yemen’s Houthi Head of Intelligence Abu Ali al-Hakim Wages War in Marib
Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim (a.k.a. Abu Ali al-Hakim) is one of the most prominent military leaders of the Yemeni Houthi movement. Since 2011, he led the group in decisive battles that expanded the Houthi’s control of the country. Over the past few years, the Shia group... MORE
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Death of Abu Yasser al-Issawi Unlikely to Affect Islamic State Operations in Iraq
On January 28, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi announced that the wali, or governor of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, Abu Yasser al-Issawi, was killed during a security operation. Issawi was assassinated in the Wadi al-Shay valley in southern Kirkuk, an area known for an... MORE
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‘Canal War’ Breaking Out in Greater Caspian Region
Turkey’s plan to build a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait and potentially upsetting the Montreux Convention (see EDM, February 9) along with Russia’s movement of warships from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov via the Volga–Don Canal in order to threaten Ukraine (see EDM,... MORE
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Azerbaijan Feels Pressure to Join Moscow-Dominated Eurasian Economic Union
The next meeting of the Intergovernmental Council of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will be held in the central Russian city of Kazan, on April 29–30 (TASS, March 17). A key agenda item for the EEU member states may reportedly be to discuss the... MORE
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International Involvement in Infrastructure Projects in Azerbaijan’s Newly Regained Territories
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced earlier this year that a number of large infrastructure projects had been launched in the territories liberated from Armenian occupation as a result of the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Importantly, he added that friendly countries and partners would be involved... MORE
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The Ninja Missile: A Breakthrough in U.S. Counter-Terrorism Weaponry?
A February 2017 airstrike in Idlib, Syria targeted and killed Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, a deputy to al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Masri was one of the first foreign terrorists to have been killed using the U.S. military’s newest counter-terrorism weapon: the AGM-114R9X (R9X) Hellfire missile, often... MORE