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Latest Articles about Middle East
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Russian Ties With Israel Under Strain
Several Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) F-16 jets bombed and destroyed an industrial warehouse in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, on September 17. According to Israeli sources, the warehouse contained Iranian military equipment earmarked for the militant group Hezbollah. The Russian airbase of Hmeymim is... MORE
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Military Benefits of the Caspian Sea Convention for Russia’s Power Projection Capabilities
In late August 2018, Russia’s Caspian Flotilla, in conjunction with aviation and coastal air-defense groups, carried out special exercises in the Caspian Sea to test a new tactical formation for detecting and neutralizing low-flying missiles or aircraft (Tvzvezda.ru, August 29). This exercise occurred only days... MORE
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Four Setbacks and a Tragedy in Russia’s Syrian Intervention
The destruction of an Il-20M radio-electronic surveillance aircraft, with 15 crew members aboard, in the late evening of September 17 was not the worst tragedy to date of the three-year-long Russian military intervention in Syria; but it has, perhaps, been the most difficult to explain... MORE
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Briefs
Iraq: Basra Protests Protests that first began in July and intensified in early September have wreaked havoc on Iraq’s port city of Basra. The unrest—motivated by protesting government corruption, and shortages of electricity, jobs and clean water—began shortly after the country’s inconclusive parliamentary elections produced... MORE
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Clashes Between Islamic State and AQAP Emblematic of Broader Competition
The Islamic State’s (IS) global network is far from defeated, but the core group’s loss of significant territory in Iraq and Syria is emblematic of a longer trend and stands in stark contrast to al-Qaeda’s lack of major change in the same period. This trend is... MORE
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How Assad’s Strategies Facilitated the Suweida Massacre
At daybreak on July 25, Islamic State (IS) fighters launched a brutal attack against the predominantly Druze city of Suweida. The attackers went door to door, massacring helpless victims. They quickly and silently entered homes and slaughtered countless people before a single shot was fired.... MORE
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Russia’s Long-Term Interests Place Turkey Higher Than Syria
After protracted negotiations, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, hammered out a compromise, on September 17, in Sochi, to reinforce a fragile ceasefire in the so-called “deconfliction zone” in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Since the beginning of 2018,... MORE
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Understanding Armenia’s Syrian Gamble
Following bilateral closed-door talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, on September 8, Armenia’s interim Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told journalists that Russia and Armenia would soon launch a “joint humanitarian mission” in Syria (Azatutyun.am, September 8). The operation, apparently requested by Bashar al-Assad’s... MORE
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The Turkistan Islamic Party in Double-Exile: Geographic and Organizational Divisions in Uighur Jihadism
Introduction The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) was one of the world’s more obscure jihadist groups until it emerged as a key player in the Syrian civil war in 2013. When the then Afghanistan-and-Pakistan-based TIP first began releasing videos in 2008—the year the TIP and corresponding... MORE
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The Wandering Islamist: A Profile of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Wagdi Ghoneim
One of the most controversial preachers in contemporary Islam is Dr. Wagdi Abd al-Hamid Muhammad Ghoneim, a leading member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Now an occasionally troublesome resident of Turkey, Ghoneim has been arrested eight times in Egypt and turfed out of numerous nations... MORE