On October 10, Russian diplomat and a key middleman between Russia and post-2011 Libya, Lev Dengov, officially dismissed accusations by several Western information outlets that Moscow was militarily involved in the most recent outbreak of violence in this war-torn North African country. Specifically, reports pointed... MORE

Lines Between al-Qaeda and JNIM Blur in Burkina Faso Brian M. Perkins Militant violence continues to increase in Burkina Faso as both local and regional militant organizations have spread within the country. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has long been the primary al-Qaeda-linked group in... MORE

Under the previous Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Damascus balanced its relationship with tribes in the Der Ezzor area by building relationships with certain traditional tribal leaders. Loyalties were secured through parliamentary seats, and by helping secure broader tribal allegiance through favor and reward.  This agreement... MORE

A small group of gunmen attacked a military parade of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on September 22 in the city of Ahvaz in the southwest of Iran. At least 29 people were killed and more than 60 injured in the attack, which happened in... MORE

Armenia’s interim Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held talks with Iranian President Dr. Hassan Rouhani, on September 26, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York (Premierminister.am, September 26). The meeting, initiated by the Iranian side, was immediately heralded as signifying a... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise official visit to Azerbaijan, on September 27. The formal reason for his arrival was to hold talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as well as to jointly attend the Ninth Interregional Russia-Azerbaijan Forum (Kremlin.ru, September 27; AzerNews, September... MORE

On September 6, Russian military correspondent Semen Pegov posted information on his Telegram-channel WarGonzo (WG) about “members of one Russian Private Military Company [PMC] being currently deployed in Yemen.” He ascribed this information to data received from “three anonymous sources in the siloviki [security services... MORE

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Mujahedeen El-Khalq (MEK) was the subject of frequent attacks from Iranian-backed proxies, which overwhelmed their members residing in camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq. Before this, MEK, an Iranian dissident group, began living in Iraq in the early... MORE

On September 25–27, the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan (MoDIAR) hosted the defense-industry exhibition ADEX-2018 in Baku, where leading defense companies from European and Asian countries showcased their latest military products (Mod.gov.az, September 25). ADEX turned out to be a useful platform to promote... MORE

In early October, following the loss of an Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea on September 17—which Moscow blamed on Israel—Russia carried out a high-profile additional deployment of the S-300 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) (see EDM, September 27,... MORE