As the operations against Islamic State (IS) in al-Raqqa and Deir al-Zour remain the focus of attention in Syria, a group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has quietly and quickly consolidated near-total dominance over Idlib — the last remaining opposition-held province in the country.... MORE

Egypt’s Hasm Movement has released a review of its activities over the course of the first year of its operations. From July 16, 2016 to July 16, 2017, Hasm claims to have killed 27 members of Egypt’s “interior military militias” and wounded 56 more. In... MORE

  During the Russian war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and later the conflicts in Chechnya in the North Caucasus in the 1990s and 2000s, the Russian military went into battle without unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and apparently saw no necessity to acquire them. Instead,... MORE

The first known targeted assassination using a drone took place in Yemen on November 3, 2002. The drone launched a hellfire missile that struck a Land Cruiser carrying six suspected members of al-Qaeda, including Sinan al-Harithi, thought to have been involved in the bombing of... MORE

Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) program has made headlines in recent months, after several of its drones were shot down outside the country’s borders, over Pakistan and Syria (Dawn, June 20). These incidents come as the country is beefing up its counterterrorism efforts, following the... MORE

In early July, the United States, Russia and Jordan agreed to support a “de-escalation zone” in the southwestern Syrian governorates of al-Quneitra, Daraa and part of the governorate of Suwayda (TASS, July 31; Hurriyet, July 22). The de-escalation zone agreement was the product of a... MORE

Iraq: Political Differences and Outside Influences As Iraq moves into the next stage of its campaign against Islamic State (IS), political rivalries, sectarian divisions and the outside influence of regional players are conspiring to hamper efforts to tackle the terrorist group. Backed by air strikes,... MORE

Since Islamic State (IS) declared its caliphate in June 2014, the rate of jihadist violence has escalated throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Until last month, Iran had proved to be an exception to this general trend, with its aggressive efforts to combat IS... MORE