There are numerous jihadist groups in Syria, some of which host or are comprised of foreign fighters from Russia and Central Asia among their ranks. Many fighters from Russia and Central Asia chose the Syrian Civil War as their theater of operations around 2012, and... MORE

US Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a statement on July 9 to announce that it killed an Islamic State (IS) leader in eastern Syria two days earlier. This leader, Usama al-Muhajir, [1] was killed in an air strike conducted by an MQ9 drone (centcom.mil, July 9).... MORE

On April 17, US Special Forces under Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted an operation in Syria in which they killed Abd-al-Hadi Mahmud al-Haji Ali. He was a prominent Islamic State (IS) leader, head of general security, and deputy governor of the group’s “Syria Province” (Akhbar al-Aan,... MORE

The detention in March and subsequent murderous escape attempt of four Uzbek nationals in Indonesia was the first reported case in which Uzbek nationals—or nationals of the five ex-Soviet Central Asian states more generally—have ever been captured and detained on terrorism charges in Southeast Asia;... MORE

After winning re-election, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan significantly reshuffled his ministerial cabinet. Unlike in previous terms, this time, Erdogan decided to make significant changes to his cabinet while signaling upcoming reforms amid economic difficulties at home and political disputes abroad. In addressing domestic needs,... MORE

In recent months, the northwestern Syria-based militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which operates under the leadership of Abu Muhammed al-Julani, has reasserted that its operational and geographical agenda is limited to only a local scope. The group, furthermore, has lived up to these claims... MORE

Two Eurocopter AS350 helicopters crashed in northern Iraq’s rural Duhok province on March 15, killing the nine heavily armed passengers on board. The deceased were initially identified as members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist organization by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) counter-terrorism officials (Kurdistan... MORE

On May 11, Turkish opposition candidate Muharren Ince announced that he was dropping out of the upcoming presidential elections, allegedly due to, in his words, a “smear campaign” that is “the work of the Gülenist Terror Group” (Daily Sabah, May 11). As one of four... MORE

In late November 2022, Iraqi Shia militia leader Akram al-Kaabi visited Russia and met with the Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and other Russian officials. During his visit, al-Kaabi, who is the leader of the Iranian-backed al-Nujabaa (“The Noble Ones”) Shia militia, condemned the... MORE

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) emir Abu Mohammed al-Joulani has for several years been actively rebranding himself and his group as an anti-Bashar al-Assad Syrian nationalist group and distancing the group from its al-Qaeda origins (Frontline, February 1, 2021). However, regardless of al-Joulani’s public disassociation from... MORE