When Kurdish forces repelled fighters of the radical Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot, in northern Syria on July 18, Turkey found itself in a major foreign policy dilemma. Should it support the region’s control by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), or by... MORE

Infighting in recent weeks between jihadists and other rebels in northern Syria that led to the assassination of two Free Syrian Army commanders is likely to worsen, compounding a power struggle within rebel ranks at a time when an emboldened Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is... MORE

The Lebanese Armed Forces’ recent battle against the Salafist Free Resistance Brigades in the Abra district of the southern coastal city of Sidon has increased scrutiny of the military’s ability to maintain stability in Lebanon in the context of heightened political and sectarian tensions caused... MORE

On July 17, a frequent writer on Circassian topics, Andrei Yepifantsev, attacked Circassian activists for “nationalism” and pushing for help to the Syrian Circassians caught in the civil war in that Middle Eastern country. “Three primary themes of the Circassian nationalist movement are recognition of... MORE

The Chinese government has claimed since 2012 that Uyghur militants from Xinjiang are fighting with the rebels in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad (Global Times [Beijing], October 29, 2012). On July 1, China said that a Uyghur militant who studied in Istanbul and... MORE

Turkey has faced a relatively limited but consistent threat from jihadist militants linked to al-Qaeda dating back to the 1980s/90s, particularly following the return of Turkish fighters from Afghanistan (Hurriyet, October, 2001). The 2003 Istanbul bombings that resulted in over 60 fatalities triggered a major... MORE

On June 29, a conference in support of the Syrian Circassians took place in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. The participants in the conference demanded that Moscow relax visa rules and simplify the granting of refugee status to Circassians from Syria, who have reportedly experienced extreme hardship there... MORE

In less than a year, the Caucasus Emirate’s leaders have reversed their position on whether or not to view the uprising in Syria as a sacred jihad. The leader of the North Caucasian jihadist movement, Doku Umarov, spoke rather ambiguously in a video address last... MORE

Tribalism remains a primary form of communal identity among Arab Sunnis across Syria, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban areas. As a powerful source of socio-political mobilization, Syrian Arab tribalism has shaped the conflict since the first demonstrations against the al-Assad government... MORE

Throughout 2012, Russian leaders refused to admit that there were any Chechens fighting on the side of the Syrian opposition. Ramzan Kadyrov tirelessly reassured the public that reports of Chechens being involved in the armed conflict in Syria were false (https://rusnovosti.ru/news/214102/). Kadyrov was apparently concerned... MORE