The pragmatic rapprochement between Turkey and some Gulf countries symbolizes the end of the cold war between them, and the start of a new era based on de-escalation and diplomacy. On Nov. 17, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani visited Turkey, where he held talks with...

In the months before he was charged with storming the Capitol, Doug Jensen was sharing conspiracy theories he'd consumed online. But it hadn’t always been that way, says his brother, who recalls how he once posted the sort of family and vacation photos familiar to nearly all social media users....

Washington, DC – Absent an unforeseen event, experts say Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is not going to lose his grip on power any time soon – something that is moving many Arab countries to normalise relations with the government in Damascus. Thousands of kilometres away in Washington,...

The Iranian regime continues to exert a considerable amount of influence in Syria. Will the region witness any changes in Iran’s policy toward Syria under the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi? And what are the broader regional implications?   As a core hard-liner, Raisi sees Syria from...

The most powerful men in Lebanese politics have been in charge for decades, some since the early 1970s. They’ve survived civil war, assassinations, uprisings and other turmoil, hanging on to power for decades in a turbulent, unforgiving region. Now, they’re in a desperate fight to cling to...

Iraq’s Shiite militias that often serve as a proxy for neighboring Iran have taken a beating in Iraq’s election, while a Shiite cleric who set himself apart by taking a more nationalistic approach has emerged as Iraq’s strongest political figure. The results underscore growing divisions over...

Iran's proliferation of drones in the arsenals of its proxy militias across the Middle East has received quite a bit of attention in recent weeks. This isn't surprising. After all, in the space of just a few short years, Tehran has supplied its proxies with an unprecedented number of armed...

A certain unease has gradually set in between Washington and European capitals still concerned with the Syrian issue. There are several sources for this. Syria does not constitute a priority for the Joe Biden administration, which has sent mixed signals about implementing Caesar Act sanctions....

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has raised complex questions over the future of Salafi-jihadi movements, including in Turkey and neighboring Syria where the threat from such groups has been largely contained. Whether the risks heighten down the road will depend largely on how the Taliban...

Even as the US completed the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan on Monday ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline, the double suicide bombing at Kabul airport and US drone strikes against ISIS-K hideouts have amply highlighted that the dawn of peace in the war-torn country is still far away....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was Nov. 13 , 2001. The sun had just begun to rise over the Hindu Kush Mountains when the Taliban disappeared from Kabul, the battered capital of Afghanistan. The bodies of foreign Arabs who had stayed behind were mutilated and bloodied. They had been found and...

After the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, Arab countries are wondering whether Syria – which has hundreds of American soldiers – will be the next country to witness a U.S. withdrawal. This was already stated in an analytical article in Foreign Policy magazine. The piece says that...

The timing of Moscow and the Syrian regime’s attacks over the past few months indicates a desire to pressure the international community before major international meetings on the Syrian war. On March 5, 2020, Russia and Turkey signed a ceasefire agreement in Syria’s Idlib that included...

Standing on a podium on Saturday to take an oath of office, Bashar al-Assad declared himself the only man who could rebuild Syria. His first foreign guest, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, seemed to enhance his claim, endorsing the president’s win in a May poll described by Britain...

When Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman embraced Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani in the Saudi city of Al-Ula on Jan. 5, hopes were raised that this could finally improve a fractured relationship that had long hindered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) unity. Six months on,...

The 13th presidential election held in Iran on June 18 witnessed a lowest ever voter turnout in the electoral history of country. Further while 48.8% voters turned at polling booths, nearly four million of them cast blank votes. Besides low turnout, election of Ebrahim Raeisi, the...

With the swearing-in of Israel’s new coalition government that ended the 12-year tenure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attention has now been drawn to the possibility of reviving the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have been halted since April 2014. Peace talks between...

The fourth anniversary of the start of the battle for Raqqa has just passed, during which time the city was recaptured from the Islamic State (IS). Raqqa had been IS' Syrian capital, and it took over four months for the liberators, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to wrest back control of...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's presidential election on Friday, though likely more a coronation for a hard-line candidate long cultivated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, still carries implications for a wider Middle East already roiled by years of tensions between Tehran and...

In July 2018, when US President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Putin did most of the talking. Much of it was about Syria. It was clear, Trump told his national security adviser John Bolton after an almost two-hour one-on-one session with his Russian...