News on politics, security and defence in the Middle East and North Africa
By James M. Dorsey. Policymakers in Tehran and Moscow are asking who lost Syria in a tectonic rewrite of the Middle East’s geopolitical map that has ousted President Bashar al-Assad…
Saudi Arabia has been awarded the men’s 2034 World Cup. It will be the crowning event in the kingdom’s sport spending spree, having already reportedly invested USD6.3 billion since 2021,…
By James M. Dorsey Ahmed al Shara, aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, would like you to think he is a changed man. These days, Mr. Al-Jolani, a 41-year-old one-time Al Qaeda…
On his first time around the presidential election circuit, Donald J Trump placed such emphasis on his desire to broker a peace deal between Israel…
By James M. Dorsey Syrian rebels know what they want. Having captured two of Syria’s four largest cities, Aleppo and Hama, the insurgents are gunning for Homs, the country’s third…
By James M. Dorsey A week into a rebel offensive, Syria is the potential fulcrum of a tectonic reordering of Middle Eastern geopolitics with President Bashar al-Assad as a key…
By James M. Dorsey The stakes in Syria couldn’t be higher. Despite initial rapid rebel advances, what is likely to be a protracted and bloody battle could rewrite the Middle…
By James M. Dorsey Gulf leaders told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati what they said to Palestinians when he asked the region’s wealthy energy exporters to fund the reconstruction of…
By James M. Dorsey Major General Avi Bluth, the head of Israel’s Central Command, switched roles this weekend. Suddenly, Mr. Bluth, in occupied Hebron to protect Israeli worshippers and settlers…
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s world just shrunk considerably. An International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza obliges the Court’s…