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April 29, 2015 All in the Family: Saudi Clique Takes Over the State Saudi Arabia has the rare distinction of being a nation named after a single family. On Wednesday, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud doubled down on this authoritarian tradition with a bold... April 23, 2015 Hamas Triumphs in Election at Flagship West Bank University The Hamas-dominated Islamist Bloc emerged victorious in student elections at Birzeit University near Ramallah on Wednesday, defeating... April 16, 2015 Saudi Steps on Terror Finance Fall Short The U.S. Treasury Department announced last week that it was taking joint action with the government of Saudi... April 13, 2015 Khamenei’s Choice to Head Powerful Charity Bolsters the IRGC Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed Parviz Fattah as the new head of the... April 9, 2015 Pragmatism Trumps Principles on Erdogan’s Iran Visit Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the Iranian capital on Tuesday amidst rising tension between Ankara and Tehran.... April 9, 2015 Khamenei Breaks Silence over Nuclear Framework There is “nothing to congratulate,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Thursday, breaking his silence over a nuclear framework... April 3, 2015 Nonstop: Tehran to Sana’a Iran is delivering arms to Yemen using Pouya Air, an airline previously designated by the United States, according to an Israeli media... March 31, 2015 Nuclear Deal with Jordan is Russia’s Latest Attempt to Woo U.S. Allies Russia’s state-run nuclear-energy company last week signed a $10-billion agreement to... March 30, 2015 Did the Islamic State Exaggerate Its Role in the Bardo Museum Attack? The Tunisian government’s investigation of the devastating March 18 Bardo museum attack in Tunis yielded a surprising result. While the Islamic State (IS) quickly... March 27, 2015 A Fruit Vendor’s Self-Immolation and the Neglect of Arab-Iranians Tragedy struck Iran’s Arab-majority province of Khuzestan on Sunday as a fruit vendor died af... March 27, 2015 Saudi Arabia Tries to Flip Sudan Sudanese President and internationally wanted man Omar al-Bashir landed in Riyadh on Wednesday to kick off his first official vis... March 26, 2015 Iran sanctions relief sparks growing trade with Europe, Asia The Obama administration insists that the November 2013 interim nuclear deal with Iran provides only “... March 25, 2015 Iran Shipping Weapons Across Middle East Reports surfaced last Friday about the arrival o... March 25, 2015 Unanswered Questions Surrounding Tehran-Pyongyang Cooperation With the deadline for nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group drawing near, unanswered questions about the nature of the relationship between Tehran and Pyongyang are taking on new s... March 21, 2015 Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood Splits in Two Jordan’s seven-decade-old Muslim Brotherhood wing disbanded this week, leaving behind a... March 18, 2015 Kerry’s Remarks on Assad Widen Gap Between U.S. and Turkey “Collapse of U.S. policy in Syria as Assad continues massacres,” thundered the... March 14, 2015 Bold Plans at Egypt’s Economic Summit, But Challenges Linger Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has a flair for dramatic gestures. In his nine months in office, the Egyptian president has challenged the state’s... March 12, 2015 Erdoğan Consolidates Presidential Power Turkey’s president has significantly less power than the prime minister, according to the country’s constitution. But when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his candi... March 11, 2015 Iran Fires Cruise Missile Through Sanctions Loophole Iranian defense officials over the weekend announced the successful test-firing of the... March 10, 2015 Iran’s Succession Battle: Does it Matter? Mohammad Yazdi, a hardline ayatollah and former Judiciary chief, was elected chairman of Iran’s Assembly of... March 9, 2015 Succession After Khamenei Iranian TV aired footage Sunday of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressing a group of environmental officials at his residence in central... March 3, 2015 Bursa-Bound: Ahmadinejad’s Trip to Turkey On February 26, an Iran Air flight landed in Istanbul carrying a prominent passenger in seat 19F: former Iranian President... February 27, 2015 Hezbollah: Alive in West Africa The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced new designations yesterday for several Africa-based individuals a... February 17, 2015 Qatari Fatwa Justified Burning of Jordanian Pilot Qatar may be an active participant in the coalition campaign against the Islamic State (IS), but it also appears have provided religious justification for one of the Islamic State’s most brutal atro... February 13, 2015 UNSC Resolution on IS Finance: A Message to Turkey? The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution Thursday aimed at targeting funding for the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qa... February 12, 2015 ‘Minsk 2.0’ Provides Shaky Ukraine Ceasefire After 16 hours of negotiations in the Belarusian capital, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany ironed out a shaky short-term solution to the Ukraine crisis. The... February 6, 2015 The PA’s Risky West Bank Crackdown The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Thursday completed a week-long crackdown on a refugee camp in the West Bank. The crackdown a... February 3, 2015 Egypt Nears the Brink The political turmoil roiling Egypt since the military’s 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi is starting to bubble over. On Tuesday, a... January 30, 2015 The Brotherhood Declares Jihad – in Arabic Islamic State-linked jihadis struck the Sinai Penin... January 30, 2015 Tensions Flare Again in East Jerusalem Clashes erupted in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shu’afat again on Monday after an undercover Israeli police officer arrested 10-year-old Mohammad Said Oweida on... January 28, 2015 Rouhani, a Nuclear Deal and the IRGC Even in the... January 28, 2015 Libyan Ansar al-Sharia Leader Gets Medical Treatment in Turkey Ansar al-Sharia Libya confirmed this weekend that its leader, Mohamed al-Zahawi, had passed away from wounds sustained last year. Ansar al-Sharia is a jihadist group best-known outside of Libya f... January 27, 2015 Lynch and Nisman: Connecting the Dots Between Two Iranian Plots The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings on January 28 for Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to become attorney general of the United State... January 24, 2015 Succession in Saudi; Tehran Triangulates Following the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz on Thursday, Iranian President... January 20, 2015 Waning Public Support for Tehran’s Nuclear Aspirations Iran’s regime is at odds with itself over the costs and benefits of its controversial nuclear program. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the back and forth between President Hassan Rouh... January 13, 2015 Iran Nuclear Chief Reveals Gaps With P5+1 An unusually extensive interview with the head of the Iran Atomic Energy Organization underscores the yawning gaps still remaining between the positions of the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group... January 13, 2015 A Milestone for Saudi Oil Policy For the last several years, oil produced in North America has generally sold for a cheaper price than oil imported from across the At... January 8, 2015 France: Europe’s Terror Hub Wednesday’s attack... January 7, 2015 The Paris Attack: A Possible Yemen Connection “Tell the media that this is al-Qaeda in the Yemen,” gunmen in today’s deadly attack in Paris... December 30, 2014 Putin’s Lower Vodka Prices Won’t Offset Russian Economic Woes in 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered vodka prices last week for the first time since the Kremlin adopted pricing standards in 2010... December 30, 2014 A Last Minute Palestinian Resolution at the UN Security Council The Jordanian delegation at the UN Security Council called for a vote on a draft resolution on Palestinian statehood Tuesday evening, in a session called for hastily earlier in the day. The resol... December 26, 2014 Reading Washington’s New Cuba Policy in Tehran President Barack Obama’s overturning of Washington’s longstanding commercial and diplomatic isolation of Cuba earlier this month has grabbed the attention of another country chafing u... December 18, 2014 EU Parliamentary Recognition of Palestine The European Union Parliament voted... December 16, 2014 The Peshawar Attack: Sickening, but No Surprise The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, one of many al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the South Asian country, launched one of its more horrific... December 15, 2014 Portugal’s Palestinian Recognition Adds Momentum to Diplomatic Push The Portuguese parliament on Friday called on the government to recognize an independent Palestinian state. The motion was filed on behalf of both the center-right and socialist parties, and it u... December 11, 2014 Khaled Mashal’s Road to Damascus Runs Through Tehran An... December 9, 2014 AQ Leader’s Arrest Highlights Turkey’s Terror Problem A joint U.S.-Turkish operation last month led to the capture of a senior... December 4, 2014 Blowback in Sana’a A car bomb exploded early Wednesday morning outside the Iranian ambassador&rsq... December 3, 2014 Khamenei’s Speech After the JPOA Extension Addressing high ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Basij on Nov. 27, Iranian Supreme Leader Al... November 17, 2014 UAE’s Zealous New Terror List The United Arab Emirates announced on Saturday its list of terrorist organizations under a new counterterrorism l...

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