US Central Command (CENTCOM) has facilitated the transfer of around 5,000 Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to Iraqi media reports on February 11. The US began the...
Masoud Barzani’s February 6 meeting with SDF commander Mazloum Abdi spotlights a decade of U.S. partnering that helped defeat ISIS in eastern Syria, but never produced a political endgame. After holding territory east of the Euphrates, the SDF suffered setbacks in mid-January clashes and then reached a January 30 understanding that allows Damascus to expand security control in remaining SDF areas. Some fighters could be absorbed into Syria’s army, while U.S. forces weigh next steps for ISIS detainee operations and their remaining footprint.
Despite a US-mediated ceasefire, clashes continued between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria. On January 29, Syrian military drones carried...
Tehran and its regional proxies are escalating threats against the United States and Israel as Washington moves additional naval forces into the Middle East. The US military buildup follows US President...
US forces left Iraq’s Ain al Assad Airbase in Iraq’s Al Anbar Governorate, according to Iraq’s Defense Ministry, CNN reported on January 19. The redeployment of forces away from the large...
Kurdish opposition groups in northwestern Iran have actively supported protests against the Iranian regime during the first two weeks of January. They have issued statements backing...
The burgeoning relationship between Somaliland and Israel proves that the Jewish state is not hated and isolated in the region, despite the neighboring cluster of authoritarian states insisting otherwise.
On December 17, US Central Command (CENTCOM) provided new information on operations against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. “US and partner forces in Syria have conducted nearly 80 operations since...
An Iraqi government investigation concluded that two drones attacked the Khor Mor gas field in the country’s autonomous Kurdistan Region on November 26. The attack on the vital gas...
The important Khor Mor gas field in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq was attacked by kamikaze drones on the evening of November 26. It is the latest attack on the facility, which has been targeted by...
Syrian Kurdish military leader Mazloum Abdi’s recent meeting with top Kurdish officials of northern Iraq points to the region’s shifting political landscape. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander...
Iraqis voted in a parliamentary election on November 11, the country’s sixth since the toppling of former President Saddam Hussein in 2003. The election, held as security forces were deployed...
On October 26, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said it was withdrawing its fighters from Turkey. The withdrawal is part of a peace process that has seen the group say it will disarm...
On a recent trip to Israel, Mark Walker, President Trump’s nominee to be Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, did not mince words about the administration’s priorities. “We want...
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) based in eastern Syria are taking steps to integrate into the security forces led by the Syrian transitional government in Damascus. “The Syrian government...
2015 marked a change in the Syria policy of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He began to walk back his initial goal of toppling the Asad regime and turned towards Syria’s surging Kurdish forces....
Arab media reported on August 18 that a US military convoy departed Ain al Asad airbase, a military facility hosting US forces in western Iraq, on its way to Syria. An Iraqi security source speaking...
Recent drone attacks in Kurdistan are once again bringing the issue of Iraq’s Iran-backed militias to the fore.
Syria is a patchwork of identities, par for the course in a region where novel nationalities vie with tribe and religion for the citizenry’s loyalty. For most of the country’s history, the Assad family...
Brigadier General Kevin Lambert took over as the new commander of the anti-Islamic State coalition of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) in a ceremony in Iraq on...