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Ahmad Khalid Majidyar is a Middle East & South Asia analyst with a focus on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was previously a senior fellow and the director of IranObserved Project at the Middle East Institute.
From 2008 to 2015, Majidyar worked as a senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he co-authored two monographs on Iran: Iranian Influence in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan (AEI 2012), and The Shi’ites of the Middle East: An Iranian fifth column? (AEI 2014). He also published a number of research papers on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As an instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School’s Leadership Development and Education for Sustained Peace program (2008-2016), Majidyar provided graduate-level seminars to more than 3,000 U.S. and NATO military leaders on Afghanistan and the broader region. In addition, he has provided briefings on Iran and Afghanistan at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, the National Defense University, the State Department, and Congress; and he has spoken as a guest analyst at think tanks, universities, and world affairs councils.
Majidyar’s articles on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been published in Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, Fox News, U.S. News & World Report, Daily Telegraph, and Forbes, among others. He has also discussed Middle Eastern topics on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera English, Sky News, CBC Canada, Bloomberg News and Voice of America’s Dari, Farsi, Urdu and English services.
Previously, Majidyar worked as a media analyst with the BBC Monitoring in Afghanistan and as a humanitarian aid worker with the UNHCR in Pakistan.
Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan held a meeting with lieutenant General Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, the chief of the general staff of the Syrian Army, in Tehran earlier today.
Abdul Jabar Qahraman, who recently resigned as the top official overseeing war efforts in Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand Province, has said that Iran facilitates contacts between Taliban leaders and Russian officials.
The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) has called for preparing Iran’s next generation to defend the country’s clerical establishment and export its revolution abroad. “The next phase of the Islamic Revolution is creating an Islamic government, Islamizing the society, and expanding the Islamic Revolution across the world,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari told more than a thousand teachers and school principals at a gathering organized by the Basij Organization on Sunday.
The chief commander of Iran’s Navy has said that crossing the Atlantic Ocean is on the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, the Iranian media reported.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected President Hassan Rouhani’s claim that his administration’s engagement with the West has removed the “shadow of war” over Iran.
Iran’s Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani has thanked the country’s Ministry of Health for providing assistance to his forces and Iranian-controlled militiamen fighting in Syria under his command.
Former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) Commander Mohsen Rezaei said the Rouhani administration “paid a price” and made “tactical and strategic mistakes” by “hastily” negotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement with the United States and five other world powers.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has sent a letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, calling on Islamabad to prosecute perpetrators of an attack that killed 10 Iranian troops along the Iranian-Pakistani border on Wednesday. A militant group called Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack. According to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, Rouhani blamed the Pakistani government’s “inaction” and “lack of necessary measures” for repeated attacks originating from Pakistan against Iranian border guards.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry slammed Israel for allegedly launching an air strike against Syria, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. “Repeated acts of aggression by the Israeli regime against Syria violate this country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and is in breach of international norms,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said. “There is no doubt such attacks are aimed at weakening the legitimate government of Syria… and is against international peace and security.” He also called on the United Nations to make sure such attacks are not repeated.
Iran’s new ambassador to Syria, Javad Torkabadi, presented his credentials to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Wednesday, the Iranian media reports. He arrived in Damascus on Tuesday and was welcomed by Iranian and Syrian officials, including Syrian Social Affairs Minister Rima al-Qadiri.
The latest air strikes on an airport near Damascus purportedly by Israel and increased U.S. military activities on Jordan’s northern border have triggered a concern in Tehran about the possibility of a broader U.S.-led military campaign in Syria.
American officials said on Wednesday that a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer fired a warning flare to deter an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) vessel approaching it in the Persian Gulf.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Russian and Syrian counterparts, Sergey Shoygu and Fahd Jassem al-Freij, stressed that they will co
