After the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, I tried and failed to convince Hamas to hand over a key border crossing between Gaza and Israel to the control of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).
Mdou Moctar recently finished his first U.S. tour. In his three October performances in Washington, he set out to do a lot. Pickless, his kinetic guitar licks bounced around the stage, bringing his audience thousands of miles away to the Sahara desert. His calm, welcoming voice sang about the struggles and hopes of his divided homeland.
Iranian leaders celebrate the killing of Ali Abdullah Saleh and some media outlets express the hope that the former Yemeni president’s death will further empower the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Ali Akbar Salehi, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Saleh got what he deserved. “The Yemeni people that are with the resistance front will ultimately emerge victorious similar to the people of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon,” he added.
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani has said that Iranian forces will remain in Syria “as long as necessary” to continue to assist the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad, Fars News Agency reported. “Iran will continue to help Syria to fight terrorism as long as it is needed,” the top Iranian lawmaker said in an interview with a state-run Russian outlet during his trip to Moscow. “The fight against terrorism has not ended.
Iraqis in the city of Kufa of Najaf Province held a protest rally against Iran and its Iraqi proxies and attacked the offices of the Badr Organization, according a video clip circulating in social media and published in some Arab outlets. It is not clear when the protest occurred. In the video, protesters are seen ripping up images of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organization, a powerful group within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) and with close to Tehran.
The Iranian Navy today added a new missile-launching corvette to its fleet in the Caspian Sea, the Iranian media reported. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami participated in the inauguration ceremony of the homegrown vessel called Separ (shield). According to Tasnim News Agency, the new ship can sail at a maximum speed of 35 knots and is equipped with surface-to-surface missile systems, naval guns and radar systems.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Yousef Munayyer, Bilal Y. Saab, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, and W. Robert Pearson provide analysis on the death of fmr. Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Trump administration’s plan to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian target in Syria, Sec. James Mattis’s upcoming trip to Pakistan, the collapse of Geneva talks on Syria, and Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to Greece.
A prominent conservative Iranian daily has yet again praised missile attacks by Yemeni rebels against the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has said that a “new foreign plot” is underway to dismantle Tehran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) in neighboring Iraq, the Iranian media reported. In a meeting with Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Hammam Hamoudi in
Read the full analysis, co-authored by Hardin Lang and Alia Awadallah, on the Center for American Progress.
Read the full piece, co-authored by Nilsu Goren, on The American Interest.
Of all the calamities that have caused mass death and destruction in the Middle East in recent years—including civil war, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, cholera, and famine—none is more potentially threatening to human life than the danger of nuclear power.
The Saudi security forces have intercepted and destroyed another ballistic missile launched from Yemen targeting the Saudi mainland, according to Saudi military officials.
Senior Iranian officials have reiterated that the country will not negotiate with the United States and Europe powers over its missile program, the Iranian media reported.
