Research & Commentary Results

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the Trump administration and its allies will not be able to establish safe zones in Syria, and that the deployment of American troops to Syria will also not change the trajectory of war in the Arab country, the Iranian Parliament’s official website reports.

Just days after Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iran-supported Iraqi militia group, announced the creation of the “

Ali al-Hussaini, a spokesman of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces), has claimed that PMF forces have made significant territorial gains in western Mosul and the operation to liberate the strategic city of Tal Afar will begin soon.

This article first appeared on Real Clear World.

While Iraqi forces are fighting to retake the western half of Mosul from Islamic State fighters, internal divisions regarding the future of Iraq’s political process are escalating ahead of provincial elections scheduled for September, especially within the country’s largest Shiite political bloc, the Shiite National Alliance.

Tensions between the two main opposition umbrellas—Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham—in northwestern Syria continue to rise. The two sides are clashing in different towns, and intensifying their media campaign against each other to justify their narrative and rally more support from civilians.

A powerful Iran-supported Iraqi Shiite militia group has announced the creation of a new brigade to “liberate” the Golan Heights from Israel, the Iranian media reports. “After the latest victories [in Syria and Iraq], we established the ‘Golan Liberation Brigade’.

The Iraqi government has approved Tehran’s controversial ambassador pick to represent the Islamic Republic in Baghdad, the Iranian media reports.

In a new revelation on Monday, a senior Iranian official said that more than 2,000 combatants

Iran’s Qom News reported on Friday that Sayed Abbas Mousavi, a commander of the Zainabyoun Brigade, was kidnapped in the Iranian holy city of Qom (the site has now deleted the report).

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Eran Etzion, Gerald Feierstein, and Robert S. Ford provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Israeli PM Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Moscow, Saudi FM Adel al-Jubeir’s upcoming visit to Cairo, and the developing agenda for the Geneva 4 Syria peace talks.

Netanyahu to Make Another Trip to Moscow
Eran Etzion, MEI Scholar

Ezzatollah Zarghami, the former head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, has emphasized the significance of Afghan Shiite militias for the Iranian military intervention in Syria.

Sergey Vershinin, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa department, will meet with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari to discuss the U.N.-sponsored peace talks on Syria, the

Iran’s Fars News Agency (FNA), a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.), has published interviews with Iraqi politicians and militia commanders about Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir’s February 25 visit to Baghdad and its potential implications for the war against the Islamic State and for Iraq’s relations with Iran.

Note: The latest issue of MEI’s Monday Briefing e-mail incorrectly linked to this page. If you’re looking for the Monday Briefing for March 6, click here.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) evidently continues to deploy cadets to battlefields in Syria as part of training its future offers. According to a senior I.R.G.C.