اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.
In a statement released on Feb. 12, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) distanced itself from international terrorism, declaring that its violence was singularly focused on Pakistan. While the TTP’s recent comments on America are unprecedented, they do fit into its broader rebranding effort under the leadership of Noor Wali Mehsud, who took over the group in 2018.
تحليل إقليمي متخصص من قبل باحثي ومساهمي معهد الشرق الأوسط.
Afra Aldhaheri and Asma Belhamar, two featured artists in the MEI Art Gallery’s latest exhibition, Between the Sky and the Earth: Contemporary Art from the UAE, join MEI’s Lyne Sneige to discuss the inspirations and artistic processes behind their pieces in the show.
في العشرين من شهر كانون الثاني/ يناير، هاجمت مجموعات تابعة لتنظيم “داعش”، سجن الصناعة الواقع في الجهة الجنوبية لمدينة الحسكة أقصى شمال شرق سورية، الهجوم الذي أستمر لقرابة تسعة أيام، أنتهى بمقتل العشرات من مقاتلي التنظيم ومعتقليه داخل السجن، إضافة لمقتل قرابة 140 عنصراً من قوات سوريا الديمقراطية وحامية السجن التابعة لها.
On Jan. 20, 2021, groups affiliated with ISIS attacked al-Sina Prison in the southern part of the city of al-Hasakah, in Syria’s far northeast. The attack, which lasted for nearly nine days, ended with the killing of dozens of ISIS fighters and detainees inside the prison, in addition to approximately 140 members of the SDF and its prison guards.
Charles Lister and Mick Mulroy discuss the dramatic Feb. 3rd U.S. special operations raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the group’s late January attack on the al-Sina prison, and ISIS’s broader trajectory in both Syria and Iraq.
Why have authors revisited it over the decades through literary works, and what makes it appealing to international readers?
Intense fighting between the SDF and ISIS continued for the fifth day in Syria’s northeastern city of al-Hasakeh on Monday, following ISIS’s biggest attack in Syria and Iraq in three years. In the evening of Jan. 20, as many as 200 ISIS militants, many wearing suicide belts, launched a coordinated multi-axis assault on al-Sina Prison, shortly after detonating two car bombs parked along the exterior walls of its northern wing. In the chaos that ensued, SDF vehicles were seized and used to break through secure walls, clearing the way for hundreds of ISIS detainees to escape.
Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi has spent decades documenting the plight of Afghan women. But when the Taliban returned with a vengeance following their takeover of Kabul on Aug. 15 of this year, she turned the camera on herself.
When Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October, he and his novels came under the international spotlight. The award committee praised his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” But Gurnah is not the only son of Zanzibar whose art has been shaped by the memories of migration, and his recent recognition is an occasion to highlight and reflect on creative work in different media by individuals of similar backgrounds who have also been shaped by the trauma of forced departure.
Jason Pack on the 2021 Oasis Backgammon Championship, the first major international backgammon tournament to be hosted in the Arab World in recent memory, and how it reflects broader changes in the Middle East.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints, vital to the global supply of both oil and liquefied natural gas. The issue of freedom of navigation in the strait has long been a source of tension, but until recently any attempt by Iran to physically close it looked highly implausible, unless it resulted from either a major embargo or total blockade of Iranian ports by the West, or a large-scale military confrontation. However, the events of the past three years showed Iran can still ensure a major disruption of the flow of energy without a formal blockade and without an increased risk of military confrontation with the West. Iran has a variety of means at its disposal, especially through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval forces, and the Iranians make no secret of their desire to be recognized as the dominant military power in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Artists Helen Zughaib and John Halaka join MEI’s Lyne Sneige in conversation on the MEI Art Gallery’s current exhibition, “Converging Lines: Tracing the Artistic Lineage of the Arab Diaspora in the U.S.” They discuss the exhibition’s themes of exile, memory formation, changing identities, and the state of in-betweenness that often accompanies migration.
Converging Lines: Tracing the Artistic Lineage of the Arab Diaspora in the U.S. seeks to situate Arab and Arab American artists within the larger history of American art while emphasizing the rich history of cultural production that has come from the larger Arab American community.