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.
The Latest from Ahmad Majidyar
Iran Rejects U.S. Demand for Inspection of Military Sites
Senior Iranian political and military officials have rejected a demand by U.S. Ambassador to U.N. Nikki Haley that U.N. inspectors visit Iran’s military sites, the Iranian media reported today.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry Says It Has Eliminated 100 Terrorist Groups inside Country
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has said that the country’s security forces have disbanded nearly 100 terrorist groups across the country, Fars News Agency reported. “Highly serious measures have been taken in the Southern, Southeastern and Western parts of Iran and nearly 100 teams have been confronted,” the deputy intelligence minister said on Monday. He noted that the Islamic State seeks to carry out attacks in Iran but assured the public that the security forces are able to deal with any threats.
Iranian Drone Allegedly Spotted Flying over Western Afghanistan
Afghan officials say they are investigating reports that an unmanned aerial vehicle has recently entered western Afghanistan from Iran. Jilani Farhad, the spokesman of western Herat Province, said the governor’s office has been informed about the incident and is probing the case to find out which country the drone belonged to. Some Afghan media outlets have alleged that the drone was Iranian and it disappeared after local Afghan forces fired at it. The Iranian government has not reacted to the reports.
I.R.G.C. Outlet: Tal Afar Liberation Paves Way for Expulsion of U.S. from Iraq
The liberation of Tal Afar is a “major defeat for America and terrorists” and paves the way for the expulsion of U.S. Troops from Iraq, says an article in hardline Javan Online, a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.).
Iran Says Trump Determined to Cancel Nuclear Deal, Urges E.U. to Confront U.S.
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (A.E.O.I.) has said that President Donald Trump is trying to cancel the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers two years ago. He claimed that the latest U.S. sanctions violate the nuclear accord and also accused the Trump administration of pressuring the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) to declare that Iran is in breach of the agreement. The top Iranian nuclear official said that the Islamic Republic will not be the first party to violate the agreement, but stressed that it will not accept any U.S.
Iranian Media: Netanyahu Returned “Empty-Handed” from Moscow
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow was closely monitored in Tehran.
Haley Calls for Inspection of Iran’s Military Sites after I.A.E.A. Meeting
U.S. Ambassador to U.N. Nikki Haley said on Friday that the Trump administration wants inspection of Iran’s both military and non-military sites to ascertain Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (J.C.P.O.A.) – the nuclear agreement Iran signed with the U.S. and five other world powers in July 2015. Haley made the remarks after returning from Vienna, where she discussed the issue with Yukiya Amano, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.). Speaking at the U.N., the top U.S.
New Iranian Army Chief: Israel Won’t Exist in 25 Years
The new chief commander of Iran’s Army has said that Israel will cease to exist within the next 25 years, the Iranian media reported.
Iran Discussing Joint Counterterrorism Measures with Regional States
The deputy chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces has revealed that the country has started discussions with certain states to joint fight terrorist in West Asia, the Iranian media reported. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to uproot terrorism completely in the region in cooperation with other West Asian states; therefore, it has started contacts with the countries which herald establishment of tranquility in the sensitive West Asia region,” Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri said.
Senior Iranian Official: U.S. Has Waged Economic War against Iran
A senior Iranian official has cautioned that the Trump administration has waged an economic war against the Islamic Republic, particularly targeting the country’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.). “If the Americans were able to attack Iran, they would have done so a few years ago,” Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, said at a gathering of members of the I.R.G.C. and Basij Force in Hamadan Province on Thursday. The former I.R.G.C.
