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Shahmahmood Miakhel is the Country Director in Afghanistan for the US Institute of Peace (USIP). Prior to that he was a Governance Advisor for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and, from 2003–2005, a Deputy Minister of the Interior in the Government of Afghanistan. In 1994–1995 he worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in South and Southeast Afghanistan helping to establish District Rehabilitation Shuras (DRS). He also worked as a reporter for the Pashto service of the Voice of America from 1985–1990.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has voiced opposition to the Iraqi Kurdistan’s decision to hold an independence referendum in September.
Iranian leaders continue to blame the United States and Saudi Arabia for last week’s terrorist attacks in Tehran although Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has confirmed that the Islamic State was behind the assaults.
Iranian-led Afghan Shiite militia forces have made significant territorial gains in southeastern Syria and have reached the shared border between Syria and Iraq, the Iranian media reports.
Iranian police forces have killed four individuals with alleged ties to the Islamic State in the southern province of Hormozgan, the Iranian media reported today. Azizollah Maleki, the provincial police chief, said an Islamic State flag, machine guns and explosives were also confiscated.
The commander of Iran’s Navy has accused the Gulf of Aden littoral states of attempting to disrupt the presence of Iranian naval flotillas in high seas, but he emphasized that the Iranian forces will continue their naval missions in the Gulf of Aden and in international waters beyond the region without paying attention to such “hostile” attempts.
Read the full article on The Globe and Mail.
Those visiting Doha are often told by locals that the city is the epicentre for political deal-makings in the Middle East. If you just want to do business, go to Dubai, the Qatari political elites are fond of saying.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed the latest military gains by the Syrian army and its allies and reiterated Tehran’s continued support to Damascus in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad earlier today. The Iranian president also condemned the latest U.S. strikes against pro-Damascus forces in southeastern Syria as a violation of international law.
The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) alleged today that the United States and Saudi Arabia plotted the terrorist
The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) announced that they have seized a strategic checkpoint along the Iraqi-Syrian border from the Islamic State, the Iranian media reported. According to Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.), the checkpoint served as a main border crossing for the Islamic State’s supply lines between Iraq and Syria.
For the people of Tehran, that ISIS can successfully wage terror attacks in the city came as a major shock. The powerful Revolutionary Guards was supposed to stop such attacks from happening. Its mantra has been that “Iran will fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq so we don’t have to fight them in Tehran.”
Gunmen and suicide bombers today killed at least 12 people and wounded 42 others in simultaneous attacks on the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder in the capital city of Tehran – the first major attack claimed by the Islamic State inside Iran to date. While all details of the attacks are not yet clear, Iranian hardliners and the powerful Revolutionary are already exploiting the tragedy to justify their increasing securitization of the Iranian society and costly military involvement in regional conflicts at the expense of domestic priorities.
