Gulf and Arabian Peninsula

Iran, Turkey and Russia have reached an agreement to create “de-escalation zones” in Syria, Iranian and Russian media reported.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has

Hardliners in Iran are continuing to punish Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a reformist politician backing President Hassan Rouhani, for his last week speech in which he questioned the Islamic Republic’s military role in Syria. In the latest incident, a pro-regime vigilante group forced the former mayor of Tehran to cancel a campaign rally in Semnan Province.

Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi has revealed that a leader of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) has traveled to Iran to discuss the issue of internally displaced people of the strategic town of Jurf Al Sakhar near Baghdad.

Read the full op-ed on Defense One.

If President Trump travels to Riyadh later this month, as reported, he will find that the six leaders of the Gulf Coordination Council (GCC) countries hold widely divergent views on Iran, the extent of the Iranian threat, and how to resolve the conflict in Yemen.

The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) Ground Force has said that he will continue to deploy “military advisers” to defend the government of Bashar al-Assad and the “resistance front” against Israel.  “A war has multiple dimensions. The most important one is the ground part.

The Iranian defense minister has announced that the country’s arms production capacity has seen a staggering 100-fold increase under the Rouhani administration,

Iran and Pakistan agreed Wednesday to work together to boost security along their shared border after Pakistan-based militants killed 10 Iranian border guards in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan last week. A militant group called Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iran’s security forces threaten Afghans living in Iran to go to Syria to “fight for Syrian President Bashar al Assad or be deported to Afghanistan,” according to a report the Pakistani Dawn newspaper.

A court in Iran’s Isfahan Province announced today that Gholam Hossein Karbaschi, a senior reformist politician, will be prosecuted for questioning the Islamic Republic’s policies and actions in the Syrian conflict.

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan held a meeting with lieutenant General Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, the chief of the general staff of the Syrian Army, in Tehran earlier today.

The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) Navy

Abdul Jabar Qahraman, who recently resigned as the top official overseeing war efforts in Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand Province, has said that Iran facilitates contacts between Taliban leaders and Russian officials.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gonul Tol, Randa Slim, Alex Vatanka, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Mabrouka M’Barek provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Turkish President Erdogan’s upcoming meeting with Russian President Putin, the upcoming speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Nasrallah, the suprising popularity of Rouhani’s VP in the Iranian Presidential Race, the Taliban’s new Spring offensive, and protests in Tunisia over a government proposal to give amnesty to the country’s corrupt financial elite.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) has been setting up new offices in Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Nineveh Province, according to a report in