Turkey’s Syria strategy is at a critical juncture. Facing military deadlock, Russian resistance, and US economic pressure, Ankara is considering political avenues, potentially reshaping its Kurdish policy. Turkey is navigating multiple opposing strategies at once, from engaging with Damascus to eliminate the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria to allowing the imprisoned leader of
Hezbollah has a new secretary-general, though far from the obvious choice. On October 29, the group announced that its demure and soft-spoken Naim Qassem, rumored to be hiding in Iran, had succeeded Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated on September 27, to Hezbollah’s top local post. Though entirely ideologically aligned, there is a vast contrast between
As Egypt continues to suffer the ramifications of the Israel-Hamas war that has dragged on for over a year on its northeastern border, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has proposed a new two-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Cairo hopes would ultimately lead to a broader, permanent truce. Announcing the ceasefire initiative during a press conference with
As the Israel-Gaza war continues and expands regionally, Atlantic Council nonresident fellow Stefanie H. Ali spoke to Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin on October 15 to discuss how Israelis view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the ongoing conflict, and the future. Scheindlin is a Tel Aviv-based public opinion researcher and political advisor who has worked on nine national
Author’s Note: This piece provides updates to the October 31, 2023 article “Israel claims it is no longer occupying the Gaza Strip. What does international law say?” as well as the February 16, 2024 article “Could the US and other states be implicated in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel?” On July 19, the International
From the very beginning of the armed conflict ignited by the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, US officials have counseled their Israeli counterparts to identify achievable political objectives and embed them in whatever military operations might ensue. “Don’t make the mistakes we made in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” warned the Americans. “Understand that in
Hamas’s recent alleged killing of an aid worker from a US-based nonprofit highlights the security challenges looming in Gaza’s postwar future. On September 27, Islam Hejazy, the Gaza program manager of the US nonprofit HEAL Palestine, was shot and killed by multiple gunmen in a drive-by shooting in Khan Younis. While Hamas claimed the incident
Hostage and wrongful detention cases remain a key US national security priority regardless of the fact that they represent a relatively small number of instances, as their impacts reverberate well beyond the hostage and their family. Countries like China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have adopted the practice of wrongful detention—hostage-taking by state actors—precisely because they
In 1982, up to six divisions of the Israeli army charged into Lebanon to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). They reached the outskirts of Beirut in nine days, launching a two-month siege of the Lebanese capital that ended with the departure of the PLO. In the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Israel anticipated that
Although the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) was officially defeated by coalition forces in 2019, its offshoot branch focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia has recently pursued high-profile attacks outside of the region. Central Asian nationals, particularly Tajiks, carried out many of the recent Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K) attacks and plots in Europe