By all accounts, the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran last Monday was a carefully choreographed piece of politico-diplomatic ballet to serve three precise objectives. The first of these was to show that Russia recognizes the “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei as the ultimate decision-mak
The British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that “The cities of London, Manchester and Glasgow can easily be subject to attacks like those that took place in Paris” in which 130 people were killed in simultaneous attacks carried out with weapons and suicide bombs targeting music concert-goers,
Political sources in Israel said that the Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs discussed an emergency plan to deal with what has been called the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and researched the emerging security challenges, stressing that the security services deem the collaps
France provoked a diplomatic uproar by opening a window to Assad’s regime in Syria and expressing the possibility of cooperating with the Syrian Armed Forces to fight ISIS. German statements revealed that there are features of a coordinated European position in this regard. The uproar began after th
Their security roles were different, but their goal was one; to protect Saudi Arabia from terrorism and the establishment of security since the terrorist attack on three residential compounds in eastern Riyadh which were carried out by terrorist elements with external guidance on May the 12th
The Russian ‘gift’ to Lebanon on its independence day couldn’t possibly have been more poignant. According to official reports the Russian authorities concerned didn’t bother to communicate the news of its sea and air manoeuvres close to Lebanon’s coast to the Lebanese government through official ch
“We entered Syria after fighters were 200m away from Damascus”. This is a confession from the Iranian Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. However, my topic is not about Iranian intervention because its circumstances and goals are well known. Instead, I would like to point out that Syrian revolutiona
The shooting down of a Russian plane by a Turkish missile near the Turkish border yesterday has triggered a delicate situation in the region as it waits for the Russian response to the operation which came after a series of warnings from Turkey about airspace violations. The seriousness of the incid
Whilst international arrangements continue to prepare lists of terrorist organisations in Syria in response to the decisions of the Vienna 2 conference, the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces Khaled Khoja called the Al-Nusra Front to sever its ties wit
The Kremlin announced that the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s views on the situation in Syria were the same during their meeting which continued for more than an hour and a half in Tehran. The Spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov explained
In a speech at the Press Expo in Tehran earlier this month, President Hassan Rouhani expressed regret that Iranians have not succeeded in creating a “lasting newspaper.” He wondered why it was that the Times of London was now in the third century of its existence while even a new country like the Un
The Vice President and Prime Minister of Yemen Khaled Bahah paid a surprise visit to the Ma’rib governorate, east of the capital Sana’a yesterday. The visit by a high ranking government official was the first of its kind in the region since the outbreak of war in the country last year. Officials sai
The American Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter in an interview with The Atlantic magazine blamed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of not opposing Iran regionally. He said “We see Iran everywhere, but we do not see a Gulf presence”. Contrary to his observation, there are many articles in the Ameri
A week after the bloody attacks that Paris witnessed and which ISIS claimed responsibility for, France yesterday implied that it is moving its fight against this terrorist organisation to ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq. The French Minister of Defence Jean-Yves Le Drian announced yesterday that t
The other evening in New York when Secretary of State John Kerry came to talk about President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, everyone thought he had come to praise it. An hour and 6000 words later, it was clear that he had come to bury it. The expected encomium became an unintended obituary. Kerry s
The Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Army Gadi Eizenkot ordered the transfer of the whole Kfir Brigade to the Hebron area, south of the West Bank, in order to punish its residents for operations which resulted in the death of 4 Jewish settlers on Thursday after it came to light that the perpetrator
A week after the Paris attacks which ISIS claimed responsibility for and resulted in the death of 130 people in addition to the death of most of the 8 perpetrators, similar attacks were repeated in Mali’s capital Bamako when gunmen stormed a hotel and held captive tens of hostages in it. Gunmen raid
As expected it didn’t take ISIS long to claim responsibility for the Paris terrorist mass murders. The evening of ‘Friday the 13th’ of November 2015 is not a date the people of France will forget. I dare say too, it will neither be forgotten by every Arab and Muslim living in France, nor any Syrian
The security spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Interior Major General Mansour Al-Turki said that security forces have seized Iranian currency, weapons and live ammunition during raids and search operations in Al-Qudaih, Al-Qatif yesterday. Major General Al-Turki added in a statement to “Asharq Al-
Amid concerns of a repeat of terrorist acts similar to those witnessed recently in Paris, France and other European countries have taken measures that seem unusual in the western world. The most notable of which are the freedom of the police to carry out administrative detention, blocking web
