Islamists over the weekend released a tape showing fighters from the Al Qaeda-aligned Ansar Jerusalem jihadist group using a surface-to-air missile (SAM) to down an Egyptian helicopter operating in the northern Sinai Peninsula, the first time the group has demonstrated the capability to successfully deploy SAMs. David Barnett, a research...

Reuters yesterday conveyed statements from State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirming that the first round of comprehensive nuclear negotiations with Iran will begin in New York in mid-February, amid both news and analysis reflecting unease over the willingness and ability of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani to offer meaningful concessions. “New York –...

New polling out of Israel indicates that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party has dramatically strengthened its electoral position. One year after the elections that kept Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power but resulted in a disappointing showing by his Likud-Beytenu list, the two-party alliance is seeing dramatic gains among likely...

At least six people were killed and 70 more were injured last Friday when Islamists launched three attacks against Cairo police stations, including against the city’s main headquarters, and by the end of the day, outside a Giza city movie theater. The attacks were claimed by Ansar Jerusalem, a Sinai-based Al Qaeda-linked jihadist...

Obama administration officials continued to scramble last week to contain the fallout from recent statements by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani, in which the officials respectively denied that Iran had made key nuclear concessions under a recent interim agreement and foreclosed what are widely believed...

The U.S.-Egypt relationship is in danger of further deterioration, with a diplomatic snub last week having revived Egyptian frustrations that first crystallized when the Obama administration last fall took the widely criticized and now functionally reversed decision to partially halt military aid to Cairo.Washington’s broadside was made in response to the army’s July removal...

The Daily Beast this morning published an extensive investigation, written by the outlet’s Eli Lake, describing the Obama administration’s efforts to lobby inside Israel on behalf of specific conditions outlined by a U.S.-backed peace deal. Special administration envoy Martin Indyk has been “quietly been meeting with Israeli reservist generals and...

Counterterrorism officials are continuing to unpack the significance of Wednesday’s announcement by Israel’s Shin Bet security service that Israeli officials had captured three Al Qaeda-linked Palestinians plotting mass-casualty terror attacks in Israel, with Israeli CT expert Aviv Oreg telling USA Today that the plot indicated “that hard-core al-Qaeda elements are involved within Israel” for...

A CNN interview to be aired on Sunday will have Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declaring to CNN host Fareed Zakaria that Iran “will not accept any limitations” on its “nuclear technology” in the context of a comprehensive agreement between Tehran and the West, and that the Iranians will “not under any circumstances” agree...

Egypt’s interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawy yesterday announced that he would back Egyptian military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for president should the latter run, a day after Egyptian outlet Al-Hayat reported that the army chief would indeed soon quit his post to pursue the presidency. Sisi came to the decision “in light of wide...