Twenty-eight people were injured when relatives of an Iranian prisoner set to be executed threw a hand grenade into the prison where he was being kept in a failed attempt to prevent the execution. The attack will be read against the backdrop of ongoing executions and human rights violations being committed by...

The Washington Post‘s editorial this morning emphasizes that Iran’s “advanced centrifuges and the Arak [plutonium] reactor must now be part of any deal” that would provide Tehran with sanctions relief, since the “new facts” established by Iran’s recent installation of advanced uranium and plutonium technology have “torn some big holes” in what...

Israeli soldiers this weekend uncovered a mile-and-a-half-long tunnel running between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and ending near an Israeli kindergarten, underscoring concerns that the Iran-backed terror group is seeking to rebuild its fractured credibility with a spectacular terror attack. The left-leaning Israeli paper Ha’aretz reports that the tunnel is parter...

A fifth indictment for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, issued last week by the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), is refocusing attention on what Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Tony Badran once described as the “nifty conceit” that Hezbollah is a stabilizing...

Israel’s Ramat Gan Safari Park is taking congratulations over the birth of second baby Asian elephant in three months. Lalana, which is Hindi for ‘a girl’, was born earlier this month, exactly two months after her now-niece Latangi was born. Conservation blog Zooborns has full write-ups on the births of...

There is an open debate among Turkey observers whether what is often rebuked as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s majoritarianism – which, in harsher critiques, is characterized as authoritarianism – can be untangled from his very public campaign to erode secularism in Turkish political life. The international community had...

The Israeli military last week made a point of highlighting the Israeli Air Force’s abilities to conduct long range operations, including the IAF’s midair refueling capabilities. The Washington Post notes that the display comes on the eve of talks between the West and Iran: In an apparent message to Iran,...

A retired 61 year old Israeli colonel was bludgeoned to death today, with reports conveying eyewitness testimony from the man’s wife describing a well-planned terror attack. Accounts indicate that two Palestinians wielding iron bars and axes killed Seraya Ofer, which if confirmed would make the murder the latest in a...

The amount and sophistication of centrifuges at Tehran’s disposal are critical variables in debates over what concessions the Islamic regime must make in order to meet the half-dozen or so United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions calling on the country to verifiably halt its nuclear weapons program. At stake is...

Iranian anti-regime figures are growing increasingly wary of promises, made during the recent presidential election by eventual winner Hassan Rouhani, that the post-election environment would see significant domestic reforms. Anti-regime activists had already begun blasting Rouhani for a wave of executions which have occurred since his election. Meanwhile Green movement...