Last month Iranian diplomats who spoke to Al-Monitor floated rumors that Hamas was seeking to reestablish close ties with Tehran, after a period that saw the Palestinian terror group drift toward Sunni extremist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s decline in Egypt had, according to both those diplomats...

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Intelligence officials and world leaders are expressing renewed doubts about the potential for Syria’s chemical arsenal to be safely secured and destroyed, amid newly published figures describing Syria’s stockpile and political maneuvering by actors involved in the crisis. The Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,...

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CNN disclosed last night that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime was moving its chemical weapons stockpile around the country, less than a day before Damascus provided inspectors with an “initial declaration” describing the unconventional weapons program. One Obama administration officials who spoke to CNN found the news cause for either comfort...

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Video footage appearing to show members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operating on the ground in Syria – training and coordinating with Syrian government troops – have renewed questions regarding the extent to which the Islamic republic is directly involved in fighting the Syrian conflict. Tehran has admitted to training Shiite...

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Amid a series of grim milestones associated with the Syrian-driven refugee crisis – including the displacement of over one million children – Jordan is now reporting a surge in refugees crossing its border this past week. The numbers, per the Associated Press, have crossed 900 a day: Ali Bibi, a...

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Analysts are increasingly drawing attention to tics and quirks in the behavior of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, above and beyond the dictator’s alleged willingness to order Syrian troops to gas to death thousands of his country’s civilians. Evaluating a recent Fox News interview with the Syrian strongman, Richard Grenell –...

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Iranian media today widely reported – Tehran Times, PressTV, Fars – that what it calls its 27th fleet had docked at Port Sudan along the Red Sea. The fleet includes the helicopter carrier Khark (also spelled Kharg) and frigate Sabalan – both British-built – and had previously visited China. The...

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Following repeated and explicit statements of support from Iran’s newly inaugurated President Hassan Rouhani, Iran is moving to dramatically deepen its activities on behalf of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime. The Wall Street Journal reports that Shiite recruits from across the Middle East are being indoctrinated to wage a sectarian war...

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A car bomb exploded yesterday at a border crossing between Syria and Turkey, injuring a dozen people and heightening long-held fears that the Syrian conflict would spread to Turkey. The explosion came a day after a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Syrian military helicopter that Ankara reported had entered Turkish airspace and ignored repeated...

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CNN describes “bickering” between Western and Russian diplomats struggling to hammer out the details of an agreement that would see the international community acting to seize Syria’s vast arsenal of chemical weapons: The agreement, reached by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry over the weekend, calls...

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