Statements recently made a top Hezbollah figure and published Friday by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar media outlet risk accelerating a wave of sectarian strife that, having been largely imported from the nearly three-year conflict in neighboring Syria, has increasingly generated open fighting between various factions and a wave of car bombs targeting Hezbollah in retaliation for...

• Kindle

National Journal on Thursday published analysis detailing how terror activities being facilitated by the Turkish government – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top officials have provided “protection and access” to terrorist members from a range of groups, including Hamas and Al Qaeda – have now reached a point where they “threaten future cooperation...

• Kindle

Sectarian violence in and around Bahgdad killed seven people on Tuesday, extending bloodshed that in January had claimed more than 1,000 lives – the worst monthly figure in nearly six years – and deepening fears that Iraq may be entering into a cycle of instability that risks outright state failure. Monday had seen violence...

• Kindle

Hamas security sources this weekend told Agence France Presse on Sunday that the Iran-backed terror group was withdrawing roughly 600 fighters from the border between Israel and Gaza, where they had been recently been stationed and tasked with preventing smaller terrorist groups from launching rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians and soldiers....

• Kindle

Deutsche Welle assessed last week that the coming year will likely witness a continuing decline in Hamas’s domestic and regional positions, with the German outlet quoting Gaza-based political scientist Mukhaimar Abusaada bluntly evaluating that under “under the current circumstances 2014 is going to be a very bad year” for the Iran-backed terror group....

• Kindle

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced Friday that nuclear talks between the P5+1 global powers and Iran will begin February 18th in Vienna. “We have agreed that we will start the talks on February 18 at the U.N. building in Vienna,” Ashton said after what she described as a “really interesting” meeting with...

• Kindle

A raid on a Baghdad government building killed at least 18 people today, bringing the country’s death toll this month to to over 900 and putting Iraq on pace to exceed 2013’s death tool. Nearly 8,000 lives were claimed last year by spiraling, largely sectarian violence in Iraq. The large-scale...

• Kindle

Last December Israel conducted the third of four planned prisoner releases, part of a basket of confidence building measures designed to coax Palestinian diplomats into peace negotiations and keep them there. Each release has proven more controversial than the last, with the Palestinian public and Palestinian leaders staging spectacles celebrating...

• Kindle

Israel overnight Tuesday released 26 Palestinian prisoners convicted of terror-related crimes, the third of four such gestures designed to boost U.S.-backed peace talks. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had been explicit with Secretary of State John Kerry last spring that the Palestinians would not sit down for peace talks without a broad...

• Kindle

Elements inside Lebanon on Sunday fired a volley of rockets into Israel, drawing Israeli artillery fire reportedly targeting the launch site. The attack comes a few weeks after a cross-border sniper attack in which a Lebanese soldier targeted and killed an Israeli soldier driving to base. That attack caused analysts to...

• Kindle