Iran’s IRGC’s Naval special forces, S.N.S.F. Photo Credit: sayyed shahab-o- din vajedi, Wikipedia Commons. Militias sharing power with weak central governments has become a growing phenomenon in the Middle East, causing widespread alarm of state structure collapsing and chaos spreading across borders. This new trend has common features on many levels, but most important of…
Small-scale attacks in remote areas raise fears of a new cycle of insurgency. The Islamic State is creeping back into parts of central Iraq just seven months after the government declared victory in the war against the group, embarking on a wave of kidnappings, assassinations and bombings that have raised fears a new cycle of…
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionKurdish and Arab fighters have been pushing back IS since June A deal has been struck to evacuate civilians by bus from the Syrian city of Raqqa, where so-called Islamic State (IS) is surrounded by a US-led coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters. Under the agreement arranged by local officials, a convoy is…