An unattended car was found near the Syrian town of Dayr Hafir in eastern Aleppo province in late September containing an explosive belt usually worn by Abu Sa’id al-Hadrami (a.k.a. Muhammad Sa’id al-Abdullah), the amir of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). Al-Hadrami was on his way to... MORE

Bashar al-Zoubi (a.k.a. Abu Fadi) is the leader of the powerful Syrian armed opposition group Liwa al-Yarmuk (Yarmuk Brigade) and the military commander of the Free Syrian Army-Supreme Military Council’s (FSA-SMC) Southern Front. He is a member of the Arab al-Zoubi tribe, one of the... MORE

Kurdish fighters in Syria have taken greater control of areas inhabited by both Arabs and Kurds since July 16, and aim to capture three other mixed areas in the governorates of Raqqah, Aleppo and Hasakah in order to connect existing Kurdish areas (al-Monitor, October 25).... MORE

Fourteen border guards in the southeastern Iranian region of Saravan were assassinated and five seriously wounded on October 25 by a shadowy militant Sunni group known as Jaysh al-Adl (JA – Army of Justice) (IRNA, October 25; Mehr News, October 25). In retaliation, Iranian authorities... MORE

On November 28, the deputy head of the Department for Multilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Anuar Tanalinov, said that his country was considering the possibility of taking part in the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. According to the Kazakhstani diplomat,... MORE

The situation of Syria’s Chechen community is changing rapidly. Three commanders—Emir Muslim (Muslim Margoshvili), Emir Seifullah (Ruslan Machaliashvili) and Emir Abu-Musaaba (Musa)—joined forces on October 31 (https://usudusham.com/ru/2013/11/1004/#more-1004), resulting in the establishment of a new group under the command of Emir Muslim, who had previously led... MORE

The interim agreement, concluded on November 24 with Iran and six world powers led by the United States, will see Tehran cap its nuclear program at a reduced capacity in exchange for relaxed international sanctions. The deal has met with strong resistance from some quarters,... MORE

In an apparent last-ditch attempt to stop the so-called interim agreement to solve the Iranian nuclear problem that is being prepared in Geneva by the group of six nations—the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and China—Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to... MORE

In many respects, the ascendance of Hassan Rouhani to the Iranian presidency has raised optimism for the prospects of a limited rapprochement between the United States and Iran.  This is the case even as the United States and Iran stand diametrically opposed on a host... MORE

The nearly achieved breakthrough in the six-party talks in Geneva, which are focused on the Iranian nuclear program, caught Moscow by surprise and signified a serious setback for Russia’s foreign policy. President Vladimir Putin tends to believe that he is, indeed, the most influential statesman... MORE