After a month and a half of fierce fighting over Karabakh and surrounding Armenian-occupied districts, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a final ceasefire on November 10 (Daily Sabah, November 10). The deal leaves all areas Azerbaijani forces recaptured under Baku’s control. Azerbaijan’s decisive battlefield victories... MORE

Though Iran professes neutrality in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, calls for an immediate ceasefire, and offers to mediate between the warring sides (see EDM, October 21), Tehran’s political elite is sharply split on how to respond to the fighting in the South Caucasus. Their diverging approaches... MORE

Neutrality is one of Oman’s greatest assets. Under the leadership of the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Oman successfully navigated the fall of the Shah in Iran, the Cold War and its end, the U.S.-led War on Terror, and the Arab Spring. Through all these... MORE

Prosecutors have charged Matthew Dolloff with second-degree murder for killing navy veteran and cowboy-style hat-maker, Lee “Tex” Keltner, in Denver’s Civic Center Park on October 10 (CBS [Denver], October 29; AngusTV, 2011). Before his death, Keltner joined a ‘patriot rally’ organized by former CIA security... MORE

In late September, a special Indian National Investigating Agency (NIA) counter-terrorism court in Ernakulam, Kerala, sentenced Islamic State (IS) terrorist Subahani Haja Mohideen (a.k.a. Abu Jasmine al-Hindi) to life imprisonment (NIA, September 28; The Hindu, September 28). He was one of the early Indian-origin extremists... MORE

Introduction On August 3, Tajikistan’s Minister of Internal Affairs Rahimzoda Ramazon announced that Gulmurod Khalimov was killed in an airstrike in Syria. This was later confirmed by Tajikistani nationals returning from Syria (Sputniknews.ru, August 3). Later, however, Rakhimzoda stated that he would not believe the... MORE

Abu al-Yaqzan al-Masri is one of the most active jihadist scholars in Syria. Until last year, he was a senior member of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of al-Nusra Front. Al-Masri became the Shara’e (religious guide) of the military... MORE

Chechnya and Ingushetia saw a surprise surge in clashes between government forces and rebels in recent weeks. The government side has suffered casualties for the first time in months. It is too early to say if this uptick in violence represents a lasting trend or... MORE

Does Turkish Withdrawal from Morek Base Signal Renewed Conflict in Idlib?  John Foulkes On October 20, Turkish forces withdrew from the Morek observation post, the country’s largest base located north of the city of Hama near the border with Syria’s northwestern Idlib province (Syrian Observatory... MORE

On September 24, reports surfaced that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had threatened to close the U.S. embassy in Baghdad if the Iraqi authorities did not stop the frequent pro-Iranian militia attacks on U.S. diplomatic assets (Al-Monitor, September 25). The militias initially appeared emboldened... MORE