Tag: iran

Judging from Donald Trump’s campaign posturing, his Big Three foreign policy views go something like this: Russia can be wooed, Iran needs to be slammed, and China’s economic and strategic reach must be tamed. But what happens when they all start to overlap? A series of initiatives and announcements Monday pointed to the deepening interplay […]

On July 9th, 1962 the United States launched a Thor rocket armed with a W49 thermonuclear warhead to an altitude of nearly two hundred and fifty miles and detonated it.  It took thirteen minutes for the missile to reach its predesignated altitude before the 1.45 megaton explosion illuminated the night sky for hundreds of miles […]

A friend of mine, and previous colleague, spent a couple years learning and mastering his Arabic language skills. He honed those skills living in Damascus. He had an interesting experience to say the least. But there were some take aways more profound than others. For one, Assad isn’t universally hated. By some, he’s liked – […]

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry delivered an impassioned defense of diplomacy Monday, asserting that the nuclear deal he spearheaded with Iran had averted an almost-certain war and vowing to work “to the last moment” to achieve a lasting cease-fire in Syria. In London to accept the Chatham House Prize, given by the prestigious […]

Buckle up.  We are about to dive head first down the rabbit hole of Lebanese politics, a task fraught always with both danger and head-spinning confusion.  I will try to make this as simple to understand as possible — including, for myself — and will do my best to avoid making any mistakes in this […]

A constellation of warring factions have seemingly set aside deadly disputes to take part in one of Iraq’s toughest challenges yet — clearing ISIS out of its last major stronghold in the country. A successful offensive to recapture Mosul could boost desperately needed national unity, restore the pride of an army that was humiliated when […]

Iraq’s Shia militia groups say they have launched an attack against Islamic State militants west of Mosul, as the offensive to retake the city continues. The Hashid Shaabi groups say their aim is to oust IS from the town of Tal Afar, cutting jihadist supply routes to Mosul from Syria. Tal Afar had sizeable Shia […]

We have for decades now understood the inherent fragility of Lebanon, a weak, divided nation-state trying desperately to contain the growing power of Hezbollah. Analysts have described the nation as in many ways, increasingly a country wrapped around a terrorist group like a thin cloak. All that ends Monday October 31, 2016. As of that […]

In the early morning, ISIS attempted to blow up a power station on the outskirts of Kirkuk as well as a police headquarters building.  The attackers, said to be about a dozen in number, killed six Kurdish police officers and 13 power company workers.  Although unconfirmed at this time, images obtained by SOFREP appear to […]

An Iranian court has sentenced an Iranian-American businessman and his elderly father to 10 years in prison on charges of cooperating with the United States, the Iranian judiciary’s official news website reported on Tuesday. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained Siamak Namazi, a businessman with dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship in his mid-40s, in October 2015, while […]

Iran says it has dispatched two warships to the Gulf of Aden to ply the same waters as several U.S. Navy vessels are already operating there, one of which launched several Tomahawk missiles at Tehran-backed Houthi radar installations early Thursday morning. According to the Iranian Tasnim news site, which has links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards […]

The frontlines of Yemen’s civil war have remained relatively fixed because neither side has the military strength to extend its influence significantly beyond the borders of its support base. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) adds complexity to the civil war. AQAP is fighting against the al Houthi-Saleh alliance and is attempting to prevent […]