Insights

Security concerns are escalating in the battle to eliminate ISIS, driven by a threat no less serious than direct military challenges – the potential infiltration of the interim Syrian government’s security and military institutions by ISIS cells. This risk is...

Syria’s formal decision to join the international coalition against ISIS during the visit of interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa to Washington on 10 November marked a pivotal moment in the country’s post-war trajectory. The step came more than a decade after...

Aliya’s mornings in Palmyra no longer begin with coffee or preparing her children for school. They begin with fear. “Just a fever in one of my children is enough to turn my day into a nightmare,” she says. She knows...

More than a decade after the rise of ISIS and the collapse of its so-called “caliphate”, the group has not disappeared from the Syrian landscape. Instead, it has returned in a different form – quieter, but more complex. By late...

Assessments vary over the nature of the wide-scale US military operation currently under way in central and eastern Syria. Some see it as part of a long-term strategy aimed at eliminating ISIS, while others view it as a calibrated retaliatory...

The fall of Baghouz in 2019 marked the end of ISIS’s territorial control, but not the end of the organisation itself. Rather than collapsing, ISIS entered a new phase of strategic adaptation, reshaping its structure to survive in an environment...

After months of relative calm, tensions between Israel and Iran have returned to the forefront, driven by renewed Israeli threats and a sharp war of words following Iranian military exercises that included missile tests. Israeli officials view these moves as...

2025 draws to a close, Iraq finds itself navigating one of its most sensitive political and security phases in years. Regional turbulence, shifting power dynamics, and renewed international pressure are converging to reshape Baghdad’s priorities and alliances. In recent days,...

The simultaneous visits of a Syrian delegation to Moscow and a Turkish delegation to Damascus reflect an extremely sensitive political moment in the Syrian scene. The visit of Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, accompanied by...

After years marked by war and prolonged siege, trees are once again emerging as symbols of hope in Zabadani in Rif Dimashq/ Damascus Countryside governorate, southwestern Syria, and its surrounding countryside. The recently launched “Our Countryside Is Green” campaign aims...