Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin sent a letter to the UN Security Council stating that three Turkish aid organizations were front lines for the country's intelligence service to send arms and supplies to extremists in Syria. "The main supplier of arms and military equipment to ISIL fighters is Turkey, which does so through non-governmental organizations," he said.Churkin accused the Besar Foundation, the Iyilikder Foundation and the Foundation for Human Right...

Following Iran’s apparent role in kick-starting the long-delayed formation of a government in Baghdad, Tehran is seen by many as the most influential external power in Iraq. While this may or may not be true, it is clear that Iran has a proven ability to commission violence inside Iraq. Yet while the covert programs run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force is a source of influence in Iraq, paramilitary operations come at a cost. The militarization of Iranian influence...

With the end of the war with Russia in sight, Osama and the men around him began to dream of a global Jihad to spread the message of God and to bring the world under Islamic rule. Osama’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam, a leading Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, was the first to recognize the necessity for an organized foundation from which believers could launch their struggle for a perfect Islamic world.

Some hours before HAMAS operation (5.40 am on Saturday October 7), Shin Bet monitoring agents detected a bizarre activity on some on line militant networks inside Gaza Strip. An alert was sent to IDF soldiers serving at military camps and forward operating bases (FOB) around Gaza Strip but for some unknown reasons the warning was not read or tranformed into action.Shortly before the attack, Hamas members disguised as farmers approached the fence area. The first phase included the s...

The group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) has carried out ethnic cleansing on a historic scale in northern Iraq. IS has systematically targeted non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014.Ethnic and religious minorities – Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shi’a, Shabak Shi’a, Yezidis, Kakai and Sabean Mandaeans – have lived together in the ...

Imad Mughniyeh was born in 1962 in the Lebanese Shi’ite village of Tayr Dibba to a poor family of olive and lemon harvesters. He moved to Beirut as a child and despite his religious affiliation, he became active in the predominantly Sunni Palestinian al-Fatah movement.In Lebanese Palestinian reports, Mughniyeh was even described as participating in the unit of bodyguards protecting then-PLO chief Yasser Arafat. But after the PLO chairman and his fighters were forced to leave Lebano...

On March 29, 2010, two female suicide assailants blew themselves up at two separate locations along Moscow’s underground network, killing at least 39 people. Two days later, the leader of the rebel movement in the Northern Caucasus, Doku Umarov, claimed responsibility for the attacks. For those monitoring the political situation in the Northern Caucasus, Umarov’s claim of responsibility came as no surprise.Even so, few analysts have been able to shed any meaningful light on Umarov’...

A common misconception about Islamic State propaganda is that it starts and finishes with brutality. However, whether it is a video depicting the execution of a group of men by firing squad in the desert, a mass beheading, or both, ultraviolence is merely part of the bigger picture.   Brutality is just one of six broad themes that Islamic Sate uses to bolster its presence and further its strategic goals; the other five are mercy, victimhood, war, belonging and utopiani...

Beginning in the 1950s and peaking in the 1980s, a number of developments greatly advanced Turkey's modernization. These same events also transformed Turkish politics. The result was a confrontation between provincial/traditional and urban/modern cultures, new social classes, and the fragmentation of the conservative electorate from the 1970s onward. This same situation provided the environment for the growth of Islamist parties in Turkey taking votes away from their center-right competito...

In a campaign-style appearance in Boca Raton, Donald Trump told the Tea Party crowd that he's a real conservative -- he's anti-tax, pro-life, pro-gun, and will "fight to get rid of Obamacare." Three elderly people fainted at the rally. We hope they swooned for the April sun, not at Trump's convictions. It shouldn't be a surprise that Trump has latched onto the far-right's birtherism. As he enters his fourth decade as a professional attention seeker, Trump has a long record of saying just a...

ny future war between Israel and Hezbollah will take a devastating toll on civilians due to the Iran-backed terrorist group’s practice of embedding its military assets in residential areas.Hezbollah currently has a stockpile of over 130,000 rockets, more than the combined arsenal of all NATO countries, with the exception of the United States. This number includes long-range rockets and M-600 ballistic missiles, which carry a high payload and would be able to wipe out a good chunk o...