As 2025 came to an end and 2026 began, Syria’s first full year under the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) rule is now in the books. Though the year saw Syria go from an international pariah to a welcomed member of the global community, internally, violence still...
As 2025 comes to an end, the Israel-Lebanon border is in much the same case as it was when it began. There is nominally a ceasefire, as their has been since November of 2024, but the Israeli military routinely ignores that ceasefire and carries out attacks on southern...
A weekend bombing of an Alawite mosque in the Syrian city of Homs sparked major protests by Alawites across Syria’s northwest, and led to a quick crackdown by the government, which has declared the protesters “Assad remnant forces.” Latakia, a major Alawite city, was...
An agreement was reached in March for the Kurdish SDF to integrate into the Syrian Army, and while we’ve seemed close to the deal actually going through multiple times throughout the year, persistent clashes and tensions have dogged this plan, and as the first full...
Israeli officials seemingly everywhere and always are talking about new wars against the various nations they’re already effectively at war with. In the case of Lebanon though, officials have been calling a new war inevitable, and the situation on the ground suggests...
Adding to the ever-growing number of incidents in which UNIFIL peacekeepers come under attack from Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, the group reported that on Friday they faced direct heavy gunfire in the village of Bastarra, leaving one peacekeeper wounded. The...
2025 has been the first full year in power for the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria, and the defining topics of the year have been the return of Syria to international diplomacy and bloody violence against religious minorities within the country. The first of the...
A Monday strike on the southern Lebanese city of Sidon destroyed a car and killed three people within. At the time, the IDF said they believed Hezbollah operatives were in the area, but they didn’t immediately claim that the actually hit Hezbollah. That’s changed, and...
Just a few days after the Syrian government presented its “final offer” to the Kurdish SDF on integration, the two sides were once again at odds, with fighting reported in the key northern city of Aleppo. At least three civilians were reported killed and 15 wounded in...
An Israeli drone strike hit a vehicle in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon today, killing three people according to local officials. Details are scant about the identities of the slain, though they were evidently all people inside the car. The Israeli military...
