Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has cut a deal with Bashar al-Assad’s regime to exchange thousands of residents in Kefraya and al-Fouah, two predominately Shiite towns in the northern province of Idlib, for 1,500 prisoners held in Assad’s prisons.
The US Department of State added Saraya al Ashtar, an Iranian-supported group that openly flaunts its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps affiliation, to its list of global terrorists.
The Secretary-General of Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, said he is a “soldier” of Abdel Malek al Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement.
Liwa Zulfiqar’s secretary general was seen in a Syrian military operations room for ongoing operations in Syria’s southern Deraa province.
The Houthi rebels showed off new ballistic missile technology in a new missile launch directed at an airport in southern Saudi Arabia.
Various Shia militias from around the Middle East have expressed their support or condolences for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Brigades, which was targeted in unclaimed airstrikes in eastern Syria on Sunday.
Saraya al Mokhtar sends its condolences and congratulations to the Hezbollah Brigades for being the target of recent airstrikes in eastern Syria. At the same time, the Bahraini group also unveiled a new logo.
Several groups within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps network have eulogized Saleh al Sammad, the political leader of Yemen’s Houthis.
Last week, the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington D.C. released a nine-page primer on Iran’s continued support to Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Buried within the same document was photographic evidence of Saudi Arabia’s latest charge against Iran: the provision of the Sayyad-2C surface-to-air missile (SAM) to Houthi rebels.
In his latest message, Hamza bin Laden warns that Shiites are expanding throughout the Middle East and claims that the Saudi government is incapable of stopping them. Hamza calls upon Muslims to support the jihadists in Yemen. He also criticizes the relationship between the Saudis and the US.
Pro-Houthi media outlets like Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported that at least three types of projectiles were fired into the Kingdom. They include the Burkan-2H, the Qaher-2M, and the Badr-1. Both the Burkan and the Qaher have been used multiple times in the Yemeni theater, while the Badr was only unveiled last week.
Abdel Malek al Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi insurgent group, again promises to send fighters to battle alongside Hezbollah in any future war with Israel.
Bahrain claims to have broken up a militant cell, which was reportedly linked to Iran. Also captured in the raids was large amounts of explosives, including material to produce IEDs.
The funerals further highlight Iran’s support of Bahraini Shia militias.
The new branding further highlights Saraya al Ashtar’s role within the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” in the Middle East.
On select measures of the Iran threat, the 2018 document is remarkably consistent with themes from past assessments. Yet, in this latest assessment, additional attention is paid to the country’s evolving cyber aptitudes and to its turbulent domestic politics.
The State Department’s announcement that it was going after as-Sabirin, an Iranian-backed splinter faction in Gaza, shows the administration is serious about cutting Iran’s ties to its regional proxies.
The US Treasury Department designated six Taliban-Haqqani figures as terrorists today. Treasury’s identifying information locates five of the six — including three senior Taliban finance officials and the deputy leader of the group’s military commission — inside Pakistan. At least two of the newly-sanctioned men have ties to al Qaeda.
Ansar al Furqan, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group, claims to have bombed an oil pipeline in the area of Ahvaz, Iran. However, the group’s claim could not be independently verified.
The Houthis claim the missile used was a Burkan-2H, which recent evidence suggests is Iranian-supplied.
At the strategic level, if Iran’s provision of ballistic missiles to the Houthi rebels is confirmed, it could be seen as an indicator Tehran’s increased tolerance for risk in a distant conflict theater, one which has sought to weaken Saudi Arabia by any means possible.
The jihad in Syria has unleashed another leadership crisis for al Qaeda.
On Nov. 17, The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and FDD’s Long War Journal held an event to discuss the findings from the recently released documents from Osama bin Laden’s compound.
In recent years, Iran has stepped up its support for various Shia militant groups in the small Sunni-led kingdom. This support has been noted by both Bahraini and American officials.
Abdul Hakim al Tatari, a Russian Tatar member of the former Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, joined the Islamic State’s Wilayat Khurasan before migrating to Syria. He was later killed in the battles around Baiji, Iraq, just days after arriving to Islamic State-held territory.
The Syrian military has taken full control of Deir Ezzour, while Iraqi troops and Iranian supported militias ejected the Islamic State from Al Qaim.
The US has released a video from Hamza bin Laden’s wedding, providing a more recent image of Osama’s heir than was previously available. The video was recovered during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011. FDD’s Long War Journal assesses that the wedding likely took place inside Iran, where Hamza was detained until being released sometime in 2010.
CJTF-OIR made the statement despite the fact that it was abundantly obvious that the Iraqi government sought to seize Kirkuk from the Kurdish Peshmerga, and had signaled its intentions days before.
The Iraqi government quickly capitalized on its victory against the Islamic State in the adjacent city of Hawija and turned its energy on the secessionist Kurds in Kirkuk. The rapid offensive exposes deep fault lines in the anti-Islamic State coalition and within Kurdish politics.
Islamic State forces still control a small pocket of villages to the north and east of the town, but are now surrounded.