Recently Belgium reached a shameful deal with Iran: an innocent Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, held for 455 days in Iran on fake charges of spying, was swapped for an Iranian intelligence officer, Assadollah Assadi, convicted to 20 years in prison for orchestrating together with
This article argues that the Iranian regime successfully uses a terrorist blackmail strategy since the 1979 hostage saga of American diplomats at the US Tehran embassy, the bombings against the US Marines and French paratroopers of the Multinational Peace Force in Beirut in 1983, the
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s coughing speech on May 25, 2021, and especially the long absence that preceded it, raised quite a few question marks as to his health condition. Hezbollah claims that this is an insignificant allergy or medical defect and there is no basis
The deep Russian military involvement in Syria is slowly leading to a de facto restructuring of Middle Eastern alliances, putting America’s influence at risk, and Israel’s interests at stake. First published in Haaretz
The below ISIS video seems an attempt by the organization to bandwagon the present Palestinian wave of terrorism in Jerusalem and the West Bank without any special effort. For the moment, while ISIS is under combined but not coordinated attacks by the United States coalition,
On the backdrop of French and Belgian leaders expressing their worry concerning a chemicals terrorist attack in the aftermath of the Paris 13 November ISIS attacks in Paris please see below my presentation at the panel on “Chemical Warfare at 100” at The 4th EU
During my participation at the International Seminar for the Combat of Terrorism and the Financing of Terrorism in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 30, 2016, I presented a short evaluation about the terrorism threats coming from the Middle East.
“Why Saudi Arabia and Qatar are not Part of Syrian Ceasefire Deal?” titled an article on the official RussianSputnik news agency, referring to an agreement achieved in late December in Moscow by Russia and Turkey as its co-guarantors and Iran as part of it. There
A suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held Syrian town has drawn widespread international condemnation, with the United Nations saying it would investigate the bombing raid as a possible war crime
In my previous post, I argued that it is of major interest to know if the murderous chemical Syrian air attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Iblib province has been approved or coordinated with the Russian air-force active in Syria. The Russian position
The sophisticated ISIS attack in Tehran is a major operational success for the group. This is an early attempt to analyze the event based only on Iranian official sources.
The deputy security chief of the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital of Amman was wounded Sunday night, July 23, after being stabbed by a Jordanian man who was subsequently shot dead. A second Jordanian was also injured in the incident and later succumbed to
The Barcelona Terrorist Attack -A First Assessment
On the night of September 18, 2018, in an unfortunate incident, Syrian air defense mistakenly shot down a Russian military plane while the Syrian regime was targeting multiple missiles flying over Latakia
Commentary by Dr. Ely Karmon
Latest updates on the Sri Lanka attacks by Dr. Ely Karmon
Dr. Ely Karmon in an interview to the Argentinian international website Infobae (September 16, 2019) on the crisis after the bombing of Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities
Dr. Ely Karmon take to Martin Novák’s questions for the Czech news website Aktuáln?.cz
The killing of Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful Iranian military commander, the long-serving head of Iran’s Quds (“Jerusalem”) Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), will have a major impact on the conflict between Iran and the United States and the situation in the Middle
On January 27, 2020, ISIS released a new audio speech by its spokesman Abu Hamzah Al-Qurashi, produced by its media arm Al-Furqan and distributed on social media. Al-Qurashi delivers a defiant message: ISIS is not only surviving, despite the declarations by consecutive U.S. presidents that
The major questions regarding the causes, and responsibilities, of the catastrophic explosion relate to the origin and destination of the ammonium nitrate cargo and the reasons that led to its storage in the Beirut port for six years.
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) involves two ICT researchers in a study on drone threats to metropolitan areas. Ely Karmon & Uri Ben Yaakov
Against the background of Syria’s invitation to the Annapolis conference and the eagerness with which politicians and the defense establishment have supported its participation, we should try to analyze the Syrian leadership’s strategic considerations vis-à-vis a peace process with Israel.
First published as “Israel: hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” Longitude, The Italian Monthly on World Affairs, May 2011, pp. 59-66. Not often does Israel finds itself a passive bystander amid Middle East turmoil. But as history shows, whether or not the Jewish state is
In recent days, there has been heavy American pressure at the highest level on Israel to apologize to Turkey for the deadly results of the May 2010 “humanitarian” flotilla led by the Turkish Islamist organization IHH, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed during their
Time will tell if this is a new strategic blunder of the United States, similar to the one which compelled Israel and the Palestinian leaders to accept Hamas’ participation at the 2006 elections.
At this hour, July 15 16:00, after Israel accepted the proposed ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt and hold fire since 9 am, Hamas rejected it and poured heavy rocket fire on South, Central and even northern Israel. Therefore Israel decided at 14:00 to resume the aerial attacks against
The best alternative would be for the Palestinian Authority, with Egyptian support, to retake control of Gaza First published by the Jerusalem Report
Last year, after deserting the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” and positioning itself in the Sunni coalition against the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas lost the backing of the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and incurred the bitter enmity of the new military rulers in
The book also describes in detail the rise of jihadist networks in Spain, in the larger context of jihadist terrorism in Western Europe, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On February 26, 2014 and March 13, 2014, General John F. Kelly, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), presented SOUTHCOM’s 2014 posture statement to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees respectively. Kelly maintained that “Iran’s involvement in the Western Hemisphere is a matter for concern”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting on December 28, said Iran was increasing its efforts to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank, a move, he emphasized, was encouraged by the Palestinian Authority envoy to Tehran. First published in Times
It should be remembered that the first serious wave of Islamist terrorist attacks against those responsible for ” blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed” were the result of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini February 1989 fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, in response to his depiction of
Is Europe now ready to take the necessary political, legal and operational decisions to counter the terrorists? First published in the Jerusalem Report
My article “The Strategic Imperative to Deny an Iranian/Hezbollah Base on the Golan Border” dealt with the attempt by Iran and Hezbollah to build a new strategic base in the northern Syrian Golan Heights and was posted on my Times of Israel blog at
The civil war in Syria has clearly been the main trigger for the changes in the Australian jihadist arena since 2012. First published in the Jerusalem Post
On the backdrop of the recent Russian military deployment in Syria please see two apparently different viewpoints which however reveal the sad reality of the US and Russian involvement in the beleaguered Middle East. My colleague Bruce Hoffman’s article “ISIL Is Winning” argues that fourteen
For the moment there are no real clues leading to the group or organization responsible for the murderous terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania against the American embassies, which took the lives of so many innocents–Africans and Americans.
The US Department of State’s report “Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1997,” released in April 1998, states that “notwithstanding some conciliatory statements in the months after President Khatami’s inauguration in August 1997, Iran remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism [from a list of seven
Numerous critics in the Arab world have blamed the recent anti-American terrorist attacks on America’s support for Israel, and its “double-standard” with regard to the Middle East. However, a closer look at the ideology and strategy of Osama bin Ladin and his followers shows clearly
Over the past few years the public discussion of the problem of terrorism from Lebanon has centered only on two options: a Israeli unilateral withdrawal without prior security arrangements; or a withdrawal in the framework of a general settlement, which would enable Syria to reap
On June 1st, 2001 a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt amid a crowd of youngsters outside a Tel-Aviv beachfront nightclub, killing 20 and injuring more than 120, in the most murderous terrorist attack since the beginning of the Intifadah.
With all the uproar over the calls to indict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for war crimes, it is ironic that it is the Hamas weekly newspaper that recently called for the indictment of the “real culprits” in the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
An article appeared in the 13 August edition of the Lebanon-based Palestinian weekly, Al-Manar, stating that there is “serious thinking” among the Palestinians about obtaining biological weapons, according to a special dispatch by The Middle East Media Research Institute.
The last wave of coordinated suicide attacks by Hamas did not come in revenge for the killing of Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud or the accidental death of five Palestinian children. These terrorist acts must be considered in the context of America’s war on terrorism,
The leader of the ANO, the infamous Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal (Sabri al-Banna), died violently last week in Baghdad. But his death is not as extraordinary as the subsequent press conference given by Iraqi intelligence chief Taher Jalil Haboush. This press conference was the first
On February 20, 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of eight leading members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The indictment provides a wealth of detail about the close connection between PIJ and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Reprinted with permission from Policywatch
