Two incidents this week showcase the complexity of the challenges facing Israel on its northern front.
In the first, an air strike killed four members of the Islamic State-affiliated Khalid Ibn al-Walid Brigade after a patrol of the Golani reconnaissance unit in the southern Golan Heights was targeted by the organization. Israeli aircraft then targeted a facility used by the group in the Wadi Sirhan area. Read more
Mosul in early autumn looks peaceful from the Bashiqa ridge. The first positions of the Iraqi Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, are here, 12km from the city. The occasional mortar shell lands somewhere in the vicinity once in a while. Further off, one can sometimes hear the distant thunder of heavier ordnance. But mostly it’s quiet. Read more
If a modern-day Australian Rip Van Winkle were to awake from a two-decade slumber and turn on his television set or iPad, he would be stunned by the extent to which terrorism has come to dominate our lives. Read more
The town of Gaziantep is located 30km from Turkey’s border with Syria. Over the past five years it has become an epicentre for the unfinished business of the Syrian civil war. Read more
The five-year, continuing civil war in Syria is the greatest crisis to have hit the Levant since World War II. According to recent figures released by the Damascus-based Syrian Center for Policy Research, up to 470,000 people have died in the war. Fully 11.5 % of the population have been killed or injured, and 45% of the population have left their homes as a result of the conflict. Of these, more than 4 million have left Syria, while 6.36 million people live inside the country as internally displaced persons. Life expectancy has dropped from 70.5 years in 2010 to an estimated 55.4 years in 2015.
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ISIS is no longer expanding in the Middle East, according to analyst Dr. Jonathan Spyer. But he warns that may cause the radical Islamic group to spread out more into international terrorism. Interview on CBN News.
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Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a Middle East analyst, author and journalist based at the Global Research in International Affairs Centre (GLORIA) in Israel. He discussed the upcoming Israeli elections on ABC News24 on 4 December 2014.
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Dr. Jonathan Spyer, Director of the Rubin Centre in Israel, spoke at an AIJAC function in Melbourne on the continuing instability in the Middle East. Recorded 27 August 2015.
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Dr. Jonathan Spyer spoke at an AIJAC co-sponsored function in Melbourne, Australia.
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Two incidents this week showcase the complexity of the challenges facing Israel on its northern front.
In the first, an air strike killed four members of the Islamic State-affiliated Khalid Ibn al-Walid Brigade after a patrol of the Golani reconnaissance unit in the southern Golan Heights was targeted by the organization. Israeli aircraft then targeted a facility used by the group in the Wadi Sirhan area. Read more