Middle East

Loitering by the entrance, I clock a large gentleman with tattoos crawling up his neck from underneath his collar. It’s immediately obvious he’s not there for lunch: he is there on behalf of the French state to prevent an assassination. Specifically, the targeting of the academic I am meeting: Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, who’s been living under police protection for the last six weeks since the reaction to her book on the Muslim Brotherhood took a turn. The Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps the most significant Islamist organisation in the world. A political party founded against the backdrop of 20th century colonialism in Egypt, it arrived in the West via students and exiles fleeing repressive

His name was Abdullah Abu Jaba and I want you to remember it because it’s the last time you’ll hear it. He was a Palestinian from Gaza, reportedly a father of six, and was killed in the latest clashes between Israel and Palestine Islamic Jihad. You haven’t heard of Abu Jaba because he was an inconvenient Palestinian, one who cannot be held up as the latest victim of Zionist aggression. Pictures of his weeping widow and confused children will not fill your social media timeline. Major media outlets will not compete to tell human interest stories about how he played with his children or how his family will cope without him. No

While the Taliban continues to double down against women in Afghanistan, the UN appears to be wanting to normalise relations with them. Women in the country are already blocked from almost all jobs and all education. Yet a week after the extremist group barred females from working for the UN, the organisation’s deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed said it was now time to take ‘baby steps’ towards ‘recognition (of the Taliban)’.   As UN spokespeople tried to limit the damage, protests poured in from Afghan opposition groups. One statement from a wide group of Afghan artists and human rights activists slammed nearly two years of ‘futile regional and global diplomacy’

The fiasco in Khartoum is being widely interpreted as a tragic failure of intelligence. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, is facing questions about how and why the government was caught unawares as Sudan descended into bloody chaos. There are bodies on the streets of Khartoum, foreigners have fled the city, and those who remain are braced for a resumption of war. A United Nations-brokered truce turned out to be illusory. It is tempting to think of diplomats as an unnecessary luxury in the 21st century, but they are vital The British military managed to evacuate about 100 diplomatic staff but most of the estimated 4,000 British nationals remain in a

Israeli politics is rarely quiet, but recent events have taken the drama and volubility to another level. The country has faced 11 weeks of protests against the make-up of Israel’s governing coalition and reforms to the country’s judicial system. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets. Roads have been blocked. The Knesset and politicians’ homes in Jerusalem have been targeted. Israeli police have used mounted officers, stun grenades and water cannon to disperse demonstrators. With the protests showing no signs of abating, last night – ahead of his visit to London – the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a tone deaf television address. ‘We can’t let any

Beirut, Lebanon ‘You can still smell it in the wind,’ says Maria. She points out from the neon-lit bar along Beirut’s shorefront to the dark port area just across the road, where tangled metal and broken concrete jut out into the sky. Maria had been working from home on August 4, 2020, when 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate left to rot in a warehouse on the harbour suddenly detonated, killing more than 200 people and levelling much of the Lebanese capital. Her usual daily drive back from her job as a reporter on a local newspaper – since shuttered due to lack of funding – took her along the seafront.

‘Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!’ shouts a Saudi man. There are arms dealers, fixers, military men and gun geeks; tanks, assault rifles, mortars and drones. Jets do aerobatics overhead and a band plays Maroon 5. A Chinese robot dog bangs into delegates. Welcome to the International Defence Exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Business is booming. On the conference floor, Erik Prince is talking to the Emirati President, Mohamed bin Zayed. People are taking photos of MBZ, who smiles out from a dark robe and aviator sunglasses, but no one seems to recognise Prince. He’s an ex-Navy Seal who sold mercenaries to the Americans in Iraq, trained Somalis to fight pirates in

I am a 56-year-old dad of four. I live with my wife and dog in Surrey, where I run a successful building firm. But I also know Shamima Begum, who this week lost her appeal to have her citizenship reinstated, perhaps better than anyone else in Britain – apart from her family. I’ve visited her six times, travelling across thousands of miles and warzones to meet the jihadi bride. That’s because I’m one of the world’s foremost extreme tourists. My holidays have taken me to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, North Korea and Chernobyl. I have infiltrated the KKK, was the first westerner to visit the Black Hawk Down crash

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said the quiet part out loud when it comes to his country’s attitude towards Syria. Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the Munich Security Conference that the ‘maximalist goals’ of the past in confronting Assad’s regime were no longer tenable: [We are] going to have to go through a dialogue with the government in Damascus at some point, in a way that achieves at least the most important of the objectives especially as regards the humanitarian angle, the return of refugees, etc. Yet for all these warm words about helping those afflicted by the devastating earthquake in Syria, normalising relations with the Assad regime – giving it what it wants in terms of sanctions relief, funnelling

Husam Zomlot is head of the Palestinian mission to London and an adviser to the country’s president Mahmoud Abbas, currently in the 18th year of his four-year term. Zomlot was interviewed by Sky News’s Kay Burley this week in response to Burley’s interview with Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to Britain. Both interviewees were asked about the synagogue murders in Jerusalem last Friday, in which seven Israelis were killed. They were also asked about a prior Israeli raid on an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell in Jenin, which killed ten Palestinians, including a civilian woman. At the outset of the interview, Zomlot complained about Hotovely’s characterisation of the synagogue murders. He accused his counterpart

Can the EU afford to snub Qatar? The corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament centres around allegations that the Gulf state gave bribes in exchange for influence and favour at the European Parliament. But if the EU cleans up this problem by distancing itself from Qatar, it might have a serious, potentially even larger, dilemma on its hands. The war in Ukraine, sky-high inflation, the energy crisis and internal divisions have already shaken the very foundations of the EU. With four suspects, including Eva Kaili, a vice president of the European Parliament, now being held on charges of corruption and money laundering, what has been dubbed ‘Qatargate’ may push the

Iran has announced the first execution of the current crop of protestors. Mohsen Shekari, who was just 23, was hanged earlier today after having been found guilty by a revolutionary tribunal of moharebeh, a crime which means ‘enmity against God’.  Other protestors have been charged and convicted of crimes like fasad-fel-arz (‘corruption on Earth’) and baghy, which means ‘armed rebellion’. Both of those carry the death penalty, so it seems likely that more executions will soon follow. Shekari’s killing is intended to frighten those who face these charges and to dissuade demonstrators from taking to the streets at all. But will it work, as the tide of anti-government feeling continues to swell in Iran? Shekari was

Mashhad is Iran’s holiest city; it has the country’s most important shrine. It’s not the place for an Iranian woman to walk around without a hijab. But in September, Katayoun began leaving hers at home, going out with her head uncovered to join the daily protests against the country’s theocratic regime. A policeman struck her with his baton. She didn’t care. Katayoun is, necessarily, an assumed name. She is 35, an accountant, but also a member of an opposition group. She had joined the other ‘uprisings’, in 2009, in 2017 and in 2019, but she tells me: ‘This uprising is very different. People’s fear of the regime has fallen away.’