Policy Analysis

Qasem al-Jabbarin is a Kataib Hezbollah-directed facade group that specializes in roadside bombings against Iraqi supply trucks servicing the U.S. military in Iraq.

A complicated parliamentary compromise has reactivated some of the machinery required for this year’s proposed ballot and a potential resolution to the KRG energy dispute, though the country’s hobbled legal institutions are still holding back reform.

The first and best-known of the facade groups that Iran-backed militias use to conceal their involvement in operations, Ashab al-Kahf has a particularly strong connection to Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

With few exceptions, the U.S. government has pursued Arab development, Israeli-Palestinian engagement, and Arab-Israel normalization as three separate, walled-off tracks, which no longer makes any sense.

As the Iran-backed rebels make further range leaps that bring them closer to reaching Israel and other countries, the United States needs to start viewing them as a proliferation challenge beyond Yemen’s civil war.

To promote stability and other U.S. interests, Washington must reshape its approach to this increasingly complex staging ground for global competition.

A facade group with unique ties to Kataib Hezbollah, Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq has been used exclusively to claim or threaten attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Algeria's divided Hirak movement needs greater unity in order to strengthen real, democratic institutions.

A village of women in Eastern Syria are upholding the core political beliefs of the Kurdish minority there.

Since losing its territorial base, the group has shown troubling signs of recovery amid a deteriorating situation at al-Hawl refugee camp.

Recent understandings between Cairo and Ankara have many of the group’s exiled figures worried about their future on Turkish soil.

Wishful thinking aside, Moscow will continue to push solely for its own interests in these discussions, which for the foreseeable future means empowering Assad.

With probable links to Asaib Ahl al-Haq, this minor facade group is occasionally used to claim bombing attacks on U.S. supply convoys and rocket attacks on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Three scholars explore the stunning breadth of Iranian dominance over Damascus and what this means for any U.S. plans to foster stability in Syria or reopen negotiations with Tehran.

New proposals by Palestinian commentators can give Abbas and other senior officials a viable framework for rescheduling premature elections and jumpstarting engagement with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

The profiles are a repository of institutional memory on the various armed groups, facade groups, and social organizations associated with Iraqi militias, to be used as concise reminders of how these entities are connected.

Regardless of the Biden Administration's stance on Iran and Hezbollah, sanctioning corrupt politicians in Lebanon is a good call.

The international community should push for free and fair elections in Iraq as a way to diminish the influence of armed militias on Iraqi politics.

The U.S. does not always have to be at the head of the table, but it has to be present and ready to jump in if progress stalls on issues such as advancing political dialogue, holding elections on time, and addressing Russia’s worrisome military encroachment.

Iraqi militias value legitimacy and try to portray themselves as acting within the law, so evidence-based approaches can be very effective at reining in those who attack on Tehran’s behalf.