Saud al-Sarhan On Monday, October 27, 2017, The Levant Committee arrested several former leaders of al-Nusra Front, including Sami al-Aridi and Iyad al-Tubasi, and their Jordanian comrades linked to al-Qaeda have turned into stalkers and hidings on charges of working to establish a branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria This report presents a background of the relationship between al-Qaeda and The Levant Liberation Organization (formerly Al Nusra Front), the reasons behind these arrests, and the new

Saud Alsarhan & Sebastian Maier The Sinai peninsula, and, in particular, the affected land strip in the vicinity of the northern coastal town of El-Arish, has been the staging ground for a variety of spectacular militant attacks in recent years. In 2015, a suicide bombing and subsequent shooting shattered the Swiss Inn Resort in Arish, while in October 2014 and March 2016 local security checkpoints were targeted, killing dozens of security personnel from both the army and the police. In all in

Faris Al-Sulayman Research Fellow The first half of 2017 has seen Saudi Arabia take substantive steps in the renewable energy space, as the newly formed Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources aims to fulfill the goals set in Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, a broad blueprint for the Saudi economy, and the more detailed interim plan. Underlying these goals is the aim of transforming the Saudi economy from a centralized, oil-based economy to a model that is more diversified and reliant on private-sector growth.

Mohammed Aldujayn Iraqi Kurdistan’s referendum on Monday, September 25, 2017, which resulted in more than 90% of the votes in support of independence from Iraq, has triggered an international debate among Kurdistan’s neighbors. Turkey views this ongoing independence referendum with many doubts, and it has condemned the vote process as illegal and the referendum itself as threatening to regional security and a unified Iraq. In addition, nations other than Turkey are also concerned. In particular, Iraq and Iran share the same attitudes regarding what has been going on in the de facto capital of Erbil. (Continued

Hasan Radi This study begins with a quick overview of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,  its emergence,  its political, military, security and economic objectives that were behind its establishment. The study then moves on to view the Guard’s economic activity and the economic aspects it controls in Iran through the creation of its own companies, or the takeover of existing companies with established economic activities. This tactic, in turn, enabled the Revolutionary Guard to gain complete control of Iran’s security and economic policies. The author shows – through statistical data, tables

This research is concerned with the study and analysis of the relationship between the new virtual currency (Virtual Currency) - also called (Cryptocurrency encrypted currencies), characterized by great degrees of confidentiality, privacy and decentralization - and religious extremist groups that adopt violence as a means of action and expansion, and study indicators of the growing importance of these currencies in the trading, exchange and business transactions, as well as financing arms purchases and equipment used by those groups. (English version of the research is currently not available)

The seismic political events of 2016, such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US President, highlighted the fact that globalization has exacerbated divisions within societies, in terms of the gap between rich and poor, elite and non-elite, and those who identify themselves with a national boundary and those who perceive themselves to be part of a wider community.  Nevertheless, a group of young educated Saudi male undergraduates at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in the Eastern Province identify the principal problem causing these societal divisions as not globalization per se but rather ‘uneven globalization&r

King Salman’s four-day visit to Tokyo in mid-March, as part of his three-week tour to five Asian countries – Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Japan and China – was an event worthy of being described as ‘special’ in the history of Saudi–Japanese relations. Firstly, the visit was special because it was the first visit of a Saudi King to Japan for 46 years. Before King Salman, only King Faisal had visited this East Asian capital – in 1971 – and there is, in fact, a noteworthy similarity between the visits of the two Kings. Both visits took place in the year following an announcement by the Saudi government of its new economic bluep

English translation not available.

In this study, Dr. Bouhania Goui addresses the elements that formed the “Algerian Experience in Combating Terrorism” through the accumulative experiences of the National Liberation Army (NLA) in the War of Independence (1954-1962m) and the Peoples National Army experience (PNA) in the Sands War in 1963. In addition to clandestine movements of jihadists returning from Afghanistan, and the emergence of a group called Mustafa Boaali in the mid eighties, followed by a painful experience in fighting militant Islamists during the nineties termed: Décennie Noire (The Black Decade).