Research Papers
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Mona Alami
The fall of Aleppo in December emphasized the prominent role played by Lebanese Hezbollah in the Syrian war. Since 2013, Hezbollah fighters have operated across the border alongside the Syrian army and forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad. Hezbollah’s importance is twofold: first, it has enabled the regime to wrestle back areas from rebel control, and second, it has significantly increased the effectiveness of pro-regime forces.
The war in Syria, which was triggered by the March 2011 peaceful protests against the regime of President Assad, was perceived as a dangerous threat by Hezbollah and its ba
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There is much concern among the international humanitarian relief agencies – and thus international organisations and governments – about a planned attempt to attack/capture/besiege Hodeida by President Hadi’s forces supported by the coalition. This is widely seen as the main objective of Operation Golden Spear. It is expected that one force will attack from the south, coming from the direction of Mocha and possibly another from the north coming from Midi. In addition, there will be a seaborn landing, possibly using facilities in ports of Berbera, Assab, and Djibouti. The Huthi/Saleh forces are clearly aware of all this and planning counter-measures, including
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Hussain Ibrahim Qutrib
Associate Professor of Geomorphology
In early 2016 Bashar Al-Assad coined the term "Useful Syria", referring to six governorates encompassing Damascus, Rif Dimashq, Homs, Hama, Latakia, and Tartus. He stated that he will defend them with all his might, and considered remaining governorates as less strategic. The study hopes to track qualitative (ethnic, religious, and doctrinal) demographic changes of inhabitants, performed by the Syrian regime and its allies in these Governorates through forced migration operations, “siege and starvation” tactics
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Jack Caravelli & Sebastian Maier
Russia has developed one of the world’s most extensive cyber warfare capabilities and views those capabilities as a means to advance its strategic objectives in both war and peacetime. This paper examines Russia’s approach to the use of its cyber capabilities and how they are integrated into Russia’s broader objectives for dealing with its adversaries. Particular focus is placed on Russia’s unprecedented use of cyber to influence political elections in the West, including in the United States, France and Germany. To further its objectives, Russia also has
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English translation not available.
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The article by Dr Wan Lei, “The First Chinese Travel Record on the Arab World——Commercial and Diplomatic Communications during the Islamic Golden Age” published by King Fasial Center for Research and Islamic Studies in its bulletin, Qiraat (No. 7 Rabi I - II, 1438; December 2016 - January 2017), is composed of three articles, which are all translations and interpretations from official Chinese historical books recording events during the Tang dynasty (618-917 CE). The first is about Du Huan’s Jingxingji [The Travel Record], who was the first Chinese man who travelled the Arab world; the second article is about Jian Dan’s “Guangzhou
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The main purpose of this report is to offer readers an overview of new developments that have taken place in China with respect to the party-state's management of Islam, as well as the consequences of these new developments for Sino-Saudi relations. The report is organized into four sections. The first section discusses the authoritarian turn under way in China, which serves to contextualize the new religious controls as the backdrop of a system-wide transformation. The second section looks at the party-state's traditional approach towards the religious sphere and the mechanisms of control it employs towards it. The third
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This research paper explores the topical implications of the new realities and calculations surrounding Iran’s rapidly-evolving cyber ecosystem. The study traces a variety of cases where attribution is overwhelmingly linked to cyber interference emerging from the Islamic Republic, in which perpetrators act at arm’s length in an effort to insulate definitive accountability. Fi
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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).
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Wan Lei
This article explores the earliest Muslim immigration into China during the Tang and Song dynasties. The background of such immigration, along with various Chinese titles to designate Muslims, their communities, and their leaders demonstrate the earliest forms of recognition of the Muslims by the Chinese people. The article focuses on the studies of the Muslim leaders’ duties and their confrontations with the Chinese legal system; to adapt to a new society, a community must undergo acculturation. Finally, the system of Muslim leaders was improved by the succeeding Mongol Yuan dynasty,