Emergency and security personnel inspect the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1.
UPI / Alamy Stock Photo
Israeli launched a strike against the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1.
Ecuadorian special forces break into the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
Alberto Suarez/API/AFP via Getty Images)
The bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus and storming of Mexico’s embassy in Quito breaks with accepted diplomatic norms − and could spell trouble.
Ariel Schalit/AP
US President Joe Biden’s recent warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has limited Israel’s options in Gaza. And neither of Israel’s war objectives appear to have been met.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
Over nearly five decades of enmity, Tehran and Washington have found common ground when they needed to.
More than 140 people died in the Crocus City Hall assualt in Moscow on March 22, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images
A spate of terror operations carried out by the Islamic State group affiliate has raised concerns over a potential attack on US soil.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The government will head back to the High Court next month for another immigration case. If it loses, there could be wide-ranging consequences.
Human rights activists gather in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 27, 2024, to condemn executions of political dissidents in Iran.
Ali Khaligh/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
In the wake of the death of Jîna Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, Iranian authorities have executed political dissenters at what the UN chief described as ‘an alarming rate.’
Esmail Ghaani, head of Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force, speaks at a ceremony in Tehran on April 14, 2022.
AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
Esmail Ghaani took control of the unconventional warfare wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps following the killing of predecessor Qassem Soleimani.
The people’s choice (although candidates for Iran’s parliamentary elections have all been pre-approved by the religious authorities).
EPA-EFE/Abedin Taherkenareh
Candidates have been pre-approved to favour the religious right.
A paratrooper with a NATO flag performs during an air show in Radom, Poland, in August 2023.
Jakub Porzycki/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Donald Trump has threatened to not defend some NATO countries if Russia attacks them. But the US also benefits from the power that NATO gives it, as well as the stability it helped create in Europe.
‘Pressure cooker of despair’: Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt.
Ismael Mohamad/UPI/Alamy Live News
A selection of analysis from our coverage of the war in Gaza over the past fortnight.
Armed and dangerous: fighters from Iran’s Quds Force at a funeral for comrades killed in the February 2 US airstrikes in Iraq.
EPA-EFE/Ahmed Jalil
Iran funds a large network of armed groups across the Middle East as part of its ambition to replace the US as regional power.
EPA-EFE/Michael Reynolds
The Biden administration has calibrated its strikes so as not to provoke a wider armed conflict in the region.
The headquarters of an Iranian-linked group in Anbar, Iraq was among the sites targeted by U.S. bombers.
Hashd al-Shaabi Media Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
More than 85 locations linked to militias were hit in a robust response by Washington to an earlier deadly drone attack on a US base in Jordan.
President Joe Biden attends the arrival of the remains of three U.S. service members killed in a drone attack in Jordan.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
The US attacks on military sites in Iraq and Syria are unlikely to further escalate conflict in the Middle East, he writes.
Hadi Mizban/AP
The Shia militant groups operating in Iraq, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East share political and ideological connections, yet they also have their own nationalist goals.
Members of Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, on a parade and declare that they are ready for an on January 5, 2021.
Anas-Mohammed/Shutterstock
PIJ is perceived as a terrorist group operating in the shadow of Hamas, aiming to dismantle Israel with the backing of Iran – but that’s not true.
Weighing up options: the US president, Joe Biden, is considering how to retaliate to the drone attack which killed three US servicemen in Jordan on January 28.
Adam Schultz/White House Photo/Alamy Live News
History tells us that US presidents tend to be cautious about foreign policy in an election year – especially in the Middle East.
Under pressure: Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivers an economic briefing, January 30 2024.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
Facing a parliamentary election in March, the Islamic Republic is trying to distract attention away from its economic woes with a show of strength.
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi, right, greets the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, at the start of their meeting at his office in Tehran in June 2023.
(Iranian Presidency Office, via AP)
Iran prefers to engage Israel through its proxies, but the risk of escalation makes this a dangerous strategy.