Category: Defense
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Analyzing the December 2025 Terrorist Attack in Palmyra, Syria
March 16, 2026. On December 19, 2025, the United States military began Operation Hawkeye Strike, a series of large-scale airstrikes against ISIS weapons sites and infrastructure in Syria. While the operation was aimed at disabling and preventing a resurgence of ISIS, Secretary Hegseth stated that it was “not the beginning of a war,” but instead…
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Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa Meets with Putin for Second Visit
February 3, 2026. Ahmed al-Sharaa, former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Syria’s al-Qaeda branch, assumed power late in 2024 after ousting Bashar al-Assad. Fourteen months later on, January 28, Sharaa made his second visit to Russia, “attempting to repair relations” and hash out details surrounding the future of Russia’s “military presence in Syria.” The…
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Clashes in Syria Threaten ISIS Prisons and U.S Strategy
January 25, 2026. Recent clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government have disrupted operations and security at prisons holding ISIS fighters in northeastern Syria. As the Damascus government continued its offensive to annex parts of northeastern Syria, the SDF withdrew, abandoning control over prison facilities such as the al-Hol camp. In…
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Fragile Integration: The SDF, State Consolidation, and U.S. Counter-ISIS Strategy in Post-Assad Syria
January 19, 2026. Aleppo Escalation and the Failure of Integration The January 6 clashes in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods marked the most serious confrontation between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led SDF since the fall of the Assad regime. After several days of fighting, the SDF withdrew its forces from Aleppo on January…
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Intelligence Failure: The 1998 Indian Nuclear Tests
November 13, 2025. The United States Intelligence Community failed to provide advance warning of India’s 1998 nuclear tests at Pokhran. Weak HUMINT collection, analytical bias, organizational flaws, and compartmentalized IMINT and GEOINT obscured critical warning signs. India’s deception and counterintelligence efforts further limited collection and analysis, reducing diplomatic options. This failure left U.S policymakers unprepared…
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The Islamic State in a Jihadi-Led Syria: Rethinking a U.S-Syria Foreign Policy
April 13, 2025. Emerging from the instability created by the invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, more commonly called the Islamic State or ISIS, was able to conquer large amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq, ruling over a population of 12 million people at its height…