Category: Others in the Middle East
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A copilot is accused of stabbing his captain and trying to crash an airliner bound for Israel. Aviation security is built almost entirely around keeping threats out of the cockpit — and the pilots are the people the locked door protects.
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In southern Syria the sharp dispute between Damascus and the pro-autonomy factions of Suwayda is being fought over curricula, teacher appointments and whose certificates count. Schools are where autonomy conflicts usually become practical — and where the cost falls on students.
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Eight Israeli strikes cratered the runway at Abu al-Duhur in Idlib province. Israel said it was stopping a Turkish deployment. The United States called it an unnecessary escalation, and is still pressing both sides to step back.
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Oil through the Bab el-Mandeb collapsed to 4.1 million barrels a day in 2024, then doubled to 8.1 million this year as Saudi crude was rerouted away from Hormuz. The escape route from one chokepoint runs straight through another.
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About 5 million barrels a day are moving through the Strait of Hormuz, against more than 20 million before the war. Where the missing barrels went, why Japan is backing pipelines that bypass the strait, and why the price shock was smaller than the volume loss.
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Navies do not declare water free of mines — they declare a probability that one remains. Sweeping versus hunting, why bottom mines sink out of sonar range, why ship-count fuses defeat clearance operations, and why the number to watch is the insurance premium.
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Around 1.3 million Syrians went home during 2025, and 4.9 million remain refugees. Washington’s removal of Syria from its terrorism list changes the country’s economic prospects on paper. Whether it changes anyone’s decision depends on electricity, housing and paperwork.
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The US State Department formally rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism on 24 August, ending a label first applied in 1979, and also removed the terrorist designation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Here is what the decision changes, what it leaves in place, and why it happened now.
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Syria and Israel held US-mediated de-escalation talks in Jordan on Monday, while Washington publicly condemned Israeli drone strikes in Syria. Why an ally is criticising an ally, what “de-escalation” deliberately excludes, and what would show progress.
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Israel’s defence minister has accused Erdoğan of dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures in Syria after a strike on a Syrian airbase. Why Syria is where these interests collide, what an airbase strike signals, and what would show a real change.