The Levant Files

As the United States wages war across the Middle East and bends the rules-based international order to its will, Tokyo faces an uncomfortable reckoning — how to preserve its security alliance with Washington without surrendering its identity as a champion of international law. The image was stark enough to cause visible discomfort in Tokyo's policy circles: Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, standing beside U.S. President Donald Trump at a Washington dinner reception on 19 March, offering fulsome praise to a leader who has upended the international order — not once, but repeatedly, and now most dramatically through the ongoing American military campaign against Iran and its regional proxies, a conflict that has reshaped the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East in a matter of weeks. In a candid editorial published this week by Koji Sonoda, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Political News Section at Japan's leading daily Asahi Shimbun, the discomfort was named plainly: Japan's n...

Beijing is using the global distraction of the US-Iran-Israel war to entrench its position in the South China Sea — deploying propaganda, coast guard vessels and fishing fleets as instruments of strategic pressure. As the guns of a war spanning Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq command the attention of governments and newsrooms worldwide, a quieter but no less consequential contest is unfolding thousands of miles to the east. China is methodically consolidating its grip over the South China Sea — and it is doing so with a sophistication that blends legal argumentation, state media messaging, and the strategic deployment of uniformed coast guard officers alongside ordinary fishermen. The timing is not accidental. Beijing has long understood that geopolitical windows open when great powers are distracted elsewhere. The ongoing US-led military confrontation in the Middle East has absorbed American diplomatic bandwidth, naval assets, and public attention at a moment when Washington can least afford ...

Russian media outlet Izvestia has published a detailed assessment claiming that the United States, Israel, and their coalition partners are facing a mounting shortage of interceptor missiles as Iran continues its sustained ballistic missile and drone campaign across the Middle East. The report, authored by defence analyst Dmitry Kornev and published on 29 March 2026, argues that the pace of Iranian strikes combined with the high rate of interception attempts is rapidly depleting coalition air defence stockpiles. A Multi-Layered Defence Under Pressure According to the Izvestia report, Israel's layered missile defence architecture — encompassing the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 systems for exo-atmospheric interception, David's Sling for mid-layer threats, and Iron Dome for short-range rockets — has proven unable to achieve full coverage against Iran's evolving strike package. The Russian outlet attributes Iranian breakthroughs in part to a saturation tactic combining ballistic missile...

The US-Israeli military campaign against Iran entered its thirtieth day on Sunday amid a dramatic convergence of escalatory battlefield developments and intensified regional diplomacy, as foreign ministers from Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia convened in Islamabad in a bid to broker a ceasefire — while Washington simultaneously prepared contingency plans for ground operations inside Iranian territory. Tehran Under Fresh Bombardment The morning opened with multiple waves of Israeli airstrikes on the Iranian capital. The Israel Defense Forces announced the completion of "another wave" of strikes targeting temporary Iranian command centres, ballistic missile production and storage facilities, aerial defence systems, and weapons manufacturing sites across Tehran. The IDF noted that Iran had relocated some command infrastructure to mobile units following earlier strikes, several of which were also destroyed. Iranian state media reported loud explosions heard across wester...

An Israeli airstrike on Saturday struck a vehicle travelling in southern Lebanon, killing at least three people, including two journalists working for Lebanese media outlets Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar. The incident has drawn sharp condemnation from Lebanese authorities and media organisations, while the Israeli military asserted that at least one of those killed was an active member of Hezbollah’s intelligence apparatus. The Incident Al Mayadeen Media Network announced the death of its South Lebanon correspondent, Fatima Ftouni, along with her brother Mohammad Ftouni, following the strike. Al-Manar TV correspondent Ali Hassan Shaib — widely known among colleagues as Hajj Ali Shoeib — was also killed in the same attack. According to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent Jamal Ghourabi, the vehicle was visibly marked as a press car and was struck by four precision missiles. He further reported that paramedics who subsequently arrived at the scene were also targeted, resulting in the death of one par...

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi (Ansar Allah) movement confirmed on Saturday that it had carried out its first military operation against Israel since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran exactly one month ago, firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at what it described as "sensitive Israeli military sites in southern occupied Palestine." The attack, confirmed by both the Houthis and the Israeli military, signals a potentially significant widening of a conflict that has already drawn in multiple regional actors. In an official statement published by the Houthi-controlled Sana'a News Agency (SABA), the Yemeni Armed Forces framed the strike as a direct fulfilment of prior commitments to intervene militarily in support of Iran and allied "resistance fronts" in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. "This operation coincided with the heroic operations carried out by our mujahideen brothers in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon," the statement read, adding that operati...

Ankara, backed by Islamabad and Cairo, pushes for diplomacy as Turkish sources warn of a fast-closing window before the conflict spirals out of control Turkey is quietly spearheading a diplomatic initiative — supported by Pakistan and Egypt — aimed at building negotiation channels to halt the ongoing American-Israeli military campaign against Iran, well-informed Turkish sources told The Levant Files. But Ankara is racing against time, and those same sources are blunt about the odds: the window for a successful diplomatic outcome is narrow and shrinking fast. Senior Turkish officials believe that if the current trajectory is not interrupted by meaningful diplomacy, Israel will drag the entire region into a large-scale, uncontrollable war — one with consequences that no actor in the Middle East will be able to contain or predict. Riyadh and Jerusalem: The Pro-War Axis The latest intelligence assessments circulating in Ankara reveal a troubling dynamic that is complicating all mediation e...

Please note that the Persian service of TLf is currently in a beta phase. We have launched this initiative with the support of our followers, volunteers, and AI technology. Please keep in mind that during this first phase, the Persian text may contain slight phrasing or translation errors. We aim to launch a fully professional Persian service in the near future. لطفاً توجه داشته باشید که بخش فارسی TLf در حال حاضر در مرحله بتا قرار دارد. ما این ابتکار را با همراهی دنبال‌کنندگان، داوطلبان و با کمک فناوری هوش مصنوعی راه‌اندازی کرده‌ایم. لطفاً در نظر داشته باشید که در این مرحله نخست، متن فارسی ممکن است حاوی برخی ناهماهنگی‌ها در نگارش یا خطاهای جزئی در ترجمه باشد. هدف ما این است که در آینده نزدیک، یک بخش فارسی کاملاً حرفه‌ای راه‌اندازی کنیم. نوشته: دکتر نیکولائوس استلگیاس پرسشی که ذهن هر تحلیلگر جدی درباره جنگ جاری آمریکا و اسرائیل علیه ایران را به خود مشغول کرده، دیگر این نیست که آیا این درگیری تشدید خواهد شد — چون پیشاپیش و به شکلی چشمگیر تشدید شده است — بلکه این است که آیا از نهایی‌ترین ...

Important note: Please note that the Arabic service of TLf is currently in a beta phase. We have launched this initiative with the support of our followers, volunteers, and AI technology. Please keep in mind that during this first phase, the Arabic text may contain slight phrasing or translation errors. We aim to launch a fully professional Arabic service in the near future. يرجى العلم أن الخدمة العربية لـ TLf لا تزال في مرحلة تجريبية (Beta). لقد أطلقنا هذه الخدمة بدعم من متابعينا والمتطوعين وباستخدام تقنيات الذكاء الاصطناعي. يرجى أخذ العلم أنه في هذه المرحلة الأولى قد تحتوي النصوص العربية على بعض الأخطاء البسيطة في الصياغة أو الترجمة. نهدف في المستقبل القريب إلى إطلاق خدمة عربية احترافية بالكامل. بقلم الدكتور نيكولاوس ستيليغيا السؤال الذي يطارد كل محلل جاد للحرب الجارية بين الولايات المتحدة وإسرائيل من جهة وإيران من جهة أخرى لم يعد ما إذا كان الصراع سيتصاعد—فهو قد تصاعد بالفعل وبشكلٍ دراماتيكي—بل ما إذا كان سيتجاوز العتبة القصوى: استخدام الأسلحة النووية. فبعد مرور أربعة أسابيع على انط...