The Levant Files

Kurdish trade officials say they have not yet been ordered to halt any imports from Iran, even as Washington rolls out its most sweeping sanctions campaign against Tehran to date. Nawzad Sheikh Kamil, director general of trade at the Kurdistan Region's Ministry of Trade and Industry, told Rudaw late Tuesday that the new US measures "have not yet entered the implementation phase," and that the coming days would show their real impact on the Region. His comments come two days after the US Treasury Department unveiled "Operation Economic Outcast," an escalation Secretary Scott Bessent had teased for over a week as an "economic D-Day." The campaign sanctioned nearly 60 entities, individuals and vessels, and expanded secondary-sanctions exposure to five sectors Washington says sustain Iran's economy: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. Bessent said the goal is to "sever every economic lifeline" until "Tehran stands al...

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led militia that spearheaded the fight against the Islamic State group and once controlled roughly a quarter of Syrian territory, announced its formal dissolution on Tuesday, closing a decade-long chapter of de facto Kurdish autonomy in the country's northeast. Speaking at a televised press conference from the presidential palace in Damascus, SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi declared "the end of the mission of the Syrian Democratic Forces" and its "dissolution as an independent military force." He said the announcement followed the completion of the integration of SDF fighters into brigades of the Syrian national army. Abdi also announced the dissolution of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and its affiliated civilian institutions, which have now been folded into the Syrian state. "Today we stand at a historic moment in which we turn an important page in Syria's history,...

A recent high-profile arrest in the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ("TRNC") has brought to light a sophisticated transnational crime network, confirming suspicions of a dark operational axis spanning Greece, Turkish-controlled Cyprus, and Turkey. The nexus of this deadly network revolves around the highly lucrative, illicit tobacco trade—a booming black-market industry that recently fueled an unprecedented war within the Greek Mafia.   The major turning point in unraveling this violent saga occurred with the apprehension of 43-year-old Russian national Alexey Shokpa in the town of Esentepe, located within the so-called TRNC. According to local reports, Shokpa, who was actively sought by Interpol, is the prime suspect in the brutal assassination of Greek crime boss Vangelis Zambounis. Authorities initially detained Shokpa for severe immigration and military zone violations. The suspect had reportedly resided in the TRNC illegally for 389 days,...

Three constituencies that agree on nothing else have converged on the same prophecy. That convergence is the story. By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias, TLF Chief Editor, Fellow Researcher in the Nicosia University With the latest escalation in Syria, a growing number of analysts and international affairs specialists have started to market a single scenario: Turkey and Israel are heading for war. The thesis arrives dressed in the sober vocabulary of neorealism — balance of power, security dilemmas, spheres of influence — but the ethno-centric reflexes underneath are rarely well hidden. The narrative never varies. Since the Hamas attack on Israel, Ankara and Jerusalem have moved in opposite directions, and every indicator supposedly points to the same terminus: sooner or later, the two old allies will crash into one another. Three distinct constituencies keep this hypothesis in circulation. They share no political language, no historical narrative and no vision of the region’s future. What they sh...

Turkey’s renewed peace initiative to resolve its decades-long Kurdish conflict is driven by an extraordinary concentration of political power among four central figures, but this personal alignment represents both its greatest strength and its most acute vulnerability, writes peace and conflict researcher Alpaslan Özerdem in an analysis published by Yetkin Report .   According to Özerdem, the trajectory of the resolution rests upon four pivotal actors: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Chief İbrahim Kalın. Although they hail from divergent political backgrounds and hold contrasting visions for the future, each provides an essential lever. Bahçeli unlocks political space within nationalist circles for steps that would typically face stiff resistance; Öcalan leverages his authority over the organization toward disarmament...

As Washington rolled out its "Operation Economic Outcast" sanctions package this week, Iran's media outlets — closely aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — offered distinctly different versions of Tehran's response, depending on the language of the reader. Tasnim's English service, aimed at an international audience, stuck largely to familiar notes of defiance and dismissal. Officials quoted included Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who mocked Washington for mobilizing "its entire economic apparatus" against a country it claims to have already defeated militarily, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who described the sanctions as producing a "frozen economy" whose consequences would return to the United States "like a boomerang." The Farsi edition went considerably further. A same-day Tasnim Persian report, headlined "New Hostile US Sanctions on Iran After Failure on the Battlefield," ci...

When nationwide protests erupted across Iran over soaring inflation and economic collapse , the Iranian regime responded with unprecedented brutality—hidden beneath a total, calculated nationwide internet blackout In an exclusive investigative report by  FRANCE 24 English  titled  “Exclusive: Iran, massacre under a blackout” , firsthand witness testimonies, leaked footage, and forensic satellite imagery expose how authorities systematically silenced a nation. What began as widespread bazaar strikes and student-led demonstrations demanding systemic political change quickly turned into lethal crackdowns by security forces and paramilitary units. Eyewitness accounts and human rights investigators describe how the regime enforced a shoot-to-kill policy once communications dropped to zero, storming medical facilities to arrest injured demonstrators  and firing military-grade weapons directly into crowds . Smuggled video evidence from Tehran’s Kahrizak morgue and sate...

Washington's largest sanctions package to date threatens expulsion from the dollar system. Iran's principal revenue channel left that system years ago. By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias, TLF Chief Editor, Research Fellow in the Nicosia University Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Operation Economic Outcast on Monday, designating more than sixty entities, individuals and vessels tied to Iranian oil revenue, missile procurement and cyber operations, and widening secondary sanctions into digital assets, gold, aviation, technology and shipping. Foreign governments were given deadlines to end identified activity or face unilateral American action. Behind all of it stands one enforcement instrument: removal from the United States dollar system. That is where the campaign meets its structural limit. The penalty presupposes dollar exposure, and Iran's principal revenue channel no longer carries any. Washington's own mapping concedes that Chinese payments for Iranian crude are se...

As Washington prepares what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called the "toughest sanctions in history" against Tehran, Iran's ultra-hardline daily Kayhan has responded not with diplomatic protest but with a display of military muscle — publishing an unusually detailed account of the country's underground missile production complex, timed to coincide with National Defense Industry Day. The report deserves scrutiny not just for its content but for its source. Kayhan is not an independent Iranian newspaper. It is directly controlled by the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose representative, Hossein Shariatmadari, has served as its managing editor since 1993. Widely described in Tehran as the "attack dog" of Khamenei's court, Kayhan functions less as a conventional news outlet than as a signaling mechanism for the Islamic Republic's innermost power center — a vehicle through which the Supreme Leader's office tests messaging, projects de...