The Levant Files

Eritrean troops have been reported inside northern Tigray, with a local official and residents telling AFP that soldiers are deployed around Adigrat and some are moving south towards Mekelle — a potentially dangerous new stage in a conflict already threatening to spill across Ethiopia's borders. At the same time, Iran is threatening to close alternative passages through the Strait of Hormuz that Tehran says vessels are using to circumvent its restrictions. At the other end of the Arabian Peninsula, more than 200,000 people have been displaced by Yemen's renewed war, while Turkey is providing Saudi Arabia with technical and defensive military assistance against the Houthis. As Wednesday draws to a close, Syria is also considering military assistance to Saudi Arabia, underlining how rapidly the Yemen front is drawing additional regional powers into its orbit. By the Editorial Team of TLF Wednesday, 7 October 2026 · Live coverage opened at 08:35 Cyprus ...

By the Editorial Team of TLF PHOTO: Yeni Şafak Two Students Stabbed in Esenyurt Turkey’s schools have been shaken by another outbreak of violence, this time in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, where two teenagers were stabbed during a fight between students on Wednesday. The incident comes barely a day after a far deadlier attack at a school elsewhere in Istanbul, adding to a disturbing succession of shootings, stabbings and violent confrontations involving young people that The Levant Files has been following in recent months. According to Yeni Şafak, citing DHA , Wednesday’s violence erupted at a high school in the Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa neighbourhood of Esenyurt following an argument among students in the same class. The dispute escalated into a fight in which a 16-year-old student allegedly stabbed two schoolmates, aged 15 and 14. Emergency teams were called to the school and the injured teenagers were taken to hospital. The 16-year-old suspect was detained, while auth...

The Levant Files surpasses 500,000 visits Half a Million Reasons to Say Thank You Just months after its launch in March 2025, The Levant Files has crossed a milestone that seemed distant when this journey began: more than 500,000 visits. For a young, independent media project, half a million is more than a number on an analytics screen. It represents readers who stopped, clicked, returned, shared a story, listened to a podcast, watched a video or simply decided that what we were doing was worth a few minutes of their time. So today, TLF sends half a million messages of gratitude to its readers and followers. Thank you. When The Levant Files began, the idea behind it was relatively simple but ambitious: to help fill a gap on the media map of a region that is too often covered through separate national, linguistic and political lenses. We wanted to create a multilingual gateway for news, analysis and ideas stretching across a much wider neighbourhood — from the Balk...

By the Editorial Team of TLF Marco Rubio in Athens, Demonstrators in the Streets Credit: ERT A Visit With More Than One Audience US Secretary of State Marco Rubio begins a packed day of diplomacy in Athens on Wednesday, with Greece hoping to turn an already close relationship with Washington into something more concrete: deeper defence cooperation, stronger American backing for its regional role and a larger place in the rapidly changing energy map of the Eastern Mediterranean. But Rubio arrived in a capital where that partnership is far from universally celebrated. On Tuesday night, hours before his official programme began, left-wing organisations, trade unions and student groups gathered at Propylaea and marched towards the US Embassy in an anti-war demonstration opposing both Rubio’s visit and Washington’s foreign policy. Police erected barricades on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and prevented protesters from reaching the embassy, according to Reuters. Defence, Energy And A ...

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have agreed to put their mutual defence commitments into practice immediately and arrange the rapid deployment of military forces and capabilities to the kingdom. Announced after an emergency meeting in Riyadh on 5 October 2026, the decision brings the Mecca Pact into an active security crisis. The governments have yet to disclose the size and remit of that deployment. By The Levant Files Editorial Desk News Analysis | 6 October 2026 What Riyadh Announced Riyadh named a secretary-general. Retired Pakistani Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood will become the alliance's first secretary-general for a three-year term . The committee also condemned attempted attacks on Mecca and Medina and continuing strikes against Saudi cities and civilian and economic facilities. The operative language appears in the joint statement published by Turkey's foreign ministry. The members will provide the forces and capabilities already agreed betw...

A day that began with an expanding Saudi-backed counteroffensive in Yemen ended with the regional military picture considerably wider. Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia activated the Mecca defence pact and moved towards the rapid provision of military capabilities to the kingdom. Western sources cited by Sky News Arabia said Israel was preparing options to strike Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq. Around Bab al-Mandab, Saudi-backed Yemeni forces continued pressing Houthi positions even as the Houthis challenged government victory claims elsewhere. Across the Red Sea, Ethiopia's renewed war continued beyond Mekelle under the unresolved shadow of possible Eritrean involvement. By the Editorial Team of TLF 6 October 2026 · Live blog closed Graphic generated with AI. LIVE BLOG CLOSED · 6 OCTOBER 2026 TLF's rolling coverage of the Saudi-Houthi confrontation, Turkish a...