The Levant Files

  RIA Novosti, David Narmania   For two months, Washington and Tehran conducted ceasefire negotiations — only for Donald Trump to tear up the effort three weeks after the memorandum was signed. Iran says the agreement has effectively collapsed and that the Americans have resumed the war. What comes next is the subject of this report. Exchange of Strikes Since 8 July, the United States has struck Iran almost daily. The official pretext was Iranian action against commercial vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Overnight into Wednesday, 15 July, air strikes continued for seven hours, and by that afternoon US Central Command had announced a new wave of bombing, beginning at 13:00 Moscow time. According to CENTCOM's statement, the goal is to degrade Tehran's military capacity in the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the strikes have hit cities in the south of the country and along the Persian Gulf coast. According to Hossein Kermanpour, spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Health, the num...

The fifth consecutive night of American strikes on Iran has produced a familiar but intensifying rhythm: US Central Command hits targets tied to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran retaliates against American allies and shipping, and both sides insist the other bears responsibility for the collapse of diplomacy. What has changed in the past twelve hours is not the pattern but its trajectory — every indicator suggests Washington is preparing to expand, not wind down, the campaign. What happened overnight CENTCOM confirmed it had completed a second wave of strikes on Wednesday, hitting Iranian command centers, air-defense sites, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance installations around Bandar Abbas, with an earlier 90-minute assault on Greater Tunb Island targeting coastal-defense and cruise-missile systems. Iran's army said at least seven military personnel were killed in a separate overnight strike on a base in the southeast, while Tehran's government spokesperson pu...

Iranian academic and commentator Seyyed Mohammad Marandi has claimed that the United States is preparing a ground operation with the participation of an unnamed Arab government, warning that the country involved would face devastating consequences. Writing on social media, Marandi said Washington was preparing “a ground attack using the capabilities of an Arab regime,” adding: “If this attack is carried out, that Arab country will end.” He did not name the state, cite intelligence or provide evidence that a final decision had been taken. His warning comes amid a renewed US campaign against Iran. US Central Command has confirmed fresh strikes against Iranian military targets and the resumption of a naval blockade targeting Iranian ports, while stating that passage through the Strait of Hormuz for vessels not bound for Iran remains open.  The most plausible interpretation is not a major invasion of mainland Iran, which would require a vast and politically hazardous deployment, bu...

Iran’s state broadcaster has been accused by a former conservative MP of deepening political divisions at a time of war, highlighting growing criticism of the organisation’s role as both a government communications arm and a powerful actor in domestic political life. Hassan Shojaei, a former member of Iran’s parliament and former head of its Article 90 Commission, said the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) was failing a basic wartime duty by engaging in political and electoral manoeuvring instead of helping to protect national cohesion. “Political activity by the state broadcaster in wartime is a betrayal of the country,” Shojaei said in a video published by Khabaronline. His intervention is notable because it comes from a former conservative lawmaker rather than an opposition figure. Shojaei argued that social cohesion and national unity are vital to Iran’s ability to withstand military pressure and external threats. Yet, he said, the country’s official broadcaster has ...

July 15 marks the anniversaries of two coup attempts that left deep marks on the modern histories of Cyprus and Turkey. Separated by 42 years, the events had very different immediate outcomes, yet both showed how military intervention can reshape political institutions and societies for decades. The summer of 1974 set the course for Cyprus’s de facto division, which persists today. Tens of thousands of Cypriots were displaced, while missing persons, property claims, displacement and the loss of cultural heritage became enduring consequences of the conflict. The coup also accelerated the collapse of the Greek junta and Greece’s return to civilian rule. In Cyprus, a coup against President Archbishop Makarios was staged on July 15, 1974, by elements of the Cypriot National Guard and EOKA-B, with the backing of Greece’s military junta. Its ultimate objective was enosis — the union of Cyprus with Greece. The Presidential Palace was attacked, but Makarios escaped and made his way to Paphos ...

Sanaa has activated the “airport for airport and siege for siege” equation, issuing a strong warning to international airlines against flying over Saudi airspace following the targeting of Abha International Airport in response to Saudi strikes on Sanaa Airport, Al Mayadeen reports. On Tuesday, the Yemeni Armed Forces, through its military media, cautioned all airlines to take Yemeni warnings seriously until the blockade on Sana’a International Airport is lifted. The forces emphasized their commitment to breaking the siege and threatened to expand targeting of Saudi airports if the aggression continues, describing the years-long closure of Sanaa Airport as a “humanitarian crime” affecting millions of civilians. The warning came shortly after Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced that Abha International Airport deep inside Saudi Arabia had been struck with ballistic missiles and drones. Saree stated that the operation achieved all its objectives as a “fir...

  The fragile, UN-brokered ceasefire that has largely dictated the pace of the Yemeni conflict since early 2022 has dramatically collapsed over the last 24 hours, pushing the Arabian Peninsula back to the precipice of open war. In a sharp and sudden escalation, the Yemeni government and the Saudi-led military coalition struck the runway at the Houthi-controlled Sanaa International Airport on Monday. The military operation was specifically designed to intercept an Iranian civilian aircraft attempting to land in what the coalition deemed a brazen violation of sovereign airspace. The targeted Iranian flight was reportedly transporting a senior Houthi delegation returning from Tehran, where they had been attending the state funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While the coalition successfully thwarted the Sanaa landing by rendering the main runway inoperable, intelligence sources indicate a secondary Iranian flight carrying officials managed to touch down at the co...

The United States and Iran entered a third consecutive night of direct military exchanges early Tuesday, as Washington’s reimposed naval blockade and a new 20-percent transit levy on Strait of Hormuz shipping collided with Tehran’s insistence that it, not the US, controls the waterway. US Central Command carried out a five-hour wave of strikes overnight, hitting targets across Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa and Bandar Abbas, which it said were intended to further degrade Iran’s capacity to threaten commercial shipping. Iranian state media separately reported explosions on Kish, Jam and Qeshm islands. In one notable first, CENTCOM said it used maritime drones over the weekend to strike an Iranian submarine and a maintenance facility at the Bandar Abbas naval base. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps responded in kind, claiming ballistic-missile strikes on a US air base in Jordan and hitting American-linked facilities in Kuwait, while Jordanian state media said four Iranian mi...

Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, spent nearly three years cultivating former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential post-regime-change leader for Tehran, according to a major investigative exposé published by Haaretz on July 13, 2026. The report, authored by Michael Hauser Tov and based on interviews with more than 30 senior political, defense, diplomatic and foreign sources, traces how a relationship that once seemed unthinkable — between Israeli intelligence and a man long associated with Holocaust denial and hostility toward Israel — evolved into what Haaretz describes as one of the most ambitious covert undertakings in the country's history. From adversary to asset According to the investigation, Mossad analysts had, roughly a year before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, already begun tracking a shift in Ahmadinejad's posture since he left the presidency in 2013: he had moved from being one of the regime's fiercest defenders to on...