The Levant Files

  Iran has continued carrying out executions at a rapid pace over the past month, with women among dozens of prisoners sent to the gallows for murder, drug-related offences and security-related charges, according to reports compiled by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). HRANA’s monthly assessment for August recorded 78 executions, including five women. According to the organisation, 40 people were executed after being convicted of murder and 29 for drug-related offences. Two were executed for  moharebeh , or “enmity against God”, in non-political cases, while four executions involved security-related charges. Two other people were put to death in cases linked to the January 2026 protests. Women Executed Women represented a comparatively small but significant proportion of those executed. Among the cases documented by HRANA was Donya Mohammadi, a resident of Eyvan-e Gharb County, who was executed in Ilam Prison on August 19. Citing the Kurdish human right...

  Turkish authorities have launched a large-scale series of police operations targeting LGBTQI+ organisations, activists, entertainment venues and individuals across 15 provinces, marking a significant escalation in the pressure facing Türkiye’s LGBTQI+ community. The operations, conducted under the name “Ailem Güvende” (“My Family Is Safe”), involve judicial proceedings against 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 businesses, according to figures announced by Justice Minister Akın Gürlek and reported by T24. Investigations coordinated by prosecutors in İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Aydın and Mersin include allegations ranging from obscenity and prostitution-related offences to drug possession and forming a criminal organisation. Authorities are also examining foreign funding received by some associations, T24 reported. One of the most prominent targets is Kaos GL, one of Türkiye’s best-known LGBTQI+ rights organisations. According to T24, 21 people associated...

  Israeli armoured forces pushed deeper into Syria’s Quneitra countryside on Sunday, reaching the Tal Ahmar area near Ain al-Nuriya after moving through villages in the north of the province, according to multiple Syrian and regional reports. The latest movement appears to form part of a broader series of Israeli military operations across southwestern Syria, involving tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other military vehicles at several locations in Quneitra and neighbouring areas. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a large Israeli force moved before dawn from a recently established military position in al-Hamidiyah, in northern Quneitra. The Observatory said the column included military and armoured vehicles, among them tanks, and advanced through Ofaniya toward Ain al-Nuriya. SOHR described the movement as part of simultaneous Israeli military activity in southern Syria, with operations also reported elsewhere in Quneitra and in the western countrys...

  The Levant Files (TLF) is opening its platform to guest writers. We invite scholars, researchers, journalists, analysts, independent writers and emerging voices to submit proposals for original articles focusing on the Levant and its broader neighbourhood. We welcome contributions covering a broad spectrum of subjects and perspectives, including politics, human rights and rights-related issues, society, history, culture, international relations, security, diplomacy, political economy and regional affairs. We are particularly interested in articles that offer fresh perspectives, informed analysis and voices that can enrich debate about a region undergoing profound change. Languages Articles may be submitted in: English · Greek · Arabic · Turkish · Persian Article Length Published contributions should not exceed 800 words. How to Apply Writers interested in contributing are invited to send: a provisional title; a short abstract outlining the proposed a...

25 years after 9/11, bin Laden's caliphate may have failed, but he triggered wars that have since weakened US power in the Middle East, writes Hesham Gaafar. By Hesham Gaafar A quarter-century tends to sharpen questions that once sounded indecent to ask out loud. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of 11 September 2001, one of them refuses to go away: did Osama bin Laden win? The instinctive answer is no. Bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaeda's core was hunted into irrelevance years before a US Navy SEAL team found him hiding, isolated and largely powerless, in a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. No caliphate rose from the ashes of the Arab autocracies he despised. When the region's people finally did rise, in 2011, they carried no black banners and quoted no jihadist scripture. They wanted bread, dignity and a vote - not a war with Rome. And yet, a quarter-century out, with US troops gone from Kabul in humiliation and the region's old American-built order in open collapse,...

  Iraq has been thrust deeper into the region’s rapidly expanding confrontation after drones reportedly launched from its territory struck Saudi oil infrastructure, prompting Baghdad to dismiss senior security officials, tighten controls along its border with Iran and open an investigation into the attack. According to Shafaq News, the Iraqi government introduced a series of emergency security measures following indications that drones targeting Saudi Arabia originated from a location in Iraq’s southern Maysan province. The measures included the dismissal of the Maysan Operations Commander, the removal and investigation of provincial security chiefs and the establishment of an urgent investigative committee. Saudi Arabia said the drones targeted the kingdom’s strategic East-West oil pipeline, with strikes reported in the Riyadh and Medina regions. The attack caused injuries and material damage and prompted authorities to temporarily halt operations on the pipeline as a pr...

The conflict around Yemen’s Red Sea coast intensified sharply on Sunday, with Ansar Allah/Houthi forces claiming missile and drone attacks on a Saudi military base as Riyadh faces a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most strategically important maritime chokepoints. The latest escalation follows the Houthis’ capture of Mokha and Mayun, or Perim, Island, which sits directly in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The advances have significantly strengthened the Iran-aligned movement’s position around the southern entrance to the Red Sea and raised concerns that disruption already affecting the Strait of Hormuz could spread to a second critical global energy and commercial route. Early Sunday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had launched a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones against the Sharurah military base in southern Saudi Arabia’s Najran province. He claimed that weapons depots and command-and-control faciliti...

  A 35-year-old woman was killed in the Turkish Cypriot-controlled northern part of Cyprus on Saturday evening, in the second reported femicide in the area in just five days, triggering widespread anger and renewed concern over violence against women. According to Turkish Cypriot online media, the latest incident occurred at around 6:45 p.m. on the main Morphou-Nicosia road, near the industrial area of Gerolakkos (Alayköy). A 41-year-old man was travelling towards Nicosia with his wife as a passenger when a verbal dispute reportedly broke out between them. A police statement cited by Turkish Cypriot media said the vehicle subsequently left the road and travelled for approximately 110 metres into a field. The man is alleged to have struck his wife on the head with an electric cutting tool that was inside the vehicle, causing her death. The suspect was arrested and taken into custody, while an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing is continuing. The case has pr...

  Yemen's Iran-aligned Ansar Allah/Houthi movement has completed a rapid military takeover of Yemen's Red Sea coastline and is threatening to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait entirely, escalating a regional conflict that has already drawn in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United States. Houthi forces this week seized the strategically vital port of Mocha and, according to a Houthi official cited by The New Arab, took Mayyun Island, completing effective control over the Bab al-Mandeb — the narrow, roughly 20-mile-wide chokepoint separating Yemen from Djibouti through which an estimated 12 percent of global trade passes. Yemeni government forces have launched counterstrikes along the west coast in response, and the Defense Ministry said Saturday it had hit Houthi fighters, vehicles, and weaponry, though the rebels appear to retain the upper hand. The advance has been paired with an explicit threat against wider regional intervention. Houthi Deputy Information Minister Mohammed Mansour...

  Iran's restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan has been shaken by a fresh string of armed confrontations over the past week, underscoring the persistence of a low-intensity insurgency along the country's border with Pakistan. According to Iran's official news agency IRNA, two Iranian security personnel were killed on September 6 in an armed attack near the provincial capital, Zahedan. The men were reportedly delivering food and equipment to Basij paramilitary units when they came under fire. The report, attributed to provincial deputy security chief Ali Khalilabadi, said no group has yet claimed responsibility for the assault. Days later, a second attack struck the province. Semi-official news agency Tasnim reported that Abdolraouf Eshaghi, a local Basij commander in the Parud district, was killed in what authorities described as a "terrorist attack." Details of the incident were not disclosed, and no group has publicly claimed the killing. The lates...