The Levant Files

Iraq will probably keep its borders. The danger is unfolding inside them, where armed factions can challenge the government, foreign powers can punish the country from above, and millions of citizens still depend on an oil-funded state that cannot fully decide when Iraq goes to war. By The Editorial Team of TLF The last American troops were due to leave Iraq on Wednesday . Iran-backed factions celebrated. In the Kurdish region, the mood was colder. The departure closes the military mission that returned in 2014, when Islamic State fighters swept through Mosul and exposed just how quickly the Iraqi state could buckle. This time, tanks are unlikely to race toward Baghdad. There may be no dramatic declaration from Erbil, no freshly drawn border across Nineveh, and no television map split into Kurdish, Sunni and Shia colors. Iraq can still come apart quietly. The country already contains several centers of force with different commanders, patrons and sources of m...

  بقلم فريق تحرير The Levant Files (TLF) يأتي التحذير الأميركي في توقيت بالغ الحساسية بالنسبة إلى بغداد. فالقوات الأميركية تستعد للمغادرة، وخطة نزع سلاح الفصائل النافذة تجاوزت بالفعل موعد الانسحاب، فيما تجعل الحرب مع إيران من الصعب على العراق البقاء بمنأى عن المواجهة الإقليمية. اختار وزير الخارجية الأميركي ماركو روبيو كلمة لافتة لوصف الخطر الذي يواجه العراق:  «البلقنة» . لكن تحذيره لا يعني بالضرورة أن واشنطن تتوقع تفكك العراق إلى كيانات منفصلة. فالمشكلة الأكثر إلحاحاً أكثر تعقيداً من التقسيم الجغرافي، وربما تكون أصعب على بغداد في التعامل معها. قد يبقى العراق دولة واحدة على الخريطة، فيما تتوزع على الأرض سلطة السلاح والأمن، وحتى قرار الحرب والسياسة الخارجية، بين أكثر من طرف. وهنا تكمن أهمية توقيت تحذير روبيو. من المقرر أن تغادر القوات الأميركية المتبقية العراق بحلول  30 سبتمبر/أيلول ، بموجب الاتفاق المرحلي الذي ينهي المهمة العسكرية للتحالف الدولي ضد تنظيم «داعش». وفي التوقيت نفسه تقريباً، كان يُفترض أن تكون بغداد قد أحرزت تقدماً حاسماً في إخضاع الفصائل المسلحة لسلطة الدولة....

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Washington’s warning comes at an awkward moment for Baghdad. American troops are preparing to leave, the promised disarmament of powerful militias has slipped well beyond the withdrawal date, and the war with Iran is making it increasingly difficult for Iraq to stay out of the regional confrontation. Marco Rubio chose a striking word to describe the danger facing Iraq: “Balkanisation.” But the US Secretary of State’s warning does not necessarily mean Washington expects Iraq to break apart. The more immediate concern is subtler — and, for Baghdad, perhaps more difficult to manage. Iraq could remain one country on the map while authority over guns, security and foreign policy becomes increasingly fragmented on the ground. The timing of Rubio’s intervention matters. The remaining US forces are due to leave Iraq by September 30 under the phased agreement that ends the international coalition’s military mission against ISIL. At almost exactly the same mome...

  By the Editorial Team of TLF Two agreements could begin to redraw the security map of northern Iraq: Turkish forces are set to leave their long-disputed base at Bashiqa, while Baghdad moves to bring Yazidi armed formations in Sinjar under federal authority. A military presence that has troubled relations between Baghdad and Ankara for years may finally be coming to an end. Turkey has agreed to withdraw its forces from the Bashiqa-Zilkan base in northern Iraq, while the Iraqi government has separately reached an agreement aimed at bringing the Yazidi armed groups of Sinjar into the country's official security structures, Numedya24 reported. Taken together, the agreements go beyond a routine security arrangement. They point towards an attempt by Baghdad to reclaim authority over one of Iraq's most fragmented and politically sensitive regions — a landscape where local armed groups, Turkish forces and competing regional interests have overlapped since the war against Islamic Stat...

  By Guled Ahmed Guest Writer, Middle East Inst. Scholar On 10 August 2026, a United Nations monitoring report on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State disclosed that Al-Shabaab fighters had traveled from Somalia to Afghanistan. At first glance, the finding could be read as a striking new development. It was not. Open-source reporting and human-source intelligence had pointed toward renewed Somalia–Afghanistan movement well before the UN acknowledgement, and I had publicly reported Al-Shabaab travel to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in January 2025. The warning signs were visible even earlier. On 23 April 2024, Afghanistan International reported comments by former Afghan intelligence chief Ahmad Zia Siraj, who said that Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab had come to Afghanistan and argued that the country had become a center for terrorist organizations after the Taliban returned to power. Yet those warnings received surprisingly little sustained international attention. The larger question is ther...

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...

  Iraqi security forces have launched a large-scale search-and-pursuit operation across the southern province of Maysan to track down those responsible for drone attacks on oil facilities inside Saudi Arabia, a security source told Shafaq News on Saturday. According to the source, who spoke to Shafaq News , the operation could be reinforced by the elite Counter-Terrorism Service as forces sweep the province for suspects. The manhunt began only hours after Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ali Falih al-Zaidi ordered an investigation into the Maysan Operations Command — the regional military command responsible for the province — and removed its commander from his post. Shafaq News ' source said al-Zaidi acted after authorities concluded the attacks had been launched from a site inside Maysan. Saudi Arabia had announced that its East–West pipeline, which carries crude across the kingdom toward its Red Sea coast, was struck by several drones launched from Iraq...

  Iran-aligned Houthi forces have swept to control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline in their most dramatic territorial advance in years, seizing the strategic port of Mokha and the island of Mayun (Perim) at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, officials on both sides confirmed Friday. The rapid advance — which saw Saudi-backed government forces retreat from Mokha, just 50 miles from the strait — opens a dangerous new front in the widening Iran war and threatens one of the world's most critical oil shipping lanes. A senior military official with Yemen's internationally recognized government said the army was "stunned" that Saudi air power did not intervene, blaming poor coordination between government troops and allied militias. The Houthis declared that "maritime navigation is safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels," vowing "escalation for escalation." Yemen's National Defense Council condemned the offensive and appealed for interna...