Suicide attacks remain one of the most effective tools available to terrorist organizations to achieve their objectives. In 2017, 348 suicide attacks were carried out in 23 countries throughout the world by some 623 terrorists. This is the lowest number of suicide attacks since 2013. Approximately 4,310 people were killed and 6,700 people wounded in suicide attacks in 2017, and as in previous years, the Islamic State was the leading source of these attacks. Of those committing suicide attacks, 137 were women and girls – the highest...
During the final months of 2017, more than 600 people were killed in two terrorist attacks in Egypt and Somalia by two organizations that are allies of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The large number of casualties caused by only two attacks indicates that notwithstanding announcements that the Islamic State and al-Qaeda have been defeated, the campaign against terrorism by Salafi jihadist activists is far from over.
In 2017, the major actors in the international arena continued the cautious policy of recent years: a limited investment of resources in the Middle East, based on the desire to avoid falling into regional cauldrons that continue to simmer, though mostly on a low flame. Among the principal events that preoccupied the international actors were the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State, the stabilization of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and the worsening Sunni-Shiite conflict, especially between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Other important...
Seven years after the onset of the upheaval in the Middle East and two years since the implementation of the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, the main contours of the region’s emerging reality – including the actors, rivalries, partnerships, front lines, power relations, and behavior of the major powers – are becoming clear. Now, after nearly one full year at the Washington helm, the nature of the Trump administration and its influence on the domestic arena, the Middle East, and the global stage are also coming into...
As 2017 draws to a close, the Middle East is witnessing the convergence of several important developments that will potentially have a broad impact on Israeli national security. The civil war in Syria is subsiding through a process dominated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey – which poses the danger that Israel’s interests will not be taken into account in the deliberations and steps toward an agreement to stabilize the arena. The jihadist territorial Islamic State established in Iraq and Syria has been obliterated, although the underlying...
2017 was marked by increased Saudi-Iranian hostility, on both the bilateral level and the regional level, and by the strategic balance tilting further in Iran’s favor, intensifying the trend that emerged in the previous year. The new variable of 2017 – the entry of President Donald Trump into the White House – heightened the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and cast a potential shadow over Iran’s room to maneuver. On the one hand, the Trump administration poses a threat to Iran, by casting it as the main cause of regional...
Since June 2017, Egypt has been dealing with a signficant rise in terror attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and inside Egypt by Sinai Province, the Islamic State affiliate. Improving the security situation in the country requires Cairo to overcome the challenges in shifting from its counterterrorism (CT) efforts to a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign that will be focused on the local population in the Sinai. The Egyptian government is already taking its first steps in this direction on the military, economic, social, and political...
Supported by the US-led coalition, Iraqi security forces are on the verge of liberating the city of Mosul from the Islamic State. Like the future conquest of Raqqa in Syria, the conquest of Mosul will make a significant contribution to the international effort to defeat the Islamic State. Still, the internal and regional clashes that have plagued Iraq over the past two decades and enabled the phenomenon of the Islamic State remain strong, and the trends of division and instability will presumably continue. Despite the rifts among...
At the close of three years since the announcement of the Islamic State, it is clear that al-Baghdadi’s gamble in declaring his establishment of an Islamic empire has failed, but his influence on the Salafi-jihad movement in the Middle East theater and other regions has grown. In order to prevent the strengthening of this movement, whose forces are spread throughout the world, a sober understanding is required of the intention of the Salafi-jihad movement to temporarily suspend the caliphate idea, and replace it with the...
The current race for control of territory in Syria now appears to be a competition between Iran and the United States, which have established two respective axes – with a vertical American (north-south) effort on the one hand, and a horizontal Iranian (east-west) effort on the other hand. In practice, this is another stage in the shaping of Syria in preparation for the day after the Islamic State. In the meantime, the country’s southwestern region, from Daraa to the Golan Heights, remains open for activity and influence by Israel and...
Are the recent US strikes against the Islamic State, as well Russia’s permissive policy on airstrikes in Syria that cause mass civilian casualties and extensive harm to civilian infrastructures, evidence of a change in international standards in the fight against terrorist organizations and sub-state actors? A related question is: do the rules of engagement that apply to powers such as the United States and Russia also apply to other states confronting terrorism, such as Israel? How should Israel prepare for its next confrontation...
Egypt’s failure in fighting the Salafi-jihadi terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and its movement into other parts of the country had led to a new stage in the fight against terror, characterized by mobilizing Bedouin tribes in Sinai to fight the Sinai Province in return for improving the economic situation and infrastructure in Sinai. Egypt also has increased its security cooperation with Israel. While the alliance with the Bedouin tribes has been made public, the cooperation with Israel does not receive similar recognition, and the...
