Search results

A drone strike on Arbat Airport in Sulaymaniyah governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in September killed three members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's elite Counterterrorism Group and wounded three others. Iraqi military officials blamed Turkey for the attack.

Baghdad claims to have disarmed and moved Iranian Kurdish exiles from the border area with Iran, but the reality is that compliance has been more limited, meaning further Iranian military strikes on the area are a distinct possibility.

An Iranian ballistic missile test failed mid-September, with debris from the Khorramshar-4 projectile falling over the north-east city of Gorgan, close to the Caspian Sea.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said that Iran had developed an airfield in southern Lebanon, just 20km from the border with Israel. Iranian media claimed that electrical connectors used in Iranian missiles had been sabotaged by Israeli agents.

The US and Bahrain signed a Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA), during a visit to Washington by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Khalifa. Analysts said it could provide a framework for deals with others in the region.

A plan to reform the Peshmerga militia in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is in deep trouble due to the inability of the region's two main parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to work together.

A joint exercise between the Chinese and UAE air forces appears to have gone ahead in August, although neither side has since offered any clear details of an event that could trouble western allies on several fronts, while emphasising Abu Dhabi’s determination to become a 'middle power' in a multi-polar international environment.

Bahrain's King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa issued a decree appointing a number of senior police and other security officials.

Further questions have been raised about the UAE's military interests in Africa, with Abu Dhabi denying a report it has been supplying weapons to one of the sides in Sudan’s civil war, while acknowledging deliveries to neighbouring Chad.

A Royal Saudi Air Force Tornado fighter jet crashed late August during a routine training mission in Dhahran. The two crew members survived and there were no injuries on the ground.  It was the second loss of an aircraft in as many months.

Pictures of armoured vehicles manufactured by Calidus on parade in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) underline the Abu Dhabi-based military hardware company's growing reach.

Securing workable energy, economic and security relations with Turkey has even greater urgency for Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government as the KRG says it can no longer afford to pay its employees’ salaries due to the closure since late March of the vital crude oil export pipeline.

A Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) F-15 SA fighter jet crashed, and its crew was killed, on 26 July, while taking part in a training mission around the city of Khamis Mushait. It is the second serious incident involving an RSAF F-15 jet, after an F-15 S crashed last November, during a routine training mission in the King Abdelaziz Air Base training area in Eastern province.

Former senior Parastin intelligence agency officer Brigadier General Mohammed Mirza Sindi was killed in Zakho, Iraq's Dohuk governorate, when the car he was travelling in exploded. Parastin has close links to the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

The United States has stepped up its military presence in the region, with additional aircraft, naval vessels and personnel being deployed to the Gulf. This has led analysts to suggest that Washington was preparing to deal with a wider range of threats, perhaps in anticipation of a formal collapse in negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal.