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As the dust settles after the successful Kurdish effort to liberate the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar (see page Defence and security), all eyes are on the two capitals of Islamic State (IS, or Daesh), which are connected by Highway 47, the main IS supply route that passes through the liberated city.

An atmosphere of frantic activity prevails in Manama as the government and political class face up to the prospect of Bahrain’s second national poll under King Hamad’s constitution, the 2006 parliamentary elections.

At midnight on 25 March, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud gave the order for Saudi jets to begin a campaign of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. Riyadh’s uncharacteristically assertive intervention in Yemen’s crisis, at the head of a ten-strong coalition of Sunni allies, came at the request of embattled Yemeni President Abd- Rabbu Mansour Hadi, but represents above all else Riyadh’s conviction that the Houthis’ backer Iran must be stopped.

The United States’ decision to withdraw its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was intended by President Donald Trump to add to pressure on the Palestinian National Authority (PA) to buy into his administration’s ‘ultimate deal’ to reach a very Israel-friendly accommodation on decades of conflict in the region. Trump’s 31 August decision may also have been intended to add to pressure on other donors to pay more – Germany and Japan are already among those to commit new funds to UNRWA. These developments represent an opportunity for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to project their power, while also threating to further exacerbate their differences.

Mohammed Al-Jaadan’s first budget as finance minister provided an interesting exercise in expectation management and spin. The government tried to present the budget as an expansionary one, allowing the kingdom to catch its breath after several years of tough austerity which have strained the social contract between the Al-Saud and their citizenry. However, analysis of the detail suggests the reality is rather different.

Kurdish leaders are in bullish mood, but according to GSNs soundings in Iraq and beyond, disputes with Baghdad and Ankara, and serious questions about the inadequacies of KRG governance, threaten...

Ensuring order and coherence within the ruling family, and balancing Sudeiri influence, appear to motivate the Kings decisions over the composition of the body that will manage the long-term succ...

Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s health was the subject of renewed concern and speculation following an unscripted mid-August revelation about the 90-year-old emir’s apparently poor health by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. However, as GSN went to press, the indefatigable nonogenarian emir was expected to visit the United States for talks with President Donald Trump and on 2 September was pictured laughing with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi at the Bayan Palace in Kuwait.

Despite rising gas output in 2013, Oman – like the rest of its Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) neighbours – is struggling to keep pace with rampant demand. New figures from the Ministry of Oil and Gas show output rose by 3% to 37.15bcm in 2013, but with demand at 39.1mcm/d and much of the sultanate’s existing output dedicated to long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, Muscat has been seeking new sources of gas. The strategy it is putting in place is to develop new domestic capability from its tight gas fields (being tapped by BP) and also to begin importing Iranian gas across the Strait of Hormuz.

In little over one year, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has become one of the region’s most prominent leaders, promising accelerated economic reform and hope for under-employed young Saudis, but also championing the GCC’s muscular response to the Hadi government’s overthrow in Yemen. He is surrounded by expensive advisors but seems to have relatively few close Saudi allies, which make his key relationships – with his father King Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed – especially important

The accusation that UAE war planes flew sorties from Egyptian air bases in mid- to late August to bomb pro- Islamist militia forces in the Libyan capital of Tripoli fits a wider trend of speculation about Gulf states’ involvement in Libya’s slow-burn civil war. But the allegation is far from proven, despite having originally come from United States government officials (see box, page 11). Suggestions that the failing North African state is becoming an arena for a regional proxy war between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on one side and Qatar on the other are also exaggerated. There is no overarching strategic plan to which the raids, or other forms of alleged military involvement from the Gulf, belong. Having failed to achieve their immediate objective, the strikes instead look like reckless meddling, which likely explains why no actor has stepped forward to claim responsibility.

Committed to Israel, worried about Iran and with huge business interests at stake, the US can’t just pull out of the Middle East as many Americans would like. But strategic shifts apparent for several years will be accelerated as the superpower rethinks its political and commercial alignments.

Peshmerga resistance to the advance of Islamic State (IS) has enlarged the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s zones of operation, as well as reinforcing Erbil’s relations with allies of convenience from the United States to Iran. The KRG’s bullish forecasts for oil and gas production have fuelled growth in Erbil and Sulemaniyah, while the recent (now postponed) mandate for Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs to raise a $500m-1bn bond issue suggested the Kurdish Region of Iraq was capable of quasisovereign borrowing. These and other indicators – not least the linguistic and ethnic homogeneity of Iraq’s 6m Kurds – suggest an independent Kurdistan could emerge outside the Republic of Iraq.

Even before the latest Shihab-3 test, the outside world seemed totally focused on Irans plans for nuclear energy and missile defence. But viewed from Tehran it is his espousal of an eccentric pol...

Amajority of Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite has apparently retained a glacial calm amid global uncertainty as to how and why crude prices have been allowed to slump. The oil price has fallen by over one-third in H2 2014 – to a five-year low of just under $66/bbl for January delivery Brent at the time of writing – in events that have further loosened what was left of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) control of world oil markets. Saudi leaders and their allies – led by the three other Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) Opec members, the UAE, Kuwait and (in recognition of recent moves towards rapprochement) Qatar – have focused on traditional concerns, such as maintaining market share. With its reserves boosted by a prolonged period of $100/bbl-plus oil, Riyadh remains convinced that the kingdom and its GCC allies can leverage their low production costs to remain dominant players in the market, while rival crude suppliers and shale energy investors fall by the wayside.