The War Journal

Israel's "Leviathan" - its grand strategy that seeks to squeeze out Turkey, and become the sole regional superpower in the Middle East. Learn more below 👇🏼

US President Donald Trump told Fox News in the aftermath of the Republicans losing both houses of Congress that "part of" why they did so badly was because of the Iran war. However, the American president was unrepentant, and defended his decision to follow Israel into war with Iran.

In a massive upset for pro-Israel AIPAC and the Republicans, Abdul El-Sayed has won the Michigan senate election, becoming the first Muslim senator in United States history. El-Sayed won almost 52% of the votes, defeating his Republican rival Mike Rogers who claimed only 46%.

Syrian presidential adviser and former Al Jazeera senior correspondent, @Ahmadmuaffaq Zaidan, recounts how he was part of an organisation of Syrian youth who wanted to topple the Assad regime, then under Hafez al-Assad. Zaidan explains how their main backer at the time was none other than Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government, who provided them with military training as well as free education with generous benefit packages. The Syrian veteran journalist and top official further states that Saddam's support for Syrian opposition groups remained until he was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2003.

With Israel's elections now over with no clear majority for any coalition, The War Journal brings you everything you need to know about what to expect - all in under 2 minutes. Presented by: @LevantAffair2

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told Iraqi media that Shia pilgrims from Iraq would be made welcome when visiting the various Shia shrines in Syria, particularly the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus.

Prominent Jewish-American voices, including @PeterBeinart and @normfinkelstein, have slammed Israel's elections as "undemocratic" due to Tel Aviv's exclusionary and apartheid policies against Palestinian Arabs -- both those who hold Israeli citizenship and the vast majority who are being illegally occupied by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.

"I used to visit Ireland, used to think it was a nice country. I wouldn't step foot in that country again in my life," said the New York Times' @BretStephen_NYT, adding that nations critical of Israel "can go to hell." According to Stephens, Israel is best friends with India now as "the most important democracy of the 21st century", and that will secure the Jewish state's future.

Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reported from inside Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, before her team got out as Houthi forces encircled and later fully sealed-off the city. Her report shows how desperate conditions have become for the residents trapped inside. Incubators are full, vulnerable babies are being turned away, and “all the hospitals in Taiz lack basic medicines and supplies.”

The Guardian interviewed @cherutLmoledet, a young Israeli girl and aspiring social media influencer, outside a rally for Itamar Ben-Gvir. His Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party is projected to gain seats in Tuesday's elections, with strong support among younger voters. Her openly and unabashed genocidal statements and rhetoric towards Palestinians and Arabs across the Middle East speaks to the normalisation of such extremism in Israeli society. They are now effectively "saying the quiet part aloud".

The former director of the CIA, John Brennan, said that the US never supported Ahmed al-Sharaa's Al-Nusra Front. Nusra, which later turned into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was instead supported by locals in Syria, according to the former spymaster. Brennan was director of the CIA under President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017.

In an interview with Breitbart, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that "if Iran didn't exist" then there would be no problems in the Middle East. He further added that even if the Palestinian issue continued to be a problem, it would be much easier to solve without Iran around. Rubio's comments neglect to mention that Israel, in the past few years alone, has bombed Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran itself, and even attempted as assassination in Doha, Qatar.

An elderly Yemeni man cries as he recounts how the Houthis have been killing and wounding people in his neighbourhood, sparing no one, not even women, children, the elderly, palm trees or even livestock.

As the Iran-linked Shia Houthi militia continues to besiege and bomb the Yemeni city of Taiz, some of its residents have spoken about the double standard of the group who criticises Israel for its genocide in Gaza while themselves committing similar atrocities against civilians in Yemen.

A spokesman for Qatar's foreign ministry has criticised Iran for its threats to cut deep sea communications cables, saying that those most harmed by their actions will be "the peoples of the region, including the Iranian people". The Qatari official added that Iran must stop its attacks on maritime navigation and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Joining Al Jazeera English earlier this morning, @TalAbdulrazaq dismissed as "overblown" the Egyptian role in the Saudi-Yemeni war against the Houthis, and said that the war could very well be decided by Saudi's "pain tolerance". If Riyadh showed patience in the face of Houthi attacks on their civilian infrastructure, he argued, it could progressively ramp up the pressure on the Houthis by destroying their oil and petroleum reserves, continuing to support Yemeni forces, and ensuring the success of the Ma'rib axis in threatening a recapture of the capital Sana'a.

American news television broadcast show, 60 Minutes, documented Israeli military officers assisting illegal Jewish settlers to remove Palestinians from their own land.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bragged to a rally of Israeli Druze that he had ordered the IDF to destroy the defence ministry in Damascus, Syria, and that he further threatened President Ahmed al-Sharaa in a "short and sharp" phone call to get him to call off the Suwayda attack in July 2025. There has been no confirmation that such a telephone call ever took place, and the Syrian government has firmly denied that it had ordered any "massacres" of Druze, stating that it prefers national unity on the basis of consensus and shared ownership of Syria's future.

With reports that Syrian authorities have captured Mihrac Ural AKA Ali Kayali, the Alevi Turkish militia commander who fought on behalf of Assad and perpetrated numerous atrocities, here is a clip detailing some of the Butcher of Baniyas's involvement in the Syrian revolution.

Speaking soon after a suspected Houthi and Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia attack on Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia during US President Trump's first term in 2019, Kuwaiti politician @nasser_duwailah predicted that the Gulf would have its oil production and storage facilities attacked if they didn't find a way to move past the crisis without resorting to military force. Duwaila accused Trump of dishonesty and a lack of courage, and said that he was like a "suitcase salesman" trying to hawk goods on the street rather than a reliable ally and world leader. In 2026, the US and Israel launched a war on Iran that the Gulf Arab monarchies opposed. Nevertheless, Iran's primary targets in the region were not Israeli or American forces, but Gulf Arab countries, their refineries, oil facilities and LNG sites.

In a 2023 podcast with war journalist @AbdussamedDgl1, @TalAbdulrazaq explained how mut'ah marriage - or temporary marriage in Shia theology - was used extensively by Iranian-backed Shia groups to justify sex trafficking of Sunni women in Iraq and Syria.