The armed forces are engaged in front-line battles, deploying a range of firearms and other weaponry against hostile forces. Meanwhile, a covert war is unfolding between the warring factions on a different front, characterised by secret operations that transcend borders, striking deep within enemy territory. These operations also pursue adversaries, their agents, and their enterprises worldwide. This is the intelligence war, a conflict as hazardous as traditional military warfare due to its critical role in tracking the escalation of disputes, monitoring tensions, and predicting the onset of direct military confrontations.
During wartime, the significance of intelligence agencies becomes evident as they supply the national armed forces with essential information and target lists they have compiled. Concurrently, intelligence agencies work to undermine the enemy’s combat capabilities and bolster the home front. Moreover, these agencies are crucial in managing negotiations and resolving conflicts, as well as forecasting the prospects of conflict and peace and their impact on national interests and security.
With the advancement of information and communication technologies, the role of intelligence in geopolitical conflicts has expanded, becoming more sophisticated and perilous. This evolution is evident in modern conflicts such as the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. Therefore, it is valuable to highlight the role of intelligence agencies in these conflicts, examining both their successes and failures and their effects on the parties involved. Additionally, these conflicts underscore the roles of intelligence agencies not directly involved in the hostilities but aligned with nations supporting each side. This aspect will be explored in this study with examples and evidence, especially considering that international supporters confront each other in both conflicts, directly and indirectly, within the broader geopolitical arena.
Download
This study aims at identifying the most important obstacles that could play an obstructing or motivating role in the process of re-integrating female ex-detainees/survivors from the prisons of the Syrian regime into their local communities and their surrounding environments.
To enrich the study, (68) female ex-detainees survived the Syrian regime detention were interviewed and a specially designed field-based survey is adopted as well. The above-mentioned steps were taken for the purpose of detecting and revealing the social, economic and psychological/personal obstacles facing the survived female detainees in social integration.
As a result, several findings are included within the study, which are related to the social, economic and psychological factors that constitute an obstacle that would face the ex-prisoners to return to their normal lives socially, at least as they used to be before the arrest.
However, a range of social barriers intertwine from the value system, customs, norms and behaviours prevailing in local communities continue to prevent such groups of surviving prisoners from returning to their social lives; especially if we take into account the state of instability in Syria, in most cities and regions, and this matter's role in curbing the motives for integration in light of the military/field, political and economic situation that at least can be characterised as thorny and confusing.
Therefore, it is not possible to talk about the relationship of the local community with the survivors without considering the whole previous mentioned situation; so that the survivor woman remained captive to those preconceived notions by the surrounding society.
Download
This study aims at identifying the most important obstacles that wives of detainees and missing persons may face in economic empowerment within the local communities in which they are located.
For the purpose of this study, (64) wives of detainees and missing persons were interviewed; as a field-based surveys, specially designed for this purpose, were adopted with the aim of revealing the social, economic and psychological/personal obstacles facing the wives of the detainees or the missing persons in rehabilitation and finding a job (economic empowerment).
Accordingly, the study reached a number of results, which were connected with the social, economic and psychological factors that constituted an obstacle to the involvement of the wives of detainees and missing persons in the local labour market, starting with the value system, customs, norms and behaviours prevailing in the local communities that originally view women working outside the home suspiciously, especially those whose husbands were detained.
Therefore, it is not possible to talk about the relationship of the local community with the wives of the detainees and the missing persons in isolation from all the value system (customs and traditions) prevailing in such communities in which the women who were interviewed for the purpose of the study are present with regard to economic empowerment. Moreover, the results of the surveys were discussed; as results-based proposals were made that might help empower the wives of detainees and missing persons.
Download
By: Abdul Rahim Muhammad Saeed Saeed
The timeline of the Syrian Kurds witnessed an obvious disparity in terms of the national demands, coinciding with the change of the political eras, through which Syria passed, and the governments that ruled the country, from independence until today. The most prominent shift remains the one that occurred after the Syrian revolution, because the demands have been in parallel with practical practices geographically and politically, especially after the Democratic Union Party (PYD) took control of the Kurdish populated areas, and began implementing its own projects on the ground.
These projects varied, reaching their climax upwards to the announcement of the federal project in 2016, and the start of serious steps to implement this very project on the ground, and then descending again to launch negotiations on a kind of decentralized system of governance with the Syrian regime by the Democratic Union Party, or with the Syrian opposition by the Kurdish National Council. These changes came under the influence of military and political factors on the one hand, and factors related to the nature of the region - geographically and demographically - which was the ground of these projects on the other hand.
Download
By: Abdul Rahim Muhammad Saeed Saeed
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an initiative to unite Syria’s Kurds shortly after the Turkish military operation conducted in Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad. This very initiative, which is still in existence, has not been clear enough because of the secrecy and lack of transparency that surrounds its facts and talks, given that the two main parties involved in the initiative are (the Kurdish National Council - KNC and the Democratic Union Party -PYD), those have a few things in common, as there are a lot of differences between the two parties, topped by the relationship with Turkey, the forward-looking prediction of the Kurdish issue in Syria, and the relationship with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as well as the matter of the Kurdish National Council's existence within the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) and other issues.
Download
By: Badria Al-Rawi
Globalization has created an interconnected system, in which companies adopted the doctrine of supply chains that led to the emergence of a tangled web of production networks that work together to shape the global economy structure. It was believed that national economies were included and secured in this global network. But what COVID-19 has caused reveals the fragility of this globalized system. Some economic sectors can weather the crisis reasonably well, whereas other sectors can find themselves on the brink of collapse, especially the epidemic prevents the suppliers in a country from providing the necessary and widely used parts. The same is the case with many countries in this world. If some of them overcome the ordeal with major losses compared to their abilities to recover, others may completely collapse, especially in fragile countries. So, how has COVID-19 affected such countries?
Download