The Middle East is experiencing one of the most serious escalations of violence since the emergence of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 or even the Iraq war that began in 2003 with the US invasion.
Since October 7, 2023, when the extremist group Hamas launched a brutal terrorist attack against Israel, leaving 1,200 Israelis dead, Gaza has been at the center of a war that has led to the deaths of 24,000 Palestinians in Israeli attacks. But that is not the only source of conflict.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, violence continues to grow and terrorist attacks were also reported on Monday in Ra’anana, central Israel. While in the north, on the border with Lebanon, Israel and the Hezbollah group have been engaged in an exchange of fire for weeks.
Also in the Red Sea, the Houthi rebels, who occupy much of Yemen and receive support from Iran, have been attacking cargo ships – they say, in solidarity with the Palestinian population in Gaza – and last week the United States and the United Kingdom bombed their positions in retaliation.
Iran, one of the main actors in the region, was the target of a brutal terrorist attack – one of the worst in its history – in early January, when explosions occurred during a commemorative event in Kerman for the death of General Qassem Soleimani. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
And now, Iran itself has starred in the latest episode by attacking positions of the Kurds in Iraq, of “anti-Iran terrorist groups” in Syria and Pakistan.
The recent move by Iran, a staunch enemy of Israel, guarantor of Hezbollah and the Houthis and with growing ties to Hamas, is a concrete escalation and puts the focus back on Syria and Iraq, the two countries that were at the center of the previous major Middle East crisis that occurred in 2014 with the emergence of ISIS.
Most of Syria’s population is, in fact, Sunni, but its president Assad and a good part of the country’s elites, allied to Iran, belong to the Alawite sect, related to Shiism.
A day after attacking Iraq and Syria, Iran turned its attention to Pakistan, a Muslim country with a Sunni majority (about 85%) but also home to a Shiite minority of between 10 and 15% of the population, with which Iran shares a border of 959 kilometers.
Thus, with multiple open fronts, the escalation of violence in the Middle East does not stop growing since the Hamas terrorist attack, and now a Pandora’s box seems to have been opened. in a region always fertile for conflict.