Following Operation Euphrates Shield (OES), Turkey added a new dimension to its ongoing military activity in Syria in order to curb the PKK's influence in northern Syria and to "de-territorialize" it in the medium term in the rest of the Syrian territory. With the advent of the Afrin operation, Turkey's military activity has spread to a wider geographical area in the western bank...

While the operation to re-take Mosul is on the horizon, several important challenges need to be carefully addressed in order to ensure that not only the operation itself, but also the process to reconstruct Mosul in the post-ISIS era run smoothly. This policy brief discusses the roles that might be played by the parties involved and possible scenarios for Mosul in the post-ISIS...

The prolonged state of the Syrian war since the beginning of 2011 led to the huge outflow of Syrians to its neighboring countries. In the case of Turkey, the number of the Syrian refugees is believed to be more than two million. Most of the studies or reports show the negative impacts the Syrians have initiated in Turkey, such as the economic and social burdens caused by the...

When one thinks of traditional weapons of war, it is not common that dams or rivers are the first to come to our mind. The idea of water being a weapon of war might at first seem absurd, as it is not a weapon in the traditional sense. However, water can and has been used successfully as a weapon of war, as will be discussed in this report detailing the strategy employed by ISIS...

The Syrian crisis continues to be a hotbed of international politics and a matter of national security in Europe ever since the emergence of thousands of European fighters who joined Syrias civil war. The European governments are particularly fran- tic about the prospects of return of their "radical-extremist" rebel citi- zens. Such fears are not unwarranted as many British...

For decades, the Kurdish question has undoubtedly been one of the most significant and hotly debated research topics. As Kurds spread out across the Middle East, Turkey remains one of the main countries in which the Kurdish question has taken its toll on both sides within an on- going peace process. In addition to potential problems with obvious ethnic component, Islamic...