International Politics of the Middle East

The army has also begun sealing off tunnels into Gaza

Egypt's military presence in Sinai is limited and requires Israeli approval under the terms of the 1979 peace treaty which returned Sinai to Egyptian control. Analysts say that the security situation in the area has deteriorated following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year, and that Islamist extremists appear to have gained a foothold.

He questioned whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was really a Muslim, which will likely provoke Alawites inside Turkey and abroad

Erdogan denied interfering in Syria’s internal affairs. He launched an attack on Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, describing him as part of an anti-Turkey campaign. He said that “just like there is the Baath Party in Syria, there is the Republican People's Party in Turkey.”

Gauss marks the first time that apparently nation-state-created malware has been found stealing banking credentials, something that is commonly seen in malware distributed by criminal hacking groups.

Gauss appears to have been created sometime in mid-2011 and was first deployed in September or October of last year, around the same time that DuQu was uncovered by researchers in Hungary. DuQu was an espionage tool discovered on machines in Iran, Sudan, and other countries around August 2011 and was designed to steal documents and other data from machines. Stuxnet and DuQu appeared to have been built on the same framework, using identical parts and using similar techniques. Flame and Stuxnet also shared a component, and now Flame and Gauss have been found to be using similar code as well.

Extrapolating from the number of infected Kaspersky customers, they speculate that there may be as many as tens of thousands of other victims infected with Gauss. By comparison, Stuxnet infected more than 100,000 machines, primarily in Iran. DuQu infected an estimated 50 machines, but was not geographically focused. Flame is estimated to have infected about 1,000 machines in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

what of Qatar, a tiny Gulf state whose main strategic goal is to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so that it can export its liquefied natural gas across the world, bringing it untold riches? Syria plays no part in Qatar's strategic calculations, so why is Qatar getting so deeply entangled in a conflict into which even the great powers seem afraid to tread?

Qatar, it seems, is driven in this particular endeavour by the force of the emir and his prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani. Both men feel that Qatar has a role to play in reconstructing the Arab world after the upheavals it has experienced. Wherever and whenever it can, Qatar then will seek to have an influence on the process of events in the region around it.

here is my guess. The emir wants to secure a legacy for himself as the man who took the Arab world into a more activist phase of multilateral action. As the man who pushed a lethargic, divided region to stand up and solve Arab problems with Arab action, backed by the use of force for those who don't seem to get the message

"Cyber attacks are the new reality of modern warfare," said Hayat Alvi, lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at the US Naval War College. "We can expect more... from all directions. In war, the greatest casualty is the truth. Each side will try to manipulate information to make their own side look like it is gaining while the other is losing."

In April, Saudi-based broadcaster Al Arabiya briefly lost control of one of its twitter accounts, which was then used to spread a string of stories suggesting a political crisis in Qatar. Tweets included claims that the Qatari prime minister had been sacked, his daughter arrested in London and that a coup orchestrated by the army chief was underway.

there seems little sign such incidents made a significant difference either on the ground in Syria or to the wider geopolitical picture

The eclipse of authority has also given rise to Sharia courts run by Islamic scholars who settle disputes according to Islamic law.

Even normal people, not just jihadis, would fight and die if Israelis came back

n the recent turmoil, militants have been carrying out attacks on lightly armed police officers in recent months and have repeatedly bombed the pipeline that carries natural gas to Israel. Bedouin tribesmen with grievances against the state, meanwhile, have kidnapped foreign tourists and international peacekeepers. Drug runners and human smugglers have also seized the moment, making both lucrative trades increasingly violent.

I don’t think they were Al Qaeda; they seemed too amateurish for that.

Their captors spoke incessantly about the American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. “It was constantly on their minds, and they were saying, ‘This is what you do to our guys,’ ” Mr. Oerlemans said. “They would cock their weapons and say, ‘Prepare for the afterlife,’ or, ‘You better repent and accept Islam.’ It was pretty terrifying, I can assure you.”

Having recently returned from a European Foundation for Democracy sponsored trip to Antakya and Istanbul, during which a European delegation and I met over 100 Syrian opposition figures, a number of important observations come to mind. First, one of my strongest impressions is that things are not what they seem. It is very difficult on the ground to be sure who it is that you are really talking to and what they represent. Second, Turkish officials maintain a striking degree of control over Syrian opposition forces inside Turkey. Third, the Muslim Brotherhood is pervasive not only within the Syrian National Council (SNC), but among many opposition groups – mostly outside Syria. Lastly, there is a striking cynicism and anger among fighters within Syria toward the outside world for not providing enough practical support.

Syrians of all backgrounds seem to be free to move between Syria and Turkey with only Turkish permission. The Syrian government now seems to have lost control of its borders in every direction.

there is a distinct Turkish preference for some parts of the opposition movement; they favor the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Syrian National Council.