To date, a few thousand Europeans have left Europe to join jihadi fighters in Syria and Iraq. Several hundreds of them have already returned. To deal with this phenomenon, some countries have developed radicalization prevention and de-radicalization programs.

The Islamic State has considerable income, mostly from taking control of banks; managing trafficking networks – particularly hydrocarbons – and from external support. 

After the war between Israel and Hezbollah during the summer of 2006, a deterrence strategy was established between the two parties. Occasional subsequent crises have thereby been contained and have been prevented from escalating into extensive confrontations. 

Turkish leaders would like to turn their country into the leader of the Middle East. However, they are in competition with another of the region’s key players: Iran.

The Kurds in Iraq occupy what is practically a state. The Syrian civil war has resulted in the autonomization of the country’s Kurdish population. To Kurdish advantage, the JDP’s (Justice and Development Party – Turkey) ambiguous policy has cleared a new political space in Turkey.

Although the Kurdish population in Syria forms a very small and highly divided minority, the Kurds nevertheless have managed, thanks to the civil war, to gain relative autonomy in Northern Syria. 

The emergence of an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, the civil war in Syria, and the electoral ambitions of the JDP (Justice and Development Party) have led to new policy being formed by the Turkish government regarding the Kurdish issue.

While the peace process between the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the Turkish government is at a standstill, the latter is attempting to circumvent Turkey’s Kurdish actors by aligning itself with the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party), which dominates the Kurdish regional government in Iraq.