Even though, during the past year, developments in Syria have entered a stabilization trajectory, the country remains fragmented and a “playground” where different regional and national interests collide. The Assad regime has managed to maintain and extend its control in most of the Syrian territories around Damascus and in the south. However, there are still challenges from opposition forces in the northwest, the Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast and a re-emerging ISIS threat looming both from previously ISIS-controlled enclaves as well as prisons and camps.^[1] At the same time, lines are blurred in regional alliances, such as the one between Russia and Iran, as the players attempt to consolidate their power at each other’s expense. What will 2022 look like for Syria and what are the imminent threats for the country’s sovereignty?

Libya has not still recovered its internal stability, since the fall of Ghaddafi’s regime in 2011;while a credible political agreement seems far away from being reached in the short term. Even after the adoption of the UN-backed Libyan Political Agreement and the ousting of forces affiliated with IS (Islamic State) from their strongholds in Libya last year, many different actors are competing with one another to impose their own hegemony on the country. What are the forces still present on the ground? Who is the internal balance of power in favour of? And If an international intervention is needed, is there still a chance for Italy to play a role in the negotiation process?

Nowadays, Islam is gaining popularity in everyday life in North Caucasus. The Islamic revival that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to a rapid Islamization of the society and has provided a fertile ground for political Islam as well. The language of political Islam is used extensively and in various forms, with local authorities and the religious opposition both deriving their arguments from Islam. Hence, in North Caucasus Islamic discourse unfolds on various levels, from Ramzan Kadyrov’s “official state” Islam in Chechnya up to the radical salafi-jihadi Islamism espoused first by the Caucasus Emirate and, more recently, by ISIS affiliates.

The successful negotiations of the Nuclear Deal are strengthening the Iranian government domestically and are repairing the country’s reputation internationally. The forthcoming removal of sanctions is aspiring to bring economic prosperity in the country, even if this benefits Iranian elites rather than the wider population. The overcoming of distrust between Iran and the West might lead to wider negotiations on other issues in the future, especially the resolution of the Syrian Crisis and the countering of ISIS, although it is unlikely that Iran will abandon its traditional allies in the Middle East, such as Bashar al-Assad.

Boko Haram famously came to the forefront in 2009 with a string of attacks in Northern and Central Nigeria. At its early beginnings in 2002, it was merely identified as a Sunni religious anti-western movement attempting to fill the void left by the progressive parties of Nigeria. However, successive Nigerian administrations, through a series of misguided political decisions, eventually turned the movement into an insurgent, radical and brutally violent group that would demand the spotlight in the African continent for the better part of the 21st century. Often regarded as sub-Sahara’s greatest security threat, the name “Boko Haram” translates as “forbidden book” or “western education is a sin” in the Hausa language, and represents the will to reject any and all “westernization” of Nigerian society and culture.

Saudi Arabia and the Middle East have yet again attracted the globe’s attention, as the ongoing crisis in nearby Yemen, which has virtually left it ungoverned and its population in despair, seems to be evolving into an all-our war. 

Iran has consistently attempted to portray the Arab spring as an "Islamic Awakening" and a continuation of its own Iranian revolution of 1979, in an attempt to further its main goal, the consolidation of its role as regional power. By choosing to ignore the clearly political, and not religious, context of the Arab uprisings, Iran has failed to mobilize the Muslim world under its wing. Its goal of achieving a "leader" status in the region, could be threatened even more by the risk of failure of the ongoing nuclear talks, and also by the menacing presence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.