So, first ignore everything on this map except for the light-orange overlay. How the colonial 'Durand Line' set up Afghanistan's conflict That's called a security dilemma and it can get bad. Israel is worried that Iran could build nukes to use against it Iran may be worried that it will forever be under threat of Israeli strike until it has a nuclear deterrent. Israel-Iran tensions, which have edged near war in recent years, are one of the biggest and most potentially dangerous things happening right now in a part of the world that has plenty of danger already. That gets to the other thing on this map, which was originally built to show how Israel could hypothetically launch strikes against Iran's nuclear program. You can see the nuclear development sites on here: some are deep underground, while others were kept secret for years. The first is Iran's nuclear program: the country's leaders say the program is peaceful, but basically no one believes them, and the world is heavily sanctioning Iran's economy to try to convince them to halt the nuclear development that sure looks like it's heading for an illegal weapons program. This is a glimpse at two of the big, overlapping geopolitical issues in which Iran is currently embroiled. Iran's nuclear sites and possible Israeli strike plans So it's a three-way war now, as if it weren't already intractable enough. They're fighting both the rebels and the government. Over the past year, though, there's been a fourth rising faction: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (sometimes called ISIS, shown in blue), an extremist group based in Iraq that swears allegiance to al-Qaeda. Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority also has militias that have taken over territory where the Kurds live. But the anti-government Syrian rebels (in green) have been taking lots of territory. The minorities tend to be linked to the regime, whereas the rebels are mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority. You may notice some overlap between this map and the previous: the areas under government control (in red) tend to overlap with where the minorities live. This map shows the state of play in Syria's civil war, which after three years of fighting has divided between government forces, the anti-government rebels who began as pro-democracy protestors, and the Islamist extremist fighters who have been moving in over the last two years. This struggle looks an awful lot like a regional cold war, with proxy battles in Syria and elsewhere.Ĭurrent areas of control in the Syrian Civil War

'Sunni' roughly means 'tradition.' Today, that religious division is again a political one as well: it's a struggle for regional influence between Shia political powers, led by Iran, versus Sunni political powers, led by Saudi Arabia. Today about 10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide are Shia - they are the majority group in Iran and Iraq only - while most Muslims are Sunni. The Shia held on to the idea that Ali was the rightful successor, and grew into an entirely separate branch of Islam. That pro-Ali faction was known as the 'Partisans of Ali,' or 'Shi'atu Ali' in Arabic, hence 'Shia.' Ali's eventual ascension to the throne sparked a civil war, which he and his partisans lost. There was a power struggle over who would succeed him in ruling the Islamic Caliphate, with most Muslims wanting to elect the next leader but some arguing that power should go by divine birthright to Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali. The story of Islam's division between Sunni and Shia started with the Prophet Mohammed's death in 632.

Middle eastern countries map