""Internally, the Iranian regime is weakened. However, there is currently no sign of disruption," Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director at the Berlin-based think tank Counter Extremism Project, told our editorial team. According to Schindler, the revolutionary potential in Iran and Syria is not comparable. "The resistance in Iran has energy, but no vision for the country's future. And it has neither organization nor structure. The opposition in Syria had all of these things," the expert emphasizes.”"

""Israel has shown Iran that it can, if it wants, carry out attacks on targets throughout Iran. It has used its fighter jets for this purpose, all of which have returned unscathed," explains terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler from the transatlantic think tank Counter Extremism Project (CEP) in an interview with DW.”"

“There was no shortage of strong words immediately after the news broke. For Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the execution of German-Iranian dual citizen Jamshid Sharmahd is a "scandal". According to Annalena Baerbock, her Foreign Office campaigned "tirelessly" for the businessman, who was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020, and sent high-ranking teams to Iran to prevent the execution of the death sentence: "We have repeatedly made it unmistakably clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences." […] According to Hans-Jakob Schindler, it is possible but not certain that "Tondar" was actually responsible. "After the attack, the German embassy in Tehran assumed that Islamists were more likely to be the perpetrators," says the senior director of the international Counter Extremism Project.”

"DW spoke with Middle East security expert Hans-Jakob Schindler about the risk of a further escalation in the Middle East after Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran."

“It was apparently intended to be an ultimate, devastating blow against Israel. This is suggested by new findings on the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023. According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the terrorist strategists around their leader Jahia Sinwar planned their attack in detail for more than two years. […] Hans-Jakob Schindler calls Iran's reaction to Hamas's request "typical". The leadership of the Islamic Republic almost always avoids an open "no" in negotiations and prefers to use formulations such as "further clarification required", says the senior director of the international Counter Extremism Project and head of the Berlin office.”

"Israel says it's preparing a strong military retaliation after Iran launched more than 200 missiles into Israeli territory last week. Hans Jakob Schindler, Senior Director at the Counter Extremism Project, believes that only the US military could strike nuclear underground facilities in Iran and warns of the potential fallout."

"'The intelligence community is vast, but so are the number of priorities assigned to its staff,' said Norman Roule, former national intelligence manager for Iran and senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project. 'Absent steady policymaker demand, the system moves resources — and demands on our partners — to targets that are perceived to have greater policymaker interest.'"

“... Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project, a transatlantic thinktank and advocacy group, said it was predictable that the Houthis and other groups would make such threats. “We shouldn’t read too much into the rhetoric … the Palestinian groups do not have the capability to escalate outside the [occupied] West Bank, while the Israelis have been so successful in last couple of weeks that I don’t think Lebanese Hezbollah can come to Iran’s defence.” Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s proxies and the keystone of the coalition, is reeling from the Israeli assassination campaign. The group has lost nearly 500 fighters since it started firing into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, last October and was then drawn into a prolonged war of attrition.”

“Iran had long been saying it would happen, and on Tuesday the regime in Tehran got serious. Less than a day after Israel began its ground offensive in Lebanon, the Islamic Republic said it fired 200 rockets towards Israel. Sirens blared across the country, and according to Israeli forces, 180 rockets were intercepted. […] However, Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the international Counter Extremism Project and head of the office in Berlin, does not believe that an escalation is inevitable. "We are currently in a serious spiral of escalation, but one that can be ended at any time by one of the sides - Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas," Schindler told the Tagesspiegel. The picture in the region is complicated: some states sympathize with the Palestinians, some have problems with the militias supported by Tehran or are more or less neutral towards the situation.”

"Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project and formerly UKs ambassador to Yemen, echoed these apprehensions, cautioning about the additional dangers posed by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which form another component of Irans "axis of resistance that might expand the already tenuous situation across the Middle East."