EXCLUSIVE: Pro-ISIS Telegram Channel Which Regularly Circulates Potential Targets For Lone Wolf Attacks Publishes Address Of Christian School In London On October 9, 2017, a pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Telegram channel that regularly posts information about potential targets as inspiration for lone wolf attacks, shared the address of a school in London. EXCLUSIVE: Reports Of New […]

France on Friday urged restraint on all sides in a potentially volatile standoff between the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish authorities over the oil-rich Kirkuk region, diplomats indicated. Kirkuk is legally under Iraqi federal authority but is currently under Kurdish control and France is anxious that the differences between the two parties be resolved through […]

Iraqi forces Friday retook positions controlled by Kurdish peshmerga fighters since 2014 in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk amid a bitter row with the Kurds over a vote for independence last month. A senior Kurdish official said thousands of heavily armed fighters had been deployed to defend themselves “at any cost” against the Iraqi operation […]

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of a four-day NATO parliamentary assembly in Bucharest, Romania, on Monday that “if NATO leaves too soon, we risk Afghanistan returning to a state of chaos – a safe haven for international terrorism”. “The situation in Afghanistan is challenging. We all understand the costs of staying in […]

The UN Security Council on Tuesday urged Libyans, divided with rival governments and beset by violence, to work together ahead of hoped-for elections. Separately, the European Union is seeking to reopen its embassy in Libya pending security conditions, officials said on Tuesday, offering further political support for the Tripoli government struggling to establish control.

A group of 19 officers and non-commissioned officers of the Libyan coast guard authority are to begin a training course in Tunisia on Saturday, Colonel Tareq Shanbur, the director of security operations on Libya’s coasts and president of the coordination system of Italian-Libyan operations to fight illegal immigration, has said.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has extended the state of emergency in Egypt for another three months. The president’s decision – a re-declaration of the state of emergency – was published in the official gazette on Thursday and was due to go into effect on Friday. The new declaration must be approved by parliament within seven days.

Six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a “terrorist” attack in restive North Sinai, where jihadists are active, the army’s spokesperson said on Friday. “Terrorist elements attacked a security post in El-Arish with hand grenades and firearms,” Tamer el-Rifai wrote on his Facebook page.

US weapon producer giant General Dynamics will be involved in the production of armored personnel carriers for the Romanian army. The company signed an agreement to create a joint venture with state-owned arms company Romarm, which will be the main contractor for armored vehicles.

NATO launched a new multinational force in Romania on Monday to counter Russia along its eastern flank and to check a growing Russian presence in the Black Sea. The force will initially be built around a Romanian brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers, supported by troops from nine other NATO countries, and complementing a separate […]

The Security Council today endorsed the United Nations’ action plan to resume an inclusive political process in Libya. In a Presidential Statement, the 15-member body strongly urged all Libyans to work together in a spirit of compromise and to engage constructively in the inclusive political process set out in the UN action plan, which was […]

The European Union (EU) is intending to reopen its embassy in Libya pending security conditions, officials said on Tuesday, offering further political support for the Tripoli government struggling to establish control. EU leaders will announce at their summit in Brussels on Oct. 19-20 that they “encourage work underway to rapidly establish a permanent EU presence […]

US President Donald Trump’s administration has demanded that Egypt cut all ties with North Korea or face further punitive action, diplomatic sources have said. Washington has warned Cairo over its military relations with the pariah Asian state. The Trump administration has urgently demanded that Egypt close military attache offices and all related activity in both […]

Sudan’s central bank said on Wednesday it had received its first overseas fund transfer in US dollars since Washington announced the lifting of a 20-year-old trade embargo against Khartoum. Washington last week announced the lifting of sanctions from this on Thursday onwards, saying Khartoum had made progress on conditions set for ending the embargo, in […]

The UN Security Council on Tuesday urged Libyans, divided with rival governments and beset by violence, to work together ahead of hoped-for elections. The 15-member council gave its full support to a plan by the new UN envoy Ghassan Salame for legislative and presidential ballots by July next year.

Several developments and incidents are bringing again to the analysts’ attention the area in the Balkan Peninsula traditionally known as “the Balkan Route”. In this geopolitical region of Southeast Europe, an area of 550,000 km², about 55 million people live together, with different identities, and sometimes in adversarial ethnic, cultural and political relations. After the […]

EXCLUSIVE: Senior Libyan Official Reveals Information on ISIS in Libya On September 28, 2017, the Director of the Investigation Bureau in the Office of the General Secretary of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Sadiq Al-Sur, held a press conference lasting approximately an hour and 20 minutes, during which he revealed new details about […]

UPDATED – ISIS Claims Attack At Las Vegas Music Festival, Says ‎Attacker Converted To Islam A Few Months Ago On October 2, 2017, the Islamic State (ISIS) news agency A’maq claimed responsibility for the previous evening’s deadly shooting attack at a country music festival in Las Vegas, in which over 50 people were killed and […]

Urdu Daily: Hekmatyar-Led Hizb-e-Islami Opposes Move To Shut Down Taliban’s Qatar Office, Taliban Leaders Could Move To TurkeyAccording to a Pakistan-based Urdu-language daily, Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) has opposed an initiative by the Afghan government to have the Afghan Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar shut down. ISIS Claims Stabbing Attack In Marseille, France On October […]

France offered on Thursday to mediate in a political crisis pitting Iraq’s government against Kurdish regional authorities, and promised to maintain a military presence there until Daesh was defeated. The offer by President Emmanuel Macron coincided with a visit by Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, his first abroad since its Kurdish-held northern regions last […]

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi said on Thursday that troops have retaken the northern town of Hawija from the Daesh militant group, driving the extremists from one of their last strongholds in the country. Abadi declared victory during a press conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

France will maintain its military commitment in Iraq until the Islamic State (IS) was completely defeated and as long as necessary, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday. France, the second leading force in the US-led coalition against IS, was determined to remain engaged in the war against the terrorist group until its “total defeat.”

Tunisia National Defence Minister Abdelkrim Zbidi received Friday Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador Mohamed Ben Mahmoud Al Ali. The meeting turned on bilateral co-operation and ways to boost it notably in the military field, a Defence Ministry press release reads.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian received here Friday his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukri for in-depth talks on bilateral but mainly regional issues, including the Syrian, Libyan and Palestinian issues, an official statement said. Concerning Libya, the two officials “welcomed the progress in the mediation” that is taking place in Tunis under the aegis of […]

A delegation from the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) including four senior ambassadors will start a four-day visit to Khartoum on Monday to set up a working group to draft a paper on Sudanese-Egyptian relations. Member of the Sudanese Council for Foreign Affairs Ali Youssef told the official news agency SUNA that the visit […]

An ambush on a joint US-Niger patrol has left several soldiers dead, a security official said on Wednesday, as fears increase that a conflict in neighbouring Mali is spilling over the African nation’s border. Three American special forces troops were among the dead, according to a New York Times report citing US military officials.

The United States will end some of its toughest economic and trade sanctions imposed on the government of Sudan, the US State Department said on Friday. Sudan will remain blacklisted as a state sponsor of terror, and some targeted sanctions will remain, but the regime has made progress in ending domestic atrocities, senior administration officials […]

India and European Union will seek to step up anti-radicalisation and counter-terrorism cooperation when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds summit talks with the leaders of the bloc on Friday. Modi will host the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, Donald Franciszek Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, in New Delhi for the 14th India-EU […]

France and Turkey will discuss the parameters and progress in setting up a “Contact Group” to spur peace efforts in Syria and streamline ongoing processes in this area, an official source said Wednesday. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is hosting his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Paris on Thursday for talks that “will focus […]

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed confidence in a return to normal relations with northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) should it correct its “mistake”, i.e. the holding of an illegitimate independence referendum. “This was neither a democratic nor a legal referendum,” Cavusoglu said. “It is illegal according to Iraq’s constitution.”

Kurdistan’s prime minister and the US ambassador to Iraq called for efforts to calm the situation between Erbil and Baghdad following Kurdistan’s independence referendum. Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani met with Ambassador Douglas Silliman on Tuesday. US Consul in Erbil, Ken Gross, also attended the meeting.

Slovakia’s defence ministry says the government has approved a plan to send 25 soldiers to Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces as part of a NATO mission. Peter Gajdos says the Slovak service members will focus on demining and also supporting the local military in the repairs of the Soviet-made weapons.

Iraqi forces on Wednesday made their final push into the northern town of Hawija, one of two enclaves in the country still held by ISIL extremists. Hawija operation’s commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Yarallah said, the army, federal police and rapid response force had begun a major operation “to liberate the centre of Hawija and […]

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday that there is no military solution to the crisis in Yemen. Shoukry’s remarks came during his meeting in Cairo with his Yemeni counterpart Abdel Malik al-Mekhlafi, foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement. Abu Zeid said the foreign minister reiterated Egypt’s support for the […]

At least 16 members of a militia group have been killed in the troubled North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a military source said on Monday. The militia group had been engaged in intense fighting against the Congolese army since Friday, when at least four militiamen died. Army spokesman Jules Tshikudi said […]