A month ago, a little after the mass protests began in Iraq against the government, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani arrived on a night flight at the Baghdad airport. Soleimani continued on in a helicopter from the airport to the heart of the Green Zone in Baghdad, the area where the …
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Iran and Hezbollah financers listed by Gulf anti-terrorism coalition
The seven-member Terrorist Financing Targeting Centre in Riyadh on Wednesday designated 25 targets affiliated with Iran and Hezbollah, in the largest single designation to date.
Read More »Turkey Wants Refugees to Move to a ‘Safe Zone.’ It’s a Tough Sell.
With forces from the Assad regime deploying in their old lands, Syrians are afraid to go back home.
Read More »Syria's Assad says Kurdish controlled northeast Syria must return to state authority
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that his government’s ultimate goal was to restore state authority over Kurdish controlled areas in northeast Syria after an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal but he expected it to happen gradually.
Read More »Joint Turkish and Russian patrols begin in Syrian region
Turkey and Russia launched joint patrols Friday in northeastern Syria, under a deal that halted a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters who were forced to withdraw from the border area following Ankara’s incursion.
Read More »PM Hariri resigns as Lebanon crisis turns violent
Saad al-Hariri resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister on Tuesday, declaring he had hit a “dead end” in trying to resolve a crisis unleashed by huge protests against the ruling elite and plunging the country deeper into turmoil.
Read More »Baghdadi's successor likely to be Iraqi religious scholar
What remains of ISIS — the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is yet to acknowledge the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who died in a raid by US forces in northern Syria on Saturday.
Read More »Iran, Russia take aim at U.S. military presence near Syrian oilfields
Iran and Russia on Tuesday condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to maintain a military presence near oil fields in northeastern Syria, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying any exploitation of resources would be illegal.
Read More »Inside the ISIS prison camp 'little caliphate' breeding the next generation of jihadis
It is a country unto itself, and nobody knows what to do with it. In a barren prison camp in northern Syria – tens of thousands of ISIS members are running what feels like a mini caliphate – abiding by the rules of the extremist terror group, and abiding by …
Read More »Protests in Iraq and Lebanon pose a challenge to Iran
The day after anti-government protests erupted in Iraq, Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani flew into Baghdad late at night and took a helicopter to the heavily fortified Green Zone, where he surprised a group of top security officials by chairing a meeting in place of the prime minister.
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