Eurasia

Russia and the UN have discussed the strategy to create normal living conditions in Syria, writes SANA. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin has met with UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen. “The two sides exchanged points of view on the situation in Syria within the framework of the …

Regime forces have restarted bombing Turkish-backed militias in Idleb, reports North Press. On Thursday, Syrian government forces renewed their ground bombardment on the posts of the Turkish-backed armed opposition groups, south of Idleb, after the region witnessed a relative calm for the last 48 hours.

Syria continues to offer the ground where Russia and the United States compete over control of oil and gas fields and the transportation routes that bring energy to consumers. Russia seeks to expand its energy footprint in Syria to build influence over rebel-controlled areas in Northeast Syria that are backed …

SOHR sources say that gunmen, believed to be ISIS cells, targeted with machine guns a military patrol of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the village of Al-Zar in eastern rural Deir al-Zour, but no casualties have been reported so far. Yesterday, Syrian Observatory activists documented the death of an SDF …

The controversial Geert Wilders has had spats with the Turkish government before amid wider crises between Turkey and the Netherlands. The Turkish government and a far-right Dutch politician are in a row over a tweet portraying the Turkish president as a terrorist and Islamic State (IS) supporter.

India will also join the defense maneuver, according to the Iranian navy. The Iranian military began a naval drill with Indian and Russian forces on Tuesday.

The Biden administration announced a plan to sell nearly $200 million worth of naval surface-to-air missiles to Cairo on Tuesday, just hours after Egypt’s government arrested two relatives of an Egyptian-American activist. The State Department on Tuesday afternoon informed Congress of the proposed $197 million sale of up to 168 …

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said attempts to blame Tehran for the attack are “suspicious.” Iran’s government Tuesday denied involvement in Monday night’s rocket strike that killed one person and injured nine in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ansar al-Tawhid recently attacked a Russian operations room in the south of Idlib governate, killing and injuring several soldiers on the site, raising questions about the group’s identity and affiliations.

A rocket attack on a US base in northern Iraq is putting pressure on the Iraqi government and challenging the Biden administration’s policy in Iraq. At exactly 9:30 pm local time on Feb. 15, several rockets were launched on US coalition forces located inside Erbil’s international airport from the southern …