Eurasia

Turkish security forces killed seven armed terrorists in the country’s southeast and northern Iraq, the interior and defense ministries said Thursday.

Kurdish-led and international coalition forces raided Islamic State (IS) positions yesterday in eastern Syria — a site of recent IS activity.

U.S.-led coalition special operation forces hit back against an Islamic State cell in Syria, capturing a midlevel leader linked to a rise in attacks by the terror group in the Deir el-Zour countryside.

Turkish security forces have carried out a total of 8,163 operations targeting terrorist organizations during April, said Interior Ministry spokesman Ismail Catakli.

The Kurdish-backed Anti-Terror Forces (HAT) in northeastern Syria arrested a senior Islamic State financial chief in Raqqa on Wednesday who was allegedly responsible for organizing sleeper cells in the city.

A far-right extremist has pleaded guilty to terror offences and having explosives.

The threat from ISIS will be greater after the release of 1,000 of its returned fighters from European prisons over the course of 2020, chief analyst at the UN told The National.

The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Hungary of sixty (60) AIM-120C-7/C-8 AMRAAM­ER missiles, and two (2) spare AIM-120C-7/C-8 AMRAAM-ER guidance sections and related equipment for an estimated cost of $230 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress …

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says there is evidence his American counterpart Donald Trump “personally ordered” the recent military raid on the Latin American country, arguing that Washington swiftly cut remaining ties with Caracas thereafter.

In a Friday op-ed, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin called for China to quadruple its nuclear weapons stockpile from 260 to 1,000 weapons amid unprecedented pressure by the United States. In recent years, Washington has declared reversing China’s rise and undermining the Chinese Communist Party its primary geostrategic goals.