Eurasia

When the Taliban overran the district center of Maruf in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar this year, the government resorted to a familiar tactic: Simply relocate the district office 25 miles to the south to say it had not fallen.

American forces struck al Qaeda “leadership at a training facility near Aleppo Province, Syria” yesterday, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The missile strike targeted al Qaeda “operatives responsible for plotting external attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians.” The U.S. military did not provide any specific details …

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he is supplying militias backing the Tripoli government with arms, armoured vehicles and drones.

Iranian prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several individuals accused of spying for the United States, Iran’s spokesman for the judiciary announced Tuesday.

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani warned European nations Wednesday that Tehran will “take the next step” in increasing its uranium enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels this coming Sunday if they do not offer a new deal by then, adding that they will increase it to “any amount that we want”.

The State Department announced yesterday that it has added a Hizballah operative and a Baloch separatist group to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorists. In addition, State amended the terrorist designation for Jundallah to include Jaysh al-Adl as one of the group’s aliases.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has issued a decree that further integrates the Popular Mobilization Forces, which have proven a decisive force in Baghdad’s counter-terrorism operations, into the country’s armed forces.

The United States says it will “never allow” Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, after Tehran announced that it had exceeded the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium it agreed to in the 2015 international accord restraining its nuclear weapons development.

Although the “military arm” of Hezbollah is prohibited in the EU, the “political arm” is not, which means that in Germany, Hezbollah is free to engage in “non-military” activities — such as fundraising.

Ex-US counterterrorism chief Nick Rasmussen talks to the ‘Post’ about regional threats, cooperation with Israeli intelligence and redefining international terrorism.