Middle Orient

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called on countries across the Middle East to unite against the United States during an address at an Army Day parade in Tehran.

The number of suspected foreign ISIS fighters being detained by US-backed forces in Syria has now surpassed 2,000, with a small number claiming to be US citizens, three US officials told CNN.

A Bosnian national suspected of fighting for Islamic State in Syria has been transferred to Bosnia and put in detention, the Balkan country’s prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The authorities in Kosovo said on Saturday that more than 100 of their citizens, mostly women and children who were relatives of jihadists, had been flown home from Syria under heavy security with the assistance of the United States.

The United States is pressing its Kurdish allies in Syria to ease their resistance to allowing Turkish forces to deploy on their side of the Turkish-Syrian border, well-informed sources told Al-Monitor. The Turkish forces would be a part of the proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria.

The representative of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Iran says a significant number of young Lebanese are currently in Iran, helping relief operations for the flood-stricken people.

Turkey “expects” the Trump administration to grant it waivers from the US related to its purchases of Iranian oil and Russian air defences, a top aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Iran’s lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorist, a day after the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard formally took effect, state TV reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week described a powerful Iranian military commander as a “terrorist,” while discussing options the U.S. government could have to further punish Iran for its destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

Libya’s UN-backed government says its military has shot down a fighter jet belonging to the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), led by strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are fighting for the control of the capital Tripoli.