Middle Orient

The General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces announced that the army units operating in Idlib countryside have liberated during the past few days the city of Ma’aret al-Nu’aman and a number of villages and towns in the southern countryside of Idlib from terrorism.

The Ansarallah forces (var. Houthi) announced on Wednesday that their rocket battalion unleashed a new attack on the Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the southern region of Saudi Arabia.

Formed by Hezbollah and its allies, new government faces one of the biggest financial crises in the country’s history.

Islamic State fighters did not capitalize on a recent break in U.S. operations to significantly reconstitute their ranks in Iraq, according to a top general.

Militants in Syria set off car bombs and used heavy gunfire to storm army positions in Idlib on Thursday, state news agency SANA reported.

Up to 40 Syrian soldiers have been killed in an assault by hundreds of militants in north-western Syria, according to Russia’s defence ministry.

The United States has seen no uptick in Islamic State activity in Iraq and northeastern Syria, U.S. special representative for Syria James Jeffrey said on Thursday, weeks after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad.

On January 18, 2020, ballistic missiles struck a mosque at the al-Estiqbal military camp in Marib, killing at least 116 people in what was reportedly one of the deadliest attacks in Yemen’s civil war. Although there was no immediate claim by the Houthi rebels, Yemen’s government condemned the Iran-backed extremist …

The trial opened in Paris on Monday of Mourad Farès, who is accused of running a group of jihadists as well as recruiting people to fight in Syria and financing terrorism.

Britain’s move comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East after the United States killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani.