Middle Orient

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met on Thursday in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss the nuclear threat from Iran and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Lapid, who presented the Egyptian president – whose country is serving as the mediator between Israel and Hamas in Gaza …

Iraq’s national security adviser announced on Thursday that the United States military forces and allied forces have ended their combat mission in Iraq and moved to a training and advisory role. Qasim al-Aaraji made the announcement in a tweet. The US has not confirmed this announcement, however. The troops are …

Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said that his group’s dissatisfaction with Egypt was in the context of differences between “brothers.” Despite tensions between Hamas and Egypt, Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip are willing to give the Egyptians and other mediators another chance to prevent a military confrontation …

The UAE and Saudi Arabia warned against the “terrorist Hezbollah” in a joint statement on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia stressed the need to ensure that Lebanon “will not be a starting point for any terrorist acts,” pointing specifically to Hezbollah, and expressed support for a Palestinian …

Airwars finds less than 50 civilians killed compared to the over 200 civilians killed in Gaza during Operation Guardian of the Walls. Less than 50 civilians have been killed in Syria during Israel’s eight-year-long war-between-wars campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure, making it one of the most surgical offensives ever, Airwars.org …

A Syrian opposition member claimed that Syria is working on a nuclear reactor in northwestern Syria. Syrian opposition member and former parliamentary member Mohammad Barmo claimed that North Korea and Iran were helping develop a nuclear reactor in Syria, the latest in a series of similar reports in recent years, …

According to the report, the US-Israeli preparations underscore Western concern about the nuclear talks potentially reaching a dead end. Stop the presses. After almost a year of declining to put any real pressure on Iran, the US leaked a real military threat on Wednesday for the first time. Or did …

The Basra explosion caused by a booby-trapped motorcycle was aimed to assassinate an Iraqi investigative officer in charge of the militia’s illegal activities in the province. In an unprecedented event, a terrorist explosion caused by a motorcycle hit the southern city of Basra on Dec. 7. At least four were …

Mustafa al-Kadhimi met with Kurdistan Region security forces in disputed Makhmour. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited a northern village today that was recently attacked by the Islamic State (IS). Kadhimi went to the village of Liheban in the Makhmour district to meet local residents, his office tweeted. The Islamic …

Ankara has made sweeping arrests of suspected Islamic State militants. Turkish authorities arrested dozens of alleged Islamic State militants today. Police arrested 11 people in Istanbul and 22 in Ankara. There police are searching for eight other individuals in Ankara. The suspects, all foreign nationals, are alleged to have been …