Middle Orient

President Trump announced that he’s ordered new sanctions on Iran, following an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has directly blamed Iran for the attack — which forced state-owned Saudi Aramco to halve its production — Trump has stopped short, saying he wanted to …

Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday apprehending a hideout belonging to the Islamic State group, south of Kirkuk, while arrested a terrorist who was hiding inside the hideout, and found detonators and explosive devices inside the hideout.

Saudi Arabia has displayed drone and missile debris that it said showed a weekend attack targeting the kingdom’s crucial oil industry was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.”

urkey’s president has said that up to three million Syrian refugees could return to their country to live in a “safe zone” in the north.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command announced on early Monday the start of a military operation to “dry up the sources of terrorism” in the desert areas between the provinces of Anbar and Najaf along the Saudi Arabian border.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Sunday described the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as “separatist terrorist” forces and asserted Damascus is determined “to reclaim every inch of Syrian territory.”

U.S. President Donald Trump says American forces are ‘locked and loaded’ to respond to the fiery attacks on one of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil fields and the world’s biggest crude oil stabilization facility.

Kurdish-led SDF calls for dialogue one day before Putin, Erdogan and Rouhani are set to meet in Ankara. In a rare shift of rhetoric, Syria’s foreign ministry labeled the Syrian Democratic Forces as “separatist terrorist militias” in a letter to United Nations Secretary-General.

“Our new missile is capable of destroying all military battleships, killing all who are on board,” wrote a Hezbollah activist on Twitter.

In politics, as in life, the urgent always trumps the important. The urgent question about ISIS these days is the fate of thousands of foreign former fighters now languishing in limbo in makeshift prisons. The countries these militants come from are reluctant to take them back.