Middle Orient

SOHR sources from inside eastern Ghouta say that members of the branch “277”, known as “Military Security”, have seized hundreds of apartments, shops and farms again in several areas in eastern Ghouta, under the decision of “provisional seizure.”

Syria continues to offer the ground where Russia and the United States compete over control of oil and gas fields and the transportation routes that bring energy to consumers. Russia seeks to expand its energy footprint in Syria to build influence over rebel-controlled areas in Northeast Syria that are backed …

SOHR sources say that gunmen, believed to be ISIS cells, targeted with machine guns a military patrol of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the village of Al-Zar in eastern rural Deir al-Zour, but no casualties have been reported so far. Yesterday, Syrian Observatory activists documented the death of an SDF …

An American journalist, living in northwestern Syria for nearly a decade, has been released, six months after he was captured by an al-Qaeda-linked militant group, Syrian opposition media reported. Bilal Abdul Kareem, a native of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has been living in the rebel-held Syrian northwest since 2012, reporting on …

The intense activity of ISIS mercenaries comes in the absence of Russian warplanes for more than 48 hours from bombing the Badia, while helicopters and warplanes of the Damascus government carried out about ten air strikes in the past 48 hours. In a related context, the Syrian Observatory for Human …

The controversial Geert Wilders has had spats with the Turkish government before amid wider crises between Turkey and the Netherlands. The Turkish government and a far-right Dutch politician are in a row over a tweet portraying the Turkish president as a terrorist and Islamic State (IS) supporter.

India will also join the defense maneuver, according to the Iranian navy. The Iranian military began a naval drill with Indian and Russian forces on Tuesday.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said attempts to blame Tehran for the attack are “suspicious.” Iran’s government Tuesday denied involvement in Monday night’s rocket strike that killed one person and injured nine in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ansar al-Tawhid recently attacked a Russian operations room in the south of Idlib governate, killing and injuring several soldiers on the site, raising questions about the group’s identity and affiliations.

A rocket attack on a US base in northern Iraq is putting pressure on the Iraqi government and challenging the Biden administration’s policy in Iraq. At exactly 9:30 pm local time on Feb. 15, several rockets were launched on US coalition forces located inside Erbil’s international airport from the southern …