Middle Orient

Last week’s blast in Beirut, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history, has destroyed lives and devastated a city. It has also sharply intensified demands for change in a country that desperately needs fundamental reform.

Tensions are flaring in an eastern Syria province after the assassinations of several powerful Arab tribal leaders, with U.S.-backed forces accusing Islamic State (IS) sleeper cells and Syrian government proxies of carrying out such attacks to cause instability in the former IS stronghold.

At least two explosions have hit convoys supplying U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq in the last 24 hours, security sources said, the first on Monday evening near the southern border with Kuwait and the second on Tuesday north of Baghdad.

Eighty-three PKK terrorists have been killed and a large number of weapons and ammunition seized as part of Turkey’s cross-border anti-terror operations Claw-Tiger and Claw-Eagle, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday.

If the ambitious former presidential candidate Muharrem Ince acts on pledges to start a new political movement, it can only split the opposition and aid the incumbent strongman, President Erdogan.

A drama series telecast on the Saudi-controlled MBC during the holy month of Ramadan is being seen as a clear signal from Saudi Arabia about its growing ties with Israel, the Brussels Times said Tuesday.

On August 4, hours before a massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued an ominous warning to Lebanon.

The explosion in a Beirut portside warehouse containing over 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate on August 4 has done its bit to light more fires under Lebanon’s ruling powers. With the blast still bloodily fresh and traumatic – the destruction of the city’s port with over two hundred deaths and …

Lebanon’s government stepped down on Monday night, less than a week after a massive explosion in Beirut killed more than 170 people and wounded more than 6000, sparking days of violent protests.

Was Donald Trump’s January 3rd drone assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani the first step in turning the simmering Cold War between the United States and Iran into a hot war in the weeks before an American presidential election? Of course, there’s no way to know, but behind by double …