Middle Orient

Killing of Ali Mohammed Younes linked to assassination of Anton al-Hayek in Sidon.

The Syrian Kurdish Anti Terror Forces (HAT) has arrested a senior health official in the ranks of the so-called Islamic State in rural northeastern Hasakah province, local sources said on Sunday.

The Islamic State is continuing to carry out guerrilla attacks; developing and maintaining a comprehensive intelligence picture of the group is seen as an important weapon to keep its militants at bay.

Sheikh Mohammed Kawtharani was branded a global terrorist by the US in 2013 and accused of funding armed groups in Iraq.

An overhauled radar-evading Ghadir-class Iranian submarine has joined the country’s naval fleet.

Disease has long been a daily concern at al-Hol, a detention camp in north-eastern Syria for families of ISIS militants, but now each death raises anxiety about COVID-19. With repatriations on hold, the UN and other international bodies must step up medical and humanitarian aid.

Hezbollah has been working for years on integrating itself into the Lebanese state. Now that the country is falling apart, Hezbollah’s assimilation into the state apparatus, which was initially meant to protect the organization against international pressure, could pose a direct threat to the group’s future.

Senior PKK terrorist Fadil Ekinci in charge of the terrorist group’s activities in Iraq’s Zap region and listed in the blue category of Turkey’s wanted list was killed in an anti-terror operation in coordination with National Intelligence Organization, reports said Wednesday.

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world will turn global economic growth “sharply negative” in 2020, triggering the worst fallout since the 1930s Great Depression, with only a partial recovery seen in 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.

Since Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the United States has spent billions on Black Sea security. Assistance has been insufficient in real terms however, given Russia’s continued aggression and land grabs. US support for the Black Sea and the Middle East has been …