Middle Orient

The Donald Trump administration is again set to slash funding for the fight against the Islamic State (IS) in a new budget request unveiled today, as Iraq’s leaders have publicly demanded an end to the US-led combat mission.

Shortly after Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, the Tehran-backed Lebanese organization Hezbollah urgently met with Iraqi militia leaders, seeking to unite them in the face of a huge void left by their powerful mentor’s death, two sources with knowledge of the …

Most of the rockets fired in the past two weeks were fired by PIJ. Khalil Bathani, a leader in PIJ, is considered the main possible target, according to Ynet. He has been targeted in the past.

Lebanon’s protests have drawn protesters from all religious sects. But Hezbollah, the Islamist militia and political party, and its ally, the Amal Movement, have tried to smother demonstrations by Shiites.

Iraq’s military said on Thursday it was resuming operations with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State which had mostly halted after bases hosting U.S. troops came under rocket attacks and a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian commander.

A Russian-backed Syrian government offensive against the country’s last rebel enclave has caused one of the biggest waves of displacement in the nine-year-old war.

Islamic State extremists are mounting increasingly bold attacks in Syria and Iraq following their loss of territory in both countries and are planning for the breakout of their fighters in detention facilities, U.N. experts said in a new report.

In October, Turkey launched an abortive invasion of northern Syria, attacking positions held by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara has claimed are linked to Turkish Kurdish militants waging a decades-long insurgency in south-eastern Turkey.

Reporting from London, TRAC Analyst Sophia Badawy maps an interesting movement of at least 12 different groups of Syrian militants from northern Syria to the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

Former Saudi minister of justice, Mohammed Bin Abdul-Karim Issa, has announced that his country will stop funding mosques in foreign countries, Arabi21.com reported on Friday.