Middle Orient

The Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement says it is holding fire after the regime in Israel accepted its key demands, including stopping targeted killings, as part of an Egypt-mediated truce aimed at ending the military confrontation between the two sides.

The United States and other members of the coalition to defeat the Islamic State failed to reach consensus on what to do with captured foreign fighters, one of several issues threatening to reverse gains made against the terror group in Syria and Iraq.

Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on legislators to promptly introduce a fair electoral law that would restore people’s faith in elections in the wake of weeks of protests in the capital Baghdad and a host of southern cities.

They claim since force cannot impose democracy, it was wrong for the US to invade Iraq and dislodge Saddam Hussein. They ignore the fact that though force cannot impose democracy, impediments to democracy can, and have been, removed by force.

Iran condemned the United States’ support for “rioters” in a statement issued late Sunday, after two days of violent protests in the Islamic republic against a petrol price hike.

Fighting reportedly intensified between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and U.S.-backed Kurdish forces Sunday over a major highway and a strategic town in northeastern Syria.

A senior U.S. coalition commander said Friday the partnership with Syrian Kurdish forces remains strong and focused on fighting the Islamic State group, despite an expanding Turkish incursion into areas under Kurdish control.

He has fought Israel since the 1990s and killed many fighters in Syria’s civil war, but the increasing difficulty of working-class life in Lebanon and a popular revolt against the country’s leaders has forced Abu Hussein to reevaluate his decades-long service to Hezbollah.

The U.S. Treasury Department has announced a new round of counterterrorism designations targeting the Islamic State’s support network. Among those sanctioned are two brothers — Ismail and Ahmet Bayaltun — who are based in Turkey and have acted as procurement agents for the group.

Thousands of protesters rallying against the Lebanese political elite blocked roads in central Beirut on Tuesday, preventing lawmakers from reaching the parliament and forcing the postponement of a legislative session.