Middle Orient

The authorities in Kosovo said on Saturday that more than 100 of their citizens, mostly women and children who were relatives of jihadists, had been flown home from Syria under heavy security with the assistance of the United States.

The United States is pressing its Kurdish allies in Syria to ease their resistance to allowing Turkish forces to deploy on their side of the Turkish-Syrian border, well-informed sources told Al-Monitor. The Turkish forces would be a part of the proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria.

The representative of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Iran says a significant number of young Lebanese are currently in Iran, helping relief operations for the flood-stricken people.

Turkey “expects” the Trump administration to grant it waivers from the US related to its purchases of Iranian oil and Russian air defences, a top aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Iran’s lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorist, a day after the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard formally took effect, state TV reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week described a powerful Iranian military commander as a “terrorist,” while discussing options the U.S. government could have to further punish Iran for its destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

Libya’s UN-backed government says its military has shot down a fighter jet belonging to the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), led by strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are fighting for the control of the capital Tripoli.

Benjamin Netanyahu — “Bibi” to both friends and enemies — will undoubtedly succeed himself as Israel’s prime minister after his recent electoral success and, in July, surpass David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. But, unlike most genuinely successful leaders of democracies, his first priority will have to be avoiding …

Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism force targeted ISIS holdouts Thursday in the northern region of Hamreen, including a media center, more than a year after the country declared ISIS vanquished, Agence France Presse reported.

L’Irak a proposé aux pays membres de la coalition internationale antijihadistes de juger leurs ressortissants soupçonnés d’avoir rejoint le groupe État islamique (EI), en échange d’au moins deux milliards de dollars.