Middle Orient

The Libyan National Army (LNA) commander, Khalifa Haftar, announced a “decisive battle” for Tripoli. His opponents, the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), responded by asking Turkey to provide military support, prompting Haftar to declare a general mobilization of his forces to resist what he describes as a foreign invasion.

U.S President Donald Trump is threatening to hit Iranian cultural sites if Iran retaliates for last week’s assassination of its top general Qassem Soleimani.

“Turkey’s interference in the region creates a fertile environment for extremists and terrorist groups,” said the Observatory for Monitoring Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Ideologies at Dar al-Ifta in a statement on Sunday.

A Lebanese Hezbollah official said the response of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” to the killing of Iran’s military commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. air strike will be decisive, al-Mayadeen TV said on Saturday.

Terrorist group ISIS will likely be the winner as tensions between Washington and Tehran mount after the U.S. killing of Iran’s most powerful military commander, experts say.

The American assassination of a top Iranian commander may make it impossible for American forces to stay in Iraq. That could ease an ISIS comeback.

The United States plans to designate an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia as a foreign terrorist organization, the State Department said on Friday, accusing the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group of being a violent proxy of Tehran.

Hundreds of thousands packed the streets of Iranian holy city of Mashhad to pay tribute to assassinated Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his companions, who were killed in a US drone strike in Iraq’s Baghdad early Friday.

Iranians have swarmed the streets of Tehran after US assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. Soleimani will be laid to rest in his home town, Kerman, in south of Iran. Among the high-profile figures attending the funeral procession of the revered general are Hezbollah deputy …