Middle Orient

Al-Qaida-linked fighters attacked Syrian government positions Sunday on the edge of the country’s last rebel stronghold, triggering intense clashes that killed nearly three dozen combatants across both sides, opposition activists said.

Counter terrorism police are investigating whether sleepers from Islamic State have been reactivated to carry out attacks around Europe.

An Israeli district court on Monday convicted a Jewish extremist of murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents, a case that had sent shock waves through Israel and helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The Iraqi army launched operation Desert Lions to pursue ISIS remnants across the Jazirah desert north of the Anbar, south of the Nineveh and west of the Salaheddine provinces all the way to the border with Syria.

Some nine years after Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) deployed military advisers and fighters to Syria to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, Israeli and U.S. officials have said Tehran is reducing its presence in Syria.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei says the United States will be “expelled from Iraq and Syria,” adding that “The U.S. government’s long-term performance has led to abhorrence by a major part of the world.”

Bottom Line Up Front The United States recently announced plans to remove two Patriot anti-missile systems from Saudi Arabia, which could be accompanied by a further drawdown of other U.S. military capabilities in the region.The removal of the Patriot missile batteries is emblematic of the Trump administration’s schizophrenic policy on …

Bottom Line up Front Iraq’s new government will struggle to extricate the country from its role as an arena for conflict between Iran and the United States, or necessarily set Iraq on a course for long-term stability.

The newly announced decision to shutter the Israeli Air Force’s (IAF) oldest F-16 squadron came as a direct result of the military’s large-scale, multi-year “Momentum” plan, which seeks to enhance the lethality of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and signals a targeted focus on Iran.

With the Syrian regime’s offensive in Idlib paused, the time is now for a deal sparing the rebellion’s last stronghold the full wrath of reconquest. The parties should pursue an improved ceasefire including the regime, Russia, Turkey and the Islamist militants entrenched in the province.