Middle Orient

Iranian military advisers in Syria are reportedly forming a new militia in the country under their supervision with the aim of boosting an Iranian agenda in the region, a rights group said in a recent report.

On Feb. 14, Russia, Turkey, and Iran resumed their tripartite talks about the future of Syria in the Russian coastal city of Sochi. The main themes of the talks were unsurprising: the last rebel-held enclave in Idlib and Turkey’s continuing concerns about Syrian Kurdish militants – namely the People’s Protection …

The Iraqi army said on Wednesday that eight Islamic State terrorists were apprehended during a military operation in the western province of Anbar.

Despite its initial pleasure upon hearing of the US withdrawal from Syria, Turkey seems to be facing difficulties in achieving its goals in its southern neighbor. Recent back-and-forth statements between the United States and Ankara have pointed to a couple of disagreements over the Syria dossier.

Hundreds of people boarded trucks leaving the last scrap of the Islamic State group’s “caliphate” in eastern Syria on Wednesday as U.S.-backed forces prepared to deliver the final blow to holdout jihadists.

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces have opened a small museum at one of its bases in the Kurdistan Region to exhibit some of the explosive devices it confiscated from the Islamic State which were used against them during battles.

The United Nations says in the last three days some 9,000 people have evacuated the final piece of land still held by the Islamic State terror group in Syria.

The Islamic State group may have lost all its territory in Syria but a rival jihadist group has been making gains in the last remaining opposition stronghold in the north of the country – and it has got residents nervous. In a dramatic takeover last month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned the United States and allies operating along the Syria border that any safe zone planned for the area should be under Ankara’s control.

Islamic State militants on Sunday attacked a village in the disputed province of Kirkuk and after an extended standoff, fled the area, a local source said.