Hurras al-Din, affiliated with al-Qaeda in Syria, claimed responsibility for an attack against a Russian base in northern Raqqa and pledged to expand operations outside its areas of deployment in Idlib.

In an attempt to counter Turkey’s expansion in West Africa, Egypt and the UAE seek to consolidate their ties with Senegal, the gateway to West Africa, by pushing forward new investments in the African country.

Turkey feels vindicated as al-Ula Declaration ends the blockade against Qatar. The Kuwaiti emir’s proposal to end the more than three-year-old Qatar blockade was accepted just as the Gulf Cooperation Council summit started on Jan. 5 in the historic city of al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. All four states — Saudi Arabia, …