Eurasia Press & News

The Syrian Kurdish Anti Terror Forces (HAT) has arrested a senior health official in the ranks of the so-called Islamic State in rural northeastern Hasakah province, local sources said on Sunday.

The Islamic State is continuing to carry out guerrilla attacks; developing and maintaining a comprehensive intelligence picture of the group is seen as an important weapon to keep its militants at bay.

Sheikh Mohammed Kawtharani was branded a global terrorist by the US in 2013 and accused of funding armed groups in Iraq.

An overhauled radar-evading Ghadir-class Iranian submarine has joined the country’s naval fleet.

One domestically made Y-20 large cargo aircraft can reportedly carry two newly commissioned Type 15 tanks for long-range transport operations, and this new combination will enhance the Chinese military’s strategic transport capability, experts said on Wednesday.

A fourth US aircraft carrier now has cases of COVID-19 among its crew. The USS Nimitz was preparing to deploy later this month for sea trials and had already begun bringing crew aboard.

Disease has long been a daily concern at al-Hol, a detention camp in north-eastern Syria for families of ISIS militants, but now each death raises anxiety about COVID-19. With repatriations on hold, the UN and other international bodies must step up medical and humanitarian aid.

Hezbollah has been working for years on integrating itself into the Lebanese state. Now that the country is falling apart, Hezbollah’s assimilation into the state apparatus, which was initially meant to protect the organization against international pressure, could pose a direct threat to the group’s future.

US officials have slammed Hezbollah’s “false” claims it is trying to influence the appointment of top Lebanese banking officials, telling The National that the Iran-backed group was attempting to “distract the Lebanese people.”

An improvised explosive device went off on a road in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, killing five forestry workers traveling to work, officials said.