Edwin Mora

Russian authorities have apprehended at least seven people for allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) during the New Year’s celebrations in Moscow.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reportedly threatened to throw corrupt officials out of a helicopter in the same manner he did a Chinese man suspected of rape and murder years ago.

Nearly three dozen young people affiliated with the Nigeria-based Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch Boko Haram have reportedly surrendered to authorities in neighboring Niger, according to Niger’s interior minister.

The military under the socialist regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is capitalizing on the misery of the people they are sworn to protect by running illegal markets that sell food at 100 times the government-set price while much of the South American country finds itself on the verge of starvation, the Associated Press (AP) has learned.

The new parliament of Somalia — made up of some 283 lawmakers — has been inaugurated despite concerns voiced by the United Nations and other international bodies over election irregularities linked to some candidates, in addition to violence, corruption, and intimidation that allegedly marred the integrity of the electoral process in the African country.

The top official in the government of predominantly Muslim Kuwait has reportedly ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from a privately-owned supermarket in an apparent response to an anti-Christmas campaign launched by a member of parliament who considers the ornament un-Islamic.

Al-Qaeda has explored the critical infrastructure in the U.S., such as electric power, telephone communications, and water supplies in search of vulnerabilities to carry out “electronic jihad,” or cyberterrorism, warns the the House Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing.

The Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been lobbying American lawmakers to change the bipartisan law that allows the families of 9/11 victims and survivors of the tragedy to sue the Gulf Arab country in U.S. courts for any role it may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.

Shiite Iran’s narco-jihadist proxy Hezbollah is operating a “virtually unopposed drug trafficking operation” in South America with links to the terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), reports the bipartisan House Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing.

President Barack Obama is expected to transfer out 17 or 18 detainees from the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by the time he leaves office, reducing the facility’s population to 41 or 42, reports The New York Times (NYT).

Russia and Iran, allies of dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, met with pro-Syrian opposition Turkey in Moscow on Tuesday and agreed to work on drafting a peace deal and to serve as “guarantors” of any future resolution between the Syrian regime and rebel fighters, according to the Kremlin’s foreign minister (FM).

A U.S. Army veteran has turned a negative experience into a positive one by launching a campaign to feed hungry and homeless vets after he was denied a free meal at the Chili’s Bar and Grill in Cedar Hill, Texas, in observance of Veterans Day.

Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists have claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing near a military base in the capital of the United Nations-backed government in Yemen, killing and wounding dozens of troops.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in response to the assassination of a Russian ambassador by a Turkish policeman, said he would welcome Russia’s participation in investigating the incident, noting that Ankara and Moscow agree the attack is intended to disrupt mutual ties.

There are still about 9,000 families from the Yazidi minority community displaced in and around Iraq’s Sinjar district without fuel, food, clothes, and electricity amid a ferocious winter, Rudaw has learned.

Social media channels linked to the jihadist rivals Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda are celebrating and capitalizing on Monday’s assassination of Russian ambassador in Ankara by a Turkish policeman, who shouted the common battle cry of Islamic extremists as they commit mass murder, “Allahu Akbar,” during the attack.

A opposition-backed bill in Pakistan seeking to establish a commission to inquire into the revelations made by the controversial Panama Papers, which suggest financial wrongdoings by Prime Minister Sharif and his family, prompted an exchange of harsh words in the Islamabad-based parliament this week.

An armed insurgent group of oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority members in Myanmar who carried out a deadly attack against border guards in October is receiving support from diaspora members in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, reports the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).

Syrian regime allies Russia and Iran are expected to discuss efforts to secure a ceasefire in Aleppo with Turkey, which has supported various armed groups seeking to overthrow dictator Bashar al-Assad, revealed Turkish Foreign Minister (FM) Mevlut Cavusoglu.

President-elect Donald Trump is considering appointing former Republican primary rival Carly Fiorina, who chaired the CIA’s civilian external advisory board during the George W. Bush Administration, as Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Residents of war-ravaged Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, are facing yet another problem — the management of toxic trash that is posing a looming threat to the health of the people in the country’s ancient capital of Sanaa, home to a UNESCO World Heritage site.

U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq have provided weapons and training to hundreds of Shiite militias known for being affiliated with Iran, including some the U.S. has designated terrorists, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

The number of “battle-ready” Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadis in Iraq and Syria has plummeted to “its lowest point” ever, dropping by more than half from up to 25,000 earlier this year to between 12,000 and 15,000 now, according to the White House.

The American commander of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria told reporters that losing the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra to the terrorist group “is probably an embarrassment” to the Russians, and it is up to them to take it back, noting that the city is “theirs” to defend.

The Russia and Iran-backed Syrian forces will continue their brutal onslaught after pushing rebels out of city of Aleppo, according to dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The estimated 40,000 Christians in Aleppo are not among the civilians who are dreading the fall of the city to the Russia and Iran-backed regime of dictator Bashar al Assad, according to a charity group that helps persecuted Christians.

President Barack Obama’s parole-style board has cleared for release a “forever prisoner” that American intelligence officials have determined to have at least one relative who served as an al-Qaeda recruiter and can help him re-engage in terrorist activities.

A top Pakistani official has conceded that Pakistan is still serving as a safe haven for “some” members of the Haqqani Network, a jihadist group the American military believes poses the greatest threat to U.S. forces and their allies fighting in Afghanistan.

A mob of more than 1,000 people armed with batons, guns, and stones has reportedly attacked a mosque of the minority Muslim Ahmadiyah sect in Pakistan, prompting the provincial government to deploy the army to bring the situation under control.

Only an estimated one percent of the heroin seized by law enforcement in the United States originates from the Southwest Asia region that includes Afghanistan, the top producer of opium and heroin in the world, reports the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in its latest National Drug Threat Assessment.