The U.S. Navy alerted Iran that it was deploying one of its vessels as part of a search and rescue effort for 10 sailors who were off course and allegedly inside Iranian waters, CNN learned from an unnamed U.S. defense
Iranian troops, allied Hezbollah fighters, and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s army have reportedly joined forces to launch a ground offensive, backed by Russian airstrikes, to seize key areas from rebels in Syria.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Russian “aggression” in Europe and now the Middle East is a “new reality” for the United States that is “here to stay,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
Ömer Çelik, a senior official in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned Wednesday that “Kurdish militia in northern Syria appeared intent on creating a de facto zone of control in the region.”
FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday the recruitment of potential homegrown terrorists by the Islamic State group is widespread and goes on “24 hours a day” across the United States.
Egyptian actress and television host Entesar is facing charges of debauchery and blasphemy after telling young men to watch pornography.
The Kurdish Rudaw news agency reports that American Patriot missile batteries have been withdrawn from the Syrian border in southeastern Turkey. Their two-year deployment began in 2013, and was not renewed after it expired this month.
The Islamic State has confirmed the Pentagon’s August claim that it killed ISIS’ deputy commander, Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi. “America is rejoicing over the killing of Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi and considers this a great victory,” a spokesman for the Islamic State named Abu Mohamed al-Adnani declared, in an audio recording posted to Islamist websites, as reported by AFP.
The International Crime Court (ICC) announced plans to open an inquiry into the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The prosecutor wants to investigate alleged human rights abuses by Russia.
Yazidis who suffered under the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Sinjar have filed a genocide case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Netherlands.
Assyrian Christians living in Sweden have been targeted with a string of threatening messages linked to the Islamic State, including demands that they “convert or die.”
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the several ongoing Middle East conflicts during a conversation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Tuesday. Most strikingly, the State Department leader appeared to blame the ongoing Palestinian murder campaign against Israeli Jews on the Jews themselves.
The U.S. and others have accused Russia of propping up the Assad regime by attacking “practically every group opposed to the Syrian government except the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.” Putin claims “the Russian government had asked for the coordinates of the groups that should or should not be attacked, the United States had not responded to either request.”
Cuban military operatives reportedly have been spotted in Syria, where sources believe they are advising President Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers and may be preparing to man Russian-made tanks to aid Damascus in fighting rebel forces backed by the U.S.
The Nigerian military is warning residents in the rural northeast of the nation to beware of unexploded cluster bombs left in shrubbery by ISIS affiliate Boko Haram. Experts contend that it is likely Boko Haram members acquired these bombs by stealing them from the Nigerian army.
The Archbishop of Aleppo has called on the West to act to save Syria from the “fundamentalist, jihadist mercenaries” who threaten his country, “killing anyone who would speak of freedom, citizenship, religious freedom and democracy.”
A cholera outbreak that had affected a reported 100 Iraqis in late September has now spread to over 1,400 patients, Iraq’s health ministry warned this week. The disease, carried through unclean water, has spread throughout the country, though the Iraqi government can only monitor cases in regions not controlled by the Islamic State.
The Chinese government is warning the United States and its allies to stop “adding fuel to the flames” in the longstanding territorial dispute in the South China Sea, following a joint announcement by America and Australia that the nations fully intend to exercise their right to navigate the body of water, which China claims entirely for itself.
Turkish media is reporting the first arrests directly in relation to Saturday’s twin bombings in the capital, Ankara: two suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who tweeted about the event before it occurred.
Less than a month after a hardline member of Iran’s Parliament compared the historic handshake between President Barack Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to signing a pact with the devil, several other members of Parliament (MP) in the Islamic Republic have threatened to execute Zarif and the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEO), Ali Akbar Salehi, over their nuclear deal with the Western world.
When his Democratic opponents were ranting about how the United States should not have gone to Iraq, recycling talking points from the first few years of the last decade, Jim Webb, the former U.S. Senator from Virginia, articulated a vision for the future of America’s role in the world.
During the course of the Democratic Party debate on Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton was asked to defend her disastrous intervention in Libya. In response, Clinton hailed Libya as “smart power at its best,” capturing a delusion that appears to be very common in the current iteration of her Party: the belief that magical “coalitions” of good guys can be whistled into existence to handle foreign-policy crises.
Contents: Dutch report confirms that Russian missile shot down airliner over Ukraine; Russia launches its massive disinformation campaign; ‘Lone wolf’ violence by ‘Oslo generation’ of Palestinians grows; Android apps: Xenakis MathGame and Professional Debt Calculator
“In the name of the Church, I would like to ask forgiveness for the scandals that have occurred in recent times, both in Rome and in the Vatican,” Pope Francis said at the beginning of Wednesday’s General Audience.
An American-backed Syrian Kurdish militia has joined forces with some Arab rebels and members of an Assyrian Christian group to launch an assault against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Raqqa, the jihadist group’s de-facto capital in Syria, according to a statement obtained by Reuters.
General Qasem Soleimani, who heads Iran’s Quds Force—the Iranian special forces unit designated with spreading the Tehran regime’s caliphatist revolution worldwide—has now arrived in Syria along with thousands of Iranian troops, according to reports.
