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The EU foreign policy chief says Europe does “not see eye to eye” with the Trump administration on major issues such as trade, climate change and funding of U.N. agencies, but can “easily” work with the U.S. on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Federica Mogherini spoke Saturday during a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum. Mogherini warned that threatened U.S. cuts in funding U.N. agencies “would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe.” …

"I strongly condemn any attack on Jews anywhere in the world and on Israeli citizens," the EU foreign minister said...

The EU's diplomatic chief Monday bluntly rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that Europe would follow the US in recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital, saying there would be no change to its stance on the holy city. Netanyahu said the controversial announcement by US President Donald Trump -- which prompted diplomatic alarm and street protests across the Islamic world -- had "put facts squarely on the table". As he arrived for talks in Brussels, Netanyahu said he expected "all or most" European countries would follow the US -- but the 28-nation bloc's foreign policy head Federica Mogherini...

For the last several years, Russian security services have driven Islamist radicals and others out of the North Caucasus and other regions of the Russian Federation under paid of jail or death to fight for ISIS in Syria, Israeli expert Avraam Shmulyevich says. Now that the last redoubts of the Islamic State in that country have fallen, these same services, exploiting Chechens in Syria, have begun to extract these same people back to Russia, an action that strongly suggests, the president of the Israeli Eastern Partnership Institute says, that Moscow plans to make use of them elsewhere – and may...

Has Iran given cruise missiles to Hizballah as well as Yemen’s Houthis? The maiden operational launch of Iran’s Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile was apparently entrusted to Yemen’s Houthis against a UAE target. ... Yemen’s Houthi rebels last week showed on their TV channel video footage of Iran’s most highly advanced Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead. They claimed to have fired it at the unfinished Abu Dhabi power plant on Dec.3. The United Arab Emirates refuted this claim, saying that any missile reaching their air space would have been intercepted by advanced Emirati air defenses. But...

The Russian Defense Ministry has reacted to statements of the American side that Russian Air Forces allow dangerous rapprochements with the American planes in Syria, invading into airspace to the east from the Euphrates River, Interfax reports. The official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry major general Igor Konashenkov has in reply called the USA to focus on extermination of terrorists of IS group (it is forbidden in Russia) in Iraq, but not to provoke incidents in air. According to Konashenkov, dangerous rapprochements of the Russian and American planes near the valley of the Euphrates River in Syria are most...

BAGHDAD -- Iraq said Saturday that its war on the Islamic State group is over after more than three years of combat operations drove the extremists from all of the territory they once held.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday blasted U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. "We feel that we are facing Balfour Declaration 2," Nasrallah said...." "We all know that the Israeli enemy and the leaders of this entity do not respect international resolutions. This is proven. They do not even respect the agreements they signed. Their interest is the most important for them, they do not care what the Arab countries, Islamic states, European countries, Canada and Latin America say," added the Hezbollah leader. "For those who are interested in a peace agreement, Trump...

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “We feel that we are facing Balfour Declaration 2,” Nasrallah said. “When we understand the dangers involved in this decision, it will prompt everyone to act and take responsibility — and not to obey the voices that will be heard in the coming days. I expect that we will hear voices in the Arab and Islamic world that will say that what happened is meaningless.” […] Nasrallah claimed that, with Trump’s declaration, “he humiliated a billion and a half Muslims,...

Russia’s unexpected announcement recognizing Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem, a dramatic decision that places Vladimir Putin against Donald Trump in a totally new big-power rivalry – the race to Jerusalem. Many American and Israeli Jews have waited with mounting impatience for Trump to keep his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Against an atmosphere of US equivocation, Putin suddenly announced, without preamble or restricting conditions, the recognition of Israel’s capital, to take effect immediately.

In one audio recording, Erdogan was heard ordering his son to get rid of all the cash he kept at home; and his son, after trying for several hours, tells him there are still millions left. Erdogan denied the authenticity of the evidence and claimed this was a coup d'état against his elected administration. He then purged all prosecutors and police officers investigating the charges. Zarrab's testimony as a witness, as well as documents displayed at trial "would show that this conspiracy to launder money for Iran was not a rogue operation. It would show the Turkish government at...

An Iranian-backed militia in Iraq threatened on Thursday to attack US forces in the country over US President Donald Trump recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. "The decision by Trump on Al-Quds [Jerusalem] makes it legitimate to strike the American forces in Iraq," Al-Nojaba militia chief Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement. The group, established in 2013 and supported by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, numbers around 1,500 fighters and is part of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) auxiliary force that has fought alongside the army against ISIS. Following Trump’s announcement, Iran strongly condemned the decision, saying it threatened a...

(JTA) — The Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, D.C., canceled its Christmas reception due to President Trump’s expected announcement that he will be recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“Whatever Israel wants, we in Ghana will go by that, because that is essentially an internal decision” While the Trump administration has been hit with a barrage of warnings that is stands to throw the Middle East into chaos if it recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the possible move has garnered support among Israel’s allies in Africa.

Climate Change and Water Woes Drove ISIS Recruiting in Iraq [Snip] Across rural Iraq and Syria, farmers, officials, and village elders tell similar stories of desperate farmhands swapping backhoes for assault rifles. Already battered by decades of shoddy environmental policies, which had hobbled agriculture and impoverished its dependents, these men were in no state to navigate the extra challenges of climate change. And so when ISIS came along, propelled in large part by sectarian grievances and religious fanaticism, many of the most environmentally damaged Sunni Arab villages quickly emerged as some of the deep-pocketed jihadists’ foremost recruiting grounds.

The head of Lebanon's powerful militant group Hezbollah accused Saudi Arabia Sunday of forcing the country's prime minister to resign after less than a year in his post, as Bahrain ordered its citizens in Lebanon to "leave immediately" and banned travel there. Prime Minister Saad Hariri stunned Lebanon and its leaders Saturday when he announced his resignation in a televised statement recorded in Saudi Arabia, citing Iranian and Hezbollah meddling in Arab affairs. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, one of Lebanon's most powerful figures, said the statement was "dictated and forced upon" Hariri and called for calm as Lebanese leaders consult...

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah broadcast a prerecorded speech from Bint Jebail, Lebanon, on Aug. 14 to mark the 10th anniversary of the war between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in summer 2006. It was a typical Nasrallah speech that included all his familiar themes: Israelis had lost trust in the institutions that defend them, and the 2006 fighting had cast doubt on Israel’s ability to continue to exist at all. He said that Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are weak and tired and cannot defend themselves for much longer. He also mentioned his 2006 “spider web...

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been waging a battle against U.S. President Donald Trump's intention to recognize Jerusalem as the official capital of the State of Israel but appears to be having trouble recruiting Arab leaders to the cause, Hahadashot (formerly Channel 2 News) reported Sunday. According to the report, Abbas has been calling all the leaders of the Arab and Islamic region and asked them to convene an emergency meeting of the Arab League. Despite his appeals, however, the leaders of the Arab world are not cooperating with him. The only one who expressed willingness to help...

Baghdad (Iraqi News) The self-proclaimed Islamic State group has released a video showing a Syrian pilot, who was captured by the IS extremists more than a year ago, being burned alive, Al Arabeya News reported. The video showed Major Azzam Eid, who was wearing the significant red/ orange uniform that used by the IS for prisoners, being chained to a tree, before the Islamic State militants set him on fire. The man could be heard screaming in pain before his body became completely burned.

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – In an interview with Kurdistan 24, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R, California) explained why he felt strongly that the US must support the Kurds. “I am totally dismayed that there’s been any talk whatsoever about reducing our arms support for the Kurdish people, who are fighting against evil forces in the Middle East,” he said. Rohrabacher described the Kurds as “a stalwart in the fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism, or, let’s say, radical terrorists who are using Islam.” “The Kurds need to be recognized for this,” he affirmed, as he cautioned...