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First reports of a series of explosions was heard this morning (Sunday) at a base where US forces are stationed in eastern Syria, the country's official television reported.

Sources told @aamajnews24 that the Iranian side is using heavy weapons (as you can see towards the end of the clip), and the Taliban have deployed the American Humvees in the fight against the Iranians. There are no details yet on why these clashes have broken out.

Dong Jingwei, who has been rumored to be a high-ranking defector to the United States, attended a meeting in Beijing on June 23, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The MPS announced on its website that Dong participated in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) security meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, as a member of the China team which was led by Zhao Kezhi, China’s public security minister. In the announcement, the ministry released a photo, in which Dong was sitting at the right end of the table. This is the first time that the Chinese regime has...

During a rendezvous at the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranian regime's foreign minister lodged a formal complaint with his Swedish counterpart about the trial of Hamid Noury, a former Iranian official, in Stockholm. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Sweden's Ann Linde that all the documents provided to the court are "fabricated." A month prior, a spokesman for the regime's Foreign Ministry had warned, "We will naturally use all our diplomatic means to obtain and enforce Hamid Noury's rights." Who is Hamid Noury, and why is the regime clearly terrified of his trial in Sweden? Hamid Noury was a low-ranking official in...

Armenia on Tuesday asked Russia to help defend it against Azerbaijan after a border clash in which it said 15 of its soldiers had been killed, 12 captured, and two combat positions had been lost. The fighting was the worst since a 44-day war last year fought between ethnic Armenian forces and the Azeri army over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave which killed at least 6,500 people and ended in a decisive victory for Azerbaijan. That conflict ended after Russia brokered a peace deal and deployed almost 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. Turkey took the side of Azerbaijan, which took back swathes...

What will the Middle East region look like when, one day, Iran loses its steep foothold in Syria? Israel’s strategy over the last several years has been to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria. This has come to be known as the “campaign between the wars” or “war between the wars.” The concept is that Iran’s tentacles in Syria, which have grown rapidly in the last decade, can be cut off one by one and Tehran may eventually stop regrowing them. But there are questions about what the overall effect of this will be when the next conflict emerges. While Israel...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Islamist ambitions seem to be seeking an international role in post-U.S. Afghanistan in alliance with the Taliban, Qatar, Pakistan and Malaysia. The trouble is, Turkey, among the new sharia alliance in the making, is the only country with institutional ties to the Western world. Biden has weakened himself and his country so badly that the superpower was reduced to the point of being blackmailed by NATO's only Islamist member. Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has made it clear: "If the U.S. is to be in the Middle East, it must cooperate with Turkey." Afghanistan is...

The regional interest in rehabilitating Syria is largely a counter to Iranian influence in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and other parts of the Arab world The Turkish government has been accused of seeking to change the demographic reality on the ground in the northern Kurdish-inhabited Syria by resettling tens of thousands of Arab Syrians in the region. ...... also....Threatened by Iranian-led forces on its northern borders, Israel shares the Arab world’s desire to push Iran out of Syria. A key goal for the Israeli government has been to prevent Iran from transferring game-changing weapons to the powerful terrorist proxy Hezbollah that...

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi addresses the nation following a drone strike that targeted his residence in Baghdad on November 7. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi addresses the nation following a drone strike that targeted his residence in Baghdad on November 7. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an attack by an armed drone on his residence on November 7 amid escalating tensions over the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. The Baghdad residence inside the city's fortified Green Zone was hit by a rocket attack early on November 7, the prime minister’s office said...

Few areas of public policy lend themselves less easily to big-picture doctrinal sorting and various "-ism" labeling than does foreign policy. That is perhaps now truer than ever, as America's two major political parties continue their already ascendant realignment, with Democrats abandoning their working-class roots in favor of a professional-managerial ruling class and Republicans ditching the libertarian-inspired corporatism of yesteryear in favor of a "deplorable"-inspired populism. Foreign policy is an inherently nuanced subject, and speaking in broad strokes about it during a once-in-a-generation political realignment can risk analytical error. Those caveats aside, we should still feel comfortable making what may,...

At the beginning of October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to two journalists — Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov — for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” The committee noted that “they are representatives of all journalists … in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.” Fair enough. It is also fair to point out that it’s possible that part of the reason why the committee gave the award to a couple of reporters was to avoid...

on’t worry if you hear an explosion,” our Armenian guide tells us as we creep along the bombed-out streets of Martuni. “By the time you hear it, it has already missed you. You should only really worry if you hear the hum of a drone. Which you will,” he adds with a dry grin. This small town is less than two miles from the front line of a bloody battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh—an area about the size of Delaware that’s entirely within Azerbaijan and largely inhabited by ethnic Armenians. The conflict dates back...

The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco all said in 2020 they would normalize ties with Israel, as Washington under the administration of then-US president Donald Trump made Arab-Israeli rapprochement a foreign policy priority. “Some governments have unfortunately made errors — have made big errors and have sinned in normalizing (their relations) with the usurping and oppressive Zionist regime,” Khamenei says... “It is an act against Islamic unity, they must return from this path and make up for this big mistake,”

The inauguration of an Iranian governor was interrupted by a man walking on stage and slapping him in the face - allegedly because he was furious his wife had to get her Covid jab delivered by a male doctor. Abedin Khorram was appointed as Governor of East Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran was slapped by 'a member of the armed forces' during the ceremony, according to the regime-linked Fars news agency. Mr Khorram is a former IRGC provincial commander and has reportedly been kidnapped in the past by Syrian rebel forces. After taking the podium for his inaugural address, the...

While much of the international focus has remained on Iran's nuclear program, Tehran has steadily advanced another major instrument of instability, i.e., drones. For over a decade, the regime has sunk billions of dollars into the effort as part of its regional destabilization policy. To avoid more crises in hotspots like Lebanon and Syria, the international community must act now to curb Tehran's massive drone initiative. Let’s start with the facts. Despite crippling economic misfortune, Tehran has invested billions in drone production, in a bid to compensate for its failing Air Force. On October 6, 2021, a sweeping expositionon the...

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias underscored the persistent “threat of war” with Turkey in a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the signing of a deal to upgrade defense cooperation between Athens and Washington. “Greece is facing a casus belli, a threat with war if it exercises its sovereign rights and, I have to say, Greece is facing daily provocation,” Dendias said Thursday at the State Department. “Greece is committed to resolve disputes with diplomacy and always in accordance with international law.”... ...Dendias hailed the revisions to the U.S.-Greece security deal as a bulwark against Turkey, which also...

The would-be hitman in the alleged Iranian terror plot to assassinate one or more Israeli businessmen in Cyprus reportedly spied out potential targets at an office complex where multiple Israelis worked, Channel 12 news reported Monday night...According to Channel 12, the hired killer was of Azerbaijani origin and recently arrived in Cyprus on a flight from Russia using a Russian passport. Landing in Larnaca on the Cypriot southern side of the island he is said to have made his way to the Turkish-controlled city of Paralimni in the north where he rented a room and two vehicles...Citing Cypriot police suspicions,...

Joe Biden showed up at the U.N. General Assembly on September 21 and delivered his prescription for ensuring Israel’s future. Robert Spencer wrote about his speech here, and a report on Biden’s “commitment to Israel’s security” is here: “Biden Says Two-State Solution Is ‘The Only Way’ to End Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” i24 News, September 21, 2021: President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a sovereign and democratic Palestinian state is the “best way” to ensure Israel’s future. How likely is it that there will ever be a “democratic” Palestinian state? There are right now 22 Arab states. Not one of them...

His name is Muhamnad al-Kurd.Mohammed el-Kurd becomes the Palestine Correspondent for The Nation Jerusalem Post Staff, September 17, 2021 Mohammed el-Kurd and his twin sister, Muna, are well-known Palestinian activists. El-Kurd has also expressed anti-US sentiments, calling the US military a "murderous terrorist organization" and US President Joe Biden a "successful was criminal." In a separate tweet, Mohammed expressed his hope that US troops' "PTSD never heal". ____ Facebook's policy inconsistency puts Israelis at risk. Emily Echrader, JPost, June 28, 2021 Muna El Kurd, the Sheikh Jarrah activist who’s made international headlines with her brother, had at least five...

During an event in Cambridge, England on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said despite communist China’s long list of human rights abuses, the United States must partner with them to fight climate change. “The situation with China is tightening, it’s getting worse,” Pelosi acknowledged. She continued: With their military aggression in the South China Sea, with their continuation of genocide with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, with their violation of the cultural… religious priority of Tibet, with their suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and other parts of China as well – they’re just getting worse in terms of suppression...