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The organization, CSTO, is a Russian-led security alliance that includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan “Radicals from Central Asia have accounted for a notable share of recent Islamic State-inspired or -directed plots and attacks in the United States, Europe, Turkey, and Iran,” Lucas Webber and Riccardo Valle wrote in a Hudson Institute analysis last year. In September 2022, ISKP – which vehemently opposes Russia’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria – claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul which left six dead. Despite repeatedly warnings from foreign sources – including the U.S....

Protests began in Iran on September 16, prompted by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was dragged away and allegedly beaten by the morality police for wearing her hijab improperly. Now, a new horror is being forced on the protesters of Iran who've spent weeks continuing their fight amidst brutal oppression by Islamic forces. More than 14,000 Iranians have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations being held around the country, with the country's parliament voting overwhelmingly last week in favour of the death penalty. Protests are being held across the world in solidarity with Iranian citizens. Image: Taken...

Huge signs were erected this week all over Damascus, the capital of Syria, as a sign of support for Russia and the war against Ukraine. Alongside huge pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin read "Truth Will Win" and "Victory for Russia"pic.twitter.com/y06Dng72mo— Gal Aharonovich (@GalAharonovich) March 9, 2022Getty

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad tells his Russian ally Putin the assault on Ukraine is justified and aimed at ‘restoring’ post-Cold-War balance.

Something strange is going on. Why is the EU so keen to shoe-horn America back into the nuclear deal with Iran? Former US president Donald Trump ditched the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal three years ago and imposed heavy sanctions on the mullahs’ regime under his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. Since then, the Iranians have boasted about how they have flouted the terms of the deal by accelerating their advanced centrifuge program and enriching uranium to almost weapons grade fissile status. The Biden administration is being ultra-cautious. But the EU’s high Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security, the Spanish...

Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge who is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, secured victory as expected on Saturday in Iran’s presidential election after a contest marked by voter apathy over economic hardships and political restrictions... Turnout in Friday's four-man race was a record low of around 48.8% and there were 3.7 million invalid ballots that were likely to have been mostly blank or protest votes. Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under U.S. sanctions a few months later over human rights violations. Those included the...

One factor in a bunch of Americans opting for Donald Trump in 2016 was his promise not to start a new war in the Middle East — but the D.C. establishment secretly kept troops in Syria, and lied about it to the president.Defense One, a subsidiary of The Atlantic, came out with a story last week about a man named Jim Jeffrey. If you haven’t heard of him, don’t feel bad, but he’s pretty important in Washington, D.C. Under his fancy title, he’s been appointed to oversee the U.S. fight against ISIS and what are supposed to be the limited...

If these predictions come to pass, their fulfillment will have lasting effects upon America in the 2020s and beyond. In 2008, as the Obama administration prepared to take control in Washington, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a list of bold predictions for the coming five years. Some of them bore out: The economy performed well globally despite the Great Recession, relations with Russia became more hostile without devolving into outright dysfunction, and the United States withdrew from Iraq right at the 36-month mark, which McCaffrey specified. Other predictions, such as a North Korean collapse, improved prospects for success in...

Syrian and Turkish armies opened fire on each other today for the first time since Ankara began its incursion against the Kurds. Artillery and machine-gun fire was exchanged near the village of Assadiya, south of the border town of Ras al-Ain, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Six Syrian soldiers were killed, according to the war monitor. President Bashar al-Assad had bolstered Kurdish strongholds in northern Syria after Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his offensive on October 9 to establish a 75-mile wide, 20-mile deep buffer zone.

WALLACE: ...in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the president ever did. Let's watch:(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)ROCKEFELLER: I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th that question is increasingly outdated.(END VIDEO CLIP)WALLACE: Now, the president never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?ROCKEFELLER: No. I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a...

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) took shots at Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and her prosecutorial record during Wednesday night's Democratic Debate."Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and she'll be a prosecutor as president. But I'm deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," Gabbard said. "She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She...

To strike Syria, or not to strike Syria. As of Thursday evening, Donald Trump, our tweeter in chief, is keeping the world, the Russians and Syria's dictator-in-chief Bashar al-Assad guessing. On Wednesday, President Trump said U.S. missiles "will be coming" to visit Syria in retaliation for its government's alleged use of chemical weapons on the Syrian town of Douma on April 7. On Thursday, Trump hedged a little, tweeting that he "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!" Later he tweeted, "We'll see what happens." Trump being...

The Palestinian cause will stay alive among Arabs until the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the Syrian president’s office said... “The future of Jerusalem is not determined by a state or a president but is determined by its history and by the will and determination in the Palestinian cause,” President Bashar al-Assad’s office said on an official social media feed.

1. Ahmad Abu Adass In 2005, the last year of his life, Ahmad Abu Adass was 22 and still living with his parents in Beirut, Lebanon. He was kind and liked people, his friends later told investigators, but none of them thought he was very sophisticated. The best way to describe him was simple, one said. He was generous and a little naïve. He was very weak, physically. A Sunni Muslim of Palestinian descent, Adass had become interested in religion and now spent many hours at the Arab University Mosque near his home. It was there, after a prayer session,...

Get ready for more red-lining from Bashar al-Assad. Despite claims from Russia and the Syrian dictator himself that he fully disarmed his chemical-weapons program, a high-ranking defector tells the UK Telegraph that Assad still has hundreds of tons of those munitions stockpiled for use by his military. General Zaher al-Sakat says that includes sarin gas, the munitions used against a village in Idlib province that provoked a military strike from the US in reprisal (via Guy Benson): President Bashar al-Assad continues to retain hundreds of tonnes of his country’s chemical stockpile after deceiving United Nations inspectors sent in to dismantle...

The Obama administration claimed that it negotiated with Syria and Russia to eliminate "100 percent" of Syria's chemical weapons. After President Barack Obama's 2012 "red line" warning to Syria about using chemical weapons, Syria launched a chemical attack in August 2013. But U.S. military action was avoided by the alleged Russian/American/Syrian diplomatic accomplishment, achieved without "firing a shot." Here's what we were told: President Obama, on April 28, 2014: "We're getting chemical weapons out of Syria without having initiated a strike." Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., crowed on June 1, 2014: "We're getting the chemical weapons out of Syria." And Sen....

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley gave a speech today in which she sharply criticized Russia, saying it was “long past time” for them to stop covering for the Assad regime in Syria. “To my colleagues from Russia, you are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assad’s planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death,” Haley said. “People, not just in the West but across the Middle East and the world are speaking out against Assad’s brutality,” she said. She continued, “It is long...

A simple news segment about the media coverage of Syria spun wildly out of control during Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN. It started with Foreign Correspondent Lara Setrakian noting how little coverage the Syrian civil war received in the early years. But it ending with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, going off the rails and declaring that “We need to understand the historical context of how a butcher like Assad actually has more in common with someone like Dick Cheney than he does with the average Syrian…” Scahill’s inane tirade derailed the whole segment from the moment he opened...

The evacuation of civilians and fighters from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo concluded on Thursday after long delays because of frigid weather, putting all of Syria’s industrial capital back in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time since 2012. ...Tens of thousands of people have been removed from eastern Aleppo since Dec. 15. Before the last buses left on Thursday, the Red Cross said that 34,000 people had left the city, including 4,000 fighters who had left in their own vehicles the previous night. ...The seizure of all of Aleppo by Mr. Assad and his...

It's surprising how time slips away: Five years ago next month, President Obama proclaimed a "responsibility to act" when American "interests and values are at stake." He made that statement in a major address at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. Within days, a no-fly zone was established over Libya, and the forces of longtime dictator Muammar Kaddafi were stopped in their tracks. In April, Mr. Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint letter congratulating themselves for having prevented a “bloodbath.” They emphasized: "Tens of thousands of lives have been protected." It...