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Pictures circulating online show an Egyptian military vessel engulfed in flames after a rocket attack by extremists operating on the Sinai peninsula. Crew members were forced to jump overboard after the fire took hold on a ship owned by the country's navy. The incident took place in the Mediterranean Sea close to Israel and the Gaza Strip, in the latest escalation of extremist-linked violence across North Africa. Dramatic images appear to show a missile heading towards the warship before a ball of flames erupts and black smoke billows from the scene....

In the latest tale of the war on terror gone awry, the U.S. government allowed military equipment purchased with taxpayer money to help Yemen’s security forces defeat Islamist extremists to sit unused inside a Virginia warehouse for a stunning eight years. Even as the pro-U.S. government in Yemen was teetering and eventually overthrown by Islamist rebels in recent months, the Obama administration was unable to get the 200 parcels of equipment dislodged from its storage space and sent to its ally, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm for Congress.

Egypt's Islamic State affiliate said on Thursday it fired a rocket at an Egyptian naval vessel in the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Israel and the Gaza Strip. The militant group Sinai Province has focused mainly on attacking Egyptian soldiers and police in the Sinai peninsula, killing hundreds since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Photographs distributed online by the group appeared to show a rocket heading towards a ship and setting it ablaze on impact. Reuters could not verify the militants' version of events. The Egyptian military said in...

the most interesting man in the world While the biggest concern to most of us in regards to the Iran nuclear talks remains Obama’s aiding Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, one of the most important items from Iran’s standpoint was the removal of economic sanctions. Not only were these sanctions hurting Iran’s economy and people — the mullahs could give a fat rat’s patootie about that — and it was hurting members of the Iranian ruling clique. Among the big winners in the agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, count a notorious and shadowy Iranian general who helped Shiite militias...

Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has written an op-ed in the Financial Times which sets forward a distinct sequence for ostensibly resolving the daunting security challenges of the Middle East. First, the P5+1 - the group of powerful nations negotiating with Iran - should come to a deal over its nuclear program. As a result, he argues, Tehran will "open new horizons" and join "the international battle" against "the increasingly brutal extremism that is engulfing the Middle East." The idea that Iran is a partner in the fight against terrorism is not only disingenuous but also absurd. What Zarif is...

Senate Republicans concede they are not likely to have enough votes to overturn President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran unless they can swing a key Democratic voice against the accord. They’re setting their sights on Hillary Clinton, vowing to tie her to the deal in hopes of pressuring her to oppose it. GOP leaders need 67 votes to override Obama’s expected veto and keep sanctions on Iran in place. The administration has not yet announced an accord but lawmakers expect it to come soon. “It could be a good policy strategy. It’s not going to be hard to come up...

Russia wants to see a United Nations arms embargo against Iran lifted "as soon as possible" but it is up to Tehran to accept the terms of a final nuclear deal, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

Regardless of whether the world powers and Iran sign a nuclear deal by the new Friday deadline, chants of “Death to Israel” are expected to reverberate throughout Iran that day as it happens to fall on the anti-Israel Quds day. Quds day – initiated in 1979 by the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini – is an annual event of fiery anti-Israel protests in Iran on the last Friday of Ramadan that attracts tens of thousands of people. Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Vaezi, one of some 80 members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts that is a supervisory body around Iran’s Supreme Leader,...

Any 3-year-old knows the difference between a parent shouting “one, two…….” and never getting to “three” versus grandpa who doesn’t put up with bad behavior, but it seems the Obama administration got bested by a toddler. Iran nuclear talks will continue “for the next couple of days,” a senior European diplomat said, effectively extending a Tuesday deadline set just a week ago. “We are still working very hard to finalize this agreement,” European Union foreign policy chief, Frederica Mogherini, told reporters outside the Vienna hotel where negotiators have held near round-the-clock sessions. “We continue to work on the text.” Mogherini said...

Al Jazeera’s digital media platform AJ+ posted a Fourth of July-themed video mocking Americans as fat, cheese-eating, gun-toting, pill-popping, racist porn watchers. While some on social media applauded the creation, others slammed the Qatar-owned network for using the holiday “to dump” on America. Social media users got particularly riled up by the criticism coming from the channel owned by Qatar — a country where stoning is a legal punishment under Shariah law, women have second class legal status, writers can be imprisoned for criticizing the emir and abuse of foreign laborers has been repeatedly criticized by human rights groups. The...

Israel denounced Saturday a possible decision to lift sanctions on Iran if a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers is reached. “As soon as sanctions will be lifted, tens or hundreds of billions of dollars are going to fuel the Iranian economy,” a statement released by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu read, according to Agence France Presse. “There will be no possibility to go back,” the statement added. “The Iranian terror machine that is active in the entire world will become stronger.” World powers and Tehran are in the midst of negotiations to finalize a deal...

ISMAILIA: Egypt launched airstrikes on Islamist militant targets in the Sinai peninsula Thursday, killing 23 fighters a day after the deadliest clashes in the region in years, security sources said. The sources said those killed had taken part in Wednesday's fighting in which 100 militants and 17 soldiers, including four officers, were killed, according to the army spokesman. Sinai-based insurgents, affiliates of ISIS, have stepped up attacks on soldiers and police since then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled Islamist President Mohammad Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Sisi, now Egypt's elected president, says the pro-ISIS group Sinai...

Wednesday's terror attack was the largest ever carried out by the Sinai Province, Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate, since it began its fight against the government in Cairo some four years ago. It also marked the most painful blow suffered by the Egyptian military in its war on extremist Islamist terror, which it is bent on eradicating. It was a well-planned attack, carried out by dozens of ISIS operatives in northern Sinai, and the explosions and weapons fire were heard loud and clear in Israel. Amid concerns that ISIS may try to spread their attacks in the direction of Israel -...

<p>EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) - Dozens of Islamic militants unleashed a wave of simultaneous attacks, including suicide car bombings, on Egyptian army checkpoints in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, killing at least 53 soldiers, officials said.</p> <p>The advanced planning and coordinated execution of the attacks show that the long-running insurgency in the area is growing stronger, posing a serious threat to Egypt's security as the military-backed government struggles to restore stability after years of unrest since the 2011 uprising.</p>

Islamic State militants launched a wide-scale coordinated assault on several military checkpoints in Egypt's North Sinai on Wednesday in which 50 people were killed, security sources said, the largest attack yet in the insurgency-hit province. Egyptian army F-16 jets and Apache helicopters strafed the region that lies within the Sinai Peninsula, a strategic area located between Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal. It was the second high-profile attack in Egypt this week. On Monday, the prosecutor-general was killed in a car bombing in Cairo. The attacks raise questions about the government's ability to contain a Sinai-based insurgency that...

For a head of state to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip seen in Jerusalem tonight as a disastrous humiliation. After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Jewish settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at...

Uproar in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani,the Al Qods Brigades chief and supreme commander of Iranian Middle East forces, of his Syria command after a series of war debacles. He was left in charge of Iran’s military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This is revealed by exclusive Iranian intelligence sources. Since Soleimani last visited Damascus on June 2, in the aftershock of the historic town of Palmyra’s fall to the Islamic State, the situation of President Bashar Assad and his army has gone from bad to worse. The Iranian general’s...

In Jerusalem flyers were spread throughout the old city claiming to be ISIS.The bulletin which had the ISIS logo demanded that all Christian Arabs must leave eastern Jerusalem by the end of Ramadan accused of being “Israeli collaborators”. ISIS also demanded that in the case the Christians refuse to leave that Muslims in eastern Jerusalem are mandated to kill all the Christians living there.Photo Credit: Islamic State / JerusalemAl-Quds (Jerusalem Newspaper), the main Arab newspaper there had posted a reply from Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia, the Archbishop from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In his reply the Archbishop condemned the...

MOSCOW, June 16 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday Russia's nuclear arsenal would be would increase by 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2015. Speaking at Army-2015 Expo, an international military trade show near Moscow, Putin said the new missiles could "overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems," adding a new long-range early-warning radar "to monitor in the western direction" was also being prepared. It was a reference to plans by NATO to permanently place troops and heavy armaments in Poland, a Russian neighbor and former Warsaw Pact country. In reference to apparent plans to reinforce NATO's...

TEHRAN, Jun.25 (MNA) – Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will depart for Vienna on Saturday, June 27th, to attend the nuclear talks. US Secretary of State John Kerry will also fly to Vienna on Friday to take part in the nuclear talks ahead of a self-imposed June 30 deadline Iran’s Deputy FMs Seyed Abbas Araghchi and Majid Takht Ravanchi have hold meetings with 5+1on drafting a final agreement on Wednesday. The deadline for Iran and 5+1 to finish writing the text of the final agreement is June 30. However, Iran has announced recurrently that its goal is achieving a...