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A BRIT who fought with Kurdish militia against Islamic State was cheered by supporters as he appeared in court charged with a terror offence. James Matthews arrived at Westminster Magistrates' Court to face a charge of attending a place used for terrorist training, under the Terrorism Act 2006. The 43-year-old indicated a not guilty plea after the charge was put to him. Represented by Joel Bennathan QC, Matthews, wearing black jeans and a brown leather jacket, spoke only to confirm his identity. Matthews, from Dalston, east London, is due to next appear at the Old Bailey on March 1. As...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Kurdish forces and the Damascus government have reached an agreement for the Syrian army to enter the Afrin region to help repel a Turkish offensive, a senior Kurdish official said on Sunday. Badran Jia Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria, told Reuters army troops would deploy along some border positions and could enter the region within the next two days. The deal underscores the increasingly tangled battlefield in northern Syria, driven by a web of rivalries and alliances among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, rebel factions, Turkey, the United States and Russia.

ublic Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) warned that Iran is poised to supplant ISIS across Syria following the Islamic State’s military defeats over the past year, and urged the US to intervene to prevent Tehran from cementing its foothold in the war-torn state. Speaking at the Conference of Presidents’ 42nd annual Leadership Mission to Israel in Jerusalem on Monday, Erdan warned that while ISIS had been weakened militarily, Iran is positioning itself to reap the benefits. “Iran will replace ISIS,” said Erdan. “There’s a need for greater American involvement in making sure that Iran does not turn Syria into a...

Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump's Special Representative for International Negotiations, on Sunday evening condemned Gaza’s Hamas leaders in the wake of the recent attacks on Israel. “HAMAS hides improvised explosive device to attack Israeli soldiers & is shooting rockets at Israel again! Such cowardly acts will only escalate violence, not build the prosperous society the people of Gaza deserve!” he tweeted. .....

IAF targets included a Hamas tunnel and military facilities. he Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck six Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday evening in response to the detonation of an explosive device on the Gaza border earlier in the day that wounded four IDF soldiers, two severely. Targets included a Hamas-built terror tunnel from the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza towards Israeli territory, a Hamas military facility in Netzarim and a further military facility in the Khan Younis neighborhood. Earlier Saturday, two IDF soldiers were severely wounded and two others moderately and lightly wounded after the device was detonated...

Mohamed Rafik Naji, a Yemen-born New York City resident, pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to one count of attempting to provide support to the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS. “I traveled to Yemen in 2015 to join ISIS and I encouraged another person to join,” Naji told U.S. District Judge Frederic Block during a hearing in Brooklyn federal court, Reuters reported. Naji, 38, faces a maximum term of 20-years behind bars when he’s sentenced at a later date, the Department of Justice said in a press release. Naji began publicly expressing support for ISIS on social...

MANBIJ, Syria — The large section of northeastern Syria once occupied by the Islamic State is now a rare safe area in the war-ravaged country, thanks to an American-backed coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. The coalition’s fighters, who with American help drove the Islamic State from the region, are Arabs and Kurds, men and women, young and old. Many are veterans of multiple battles and have been wounded, but returned to the fight again and again. Here are a few of them.

The security guard wounded in a 2015 ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at the "Draw Muhammad" event in Garland, Texas, is suing the FBI, and argues the bureau is liable for his damages because an agent "solicited, encouraged, directed and aided members of ISIS in planning and carrying out the May 3 attack," according to court documents filed Monday.

Iran’s president has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and urged Muslims to support the Palestinian cause. Hassan Rouhani also lashed out at the United States for imposing a ban on travelers from six largely Muslim countries. He was addressing a congregation after Friday prayers at Mecca Masjid in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad during his three-day visit to India. Rouhani called for unity between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. …

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Photo: Wikicommons. The US administration’s work on a new Middle East peace plan is “fairly well advanced” and President Donald Trump will decide when to announce it, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday during a visit to Jordan. Tillerson also signed a five-year aid package that extends US support to Jordan, a key regional ally, despite Trump’s threat to withhold support from states opposed to his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Commenting on the peace plan, Tillerson said: “I have seen the plan. … It’s been under development...

Today will see the inauguration of an Egyptian church dedicated to the 21 Christians beheaded by ISIS on the Libyan coast in 2015. February 15, 2018 marks the third anniversary of the martyrdom of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and one Ghanaian believer, graphic footage of which was broadcast online. The church dedicated to their memory has been built in al-Our, near Samalut in Egypt's Minya province, the home of 13 of the Libyan martyrs, according to Independent Catholic News. Relatives of those killed are expected to attend today's inauguration service and eventually the remains of the deceased are expected to...

Russian fighters were among those killed when U.S.-led coalition forces clashed with pro-government forces in Syria this month, former associates of the dead said on Monday. A U.S. official has said more than 100 fighters aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad died when coalition and local coalition-backed forces thwarted a large attack overnight on Feb. 7. Russia’s Defence Ministry, which supports Assad’s forces in the Syrian civil war, said at the time that pro-government militias involved in the incident had been carrying out reconnaissance and no Russian servicemen had been in the area.

Sometimes when there’s bad news you just have to grit your teeth and bear it. Unfortunately, that’s what the U.S. has to do when it comes to the Syrian intervention underway from our erstwhile NATO ally Turkey. The good news is, Turkey’s meddlesome ambitions are sharply constrained — not just by the U.S. and its allies, but by America’s adversaries, too. Turkey, which continues to lurch further into authoritarianism and nostalgia for its bygone Ottoman Empire, recently chose to exploit the messy situation in Syria in hopes of gaining a big military advantage. The Kurds, who alone managed to break...

The Conflict Intelligence Team found the Russians "may have fought alongside pro-Russia separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine prior to joining the fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and other insurgents challenging Assad's rule in Syria." The group also found Russians killed "appeared to have joined the Wagner Group, a private paramilitary company, before traveling to fight in Syria. Last October, ISIS released a video showing two Russian-speaking men the militants claimed to have captured, and subsequent research showed the two men were likely Wagner Group members fighting in Syria." "While the total number of 'Wagner' operatives killed in...

Putin mentioned the call with Trump at the start of his meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. He said: "Naturally we spoke about the Palestinian-Israeli settlement" and told Abbas: "I would like to convey to you his best wishes." Putin met Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu exactly two weeks ago in Moscow. Russia has managed to maintain robust relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority government, as well as Israeli rivals Syria and Iran.

On December 8, 2017, the leader of Iraq’s Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq Qais al-Khazali paid a visit to the Lebanese-Israeli border to inspect Lebanese “Hezbollah” resistance positions and to issue a threat to the southern neighbor. In a leaked video, he was shown as saying: “We are here with ‘Hezbollah’ and we announce our complete readiness to stand side by side with the Lebanese people and Palestinian cause against the Israeli occupation.” Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, or Khazali Network, is affiliated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). -excerpt- His statement however demonstrated the common interests of pro-Iran regional militias to allow Tehran...

Feb 11 is normally a day for rallies all over the country in Iran. It is the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. All over the country, people boycotted the rallies. The regime did their best to scare people in participating, threatening punishment & threatening people's jobs for not participating. School children & their teachers were forced to participate. Many of those who were forced were reluctant to join in, as videos showed only a small group answering to the calls for chants on loudspeakers. As usual, the regime sent buses to transport people to rallies in other cities to try...

Israel is counting on Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep confrontations with Iran and Syria from spiraling into war as the Trump administration mostly watches from the sidelines, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “The American part of the equation is to back us up,” but the U.S. currently “has almost no leverage on the ground,” Michael Oren, Netanyahu’s deputy minister for public diplomacy and a former ambassador to Washington, said in a phone interview Sunday. “America did not ante up in Syria. It’s not in the game.”

This is the beginning of something much bigger. It marks a turning point in the covert war Israel and Iran have been fighting for decades. Much has already be written about what happened on Saturday when Israel came very close to all out war with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Assad’s army in Syria. To understand the seriousness of the situation, one has to look at the broader picture and take into account not only what occurred on Saturday but what happened on the Lebanese front over the past few weeks. The incident on Saturday, when the IAF first...

LEMONS, GRAPEFRUITS, oranges and figs grow in abundance in the three gardens of Nadia Younis Butti’s house in Mosul, the house her parents built from scratch. She used to enjoy the lush trees and alluring fruits, sitting in her rocking chair near the flourishing, scented bushes. On July 17, 2014, however, Nadia had to leave Mosul, because ISIS had captured Iraq’s second-largest city. “With pain in my heart I left,” she says. ISIS has been ousted from Mosul and Nadia, who belongs to the Assyrian Church, recently returned to visit the city of her birth. “It is still extremely dangerous...