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LLast week, apparently catching the world by surprise, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels launched a surprise offensive against government-controlled positions in northwestern Syria. Within 72 hours, incredibly, they had expelled Assad’s troops from large swathes of Aleppo. HTS’s triumph restored a rebel presence to Aleppo for the first time in eight years and paved the way for the unfreezing of the Syrian Civil War. Predictably, Russian fighter jets – supporting their ally, Assad – responded by bombing rebel-held areas of Aleppo and Idlib. Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun militias also joined the fight on the dictator’s behalf. Regardless of what...

Iran-backed militants entered Syria yesterday to bolster dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the Islamist rebels who seized Aleppo. Militias crossed into the war-torn country from neighbouring Iraq, following a lightning offensive against the Syrian army by rebel forces from the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish rebel groups. Their seizure of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and swathes of territory in the north of the country has reignited the deadly civil war in Syria and shocked its allies in Russia and Iran. President Assad blamed the West for the ‘terrorist escalation’, and accused the US and its allies...

Outraged family members of US troops hurt in the line of duty slammed Kamala Harris’ brazen claim that no Americans are serving in war zones — a statement which flies in the face of her own administration’s official list of active combat zones. As many as 50,000 US service members currently patrolling countries and oceans across the Middle East and Africa are receiving either “hostile fire” or “imminent danger pay,” monthly payments of up to $225 for troops deployed in areas where they could easily be subjected to — or do come under — enemy attack, retired Army Col. and...

President Joe Biden is “deliberately” sabotaging any element of surprise in his planned response to the recent killing of three U.S. troops in an attack by Iran-backed militias, according to Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who is calling for both a “strong military response” and a “complete policy shift” to return to former President Donald Trump’s “maximum” economic pressure on the Iranian regime. In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Friday, Waltz, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House Armed Services Committee, and House Foreign Affairs Committee, addressed the U.S. military’s recent announcement that three American...

An Iran-backed Iraqi militia suspected of a drone strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers says it has suspended operations against US forces. Kataib Hezbollah, which is part of an umbrella group that claimed Sunday's attack, said this was "to prevent embarrassment of the Iraqi government".

An array of Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups have agreed to suspend rocket attacks on U.S. forces on condition that Iraq's government presents a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops, one of the groups said on Sunday. "The factions have presented a conditional ceasefire," said Mohammed Mohi, spokesman for the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group. "It includes all factions of the (anti-U.S.) resistance, including those who have been targeting U.S. forces," he told Reuters.

The US has several intelligence indications that Iran has put some of its air defense systems on high alert in recent days, CNN reported early Friday morning, citing a "US official closely tracking developments." While the official refused to specify how the US got hold of the intelligence, he or she confirmed that the Islamic Republic has changed the alert status on its surface-to-air missile batteries, in a move indicating it would fire at airborne targets perceived as a potential threat. In early 2020, Iran confirmed its air defense batteries mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian plane killing all 176 people...

When U.S. missiles killed Iran’s most important general and its most important militia leader in early January as they were visiting Baghdad, it looked like American forces would be kicked out of Iraq... More than four months later, not only are U.S. forces still there, but it’s clear that the killings have created space for a new Iraqi government to assert some independence from its powerful neighbor. The signs of this new approach have been building over recent months, and the ascendance last week of Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to the post of transitional prime minister is the latest and most profound......

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States waged a series of precision air strikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier that killed two American troops and a 26-year-old British soldier. The U.S. strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants, including stores of weaponry for past attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops, the Pentagon said. In a statement, Iraq’s military said the U.S. air strikes hit four locations in Iraq that housed formal Iraqi police and military units, in...

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qasem Soleimani wasn't the only major-league terrorist killed in the drone strike ordered by Trump. Also killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi paramilitary leader whose long, bloody career includes attacks on American and other Western embassies, as well as being a founder of Kata'ib Hezbollah, a group responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. In 2009, the U.S. sanctioned both al-Muhandis and Kata'ib Hezbollah as terrorist entities. In some ways, killing al-Muhandis was more significant than the death of Soleimani. He's been an active terrorist against the U.S. since the...

Trump threatens Iran over embassy incident, which he calls the 'Anti-Benghazi' BY BRETT SAMUELS - 12/31/19 04:49 PM EST President Trump threatened Iran after demonstrators, including members of an Iranian-backed militia, breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday. "Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities," Trump tweeted. "They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!" Trump declared that the embassy in Iraq was safe thanks to the deployment of U.S. military resources and a...

Iranian militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, one of several identified as leading an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, reportedly visited the White House in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama. On Tuesday, a mob in Baghdad attacked the U.S. embassy in retaliation against last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), responsible for killing an American civilian contractor. KH is one of a number of pro-Iran militias that make up the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU), which legally became a wing of the Iraqi military after fighting the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group....

The U.S. Embassy in Iraq is being attacked by Iraqi Shiite militia supporters, who’ve broken into the compound. According to the Associated Press, a fire has been set and sounds of gunfire were heard.    An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main building inside embassy. It was not clear what caused the fire at the reception area near the parking lot of the compound. A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying: “The message was...

A Soldier with Company A, 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division-Baghdad, pulls security in a building as his unit searches for improvised rocket-assisted mortars and materials in the Ur neighborhood of Baghdad July 21, 2008. Photo by US Army Sergeant Philip Klein. Iraqi and US forces are maintaining the pressure against the Mahdi Army in central and southern Iraq. Over the past 24 hours, the US military announced the capture of three senior Special Groups operatives and uncovered a major cache in Baghdad. Iraqi troops detained 68 Mahdi Army...

The White House Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 29, 2019 PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO AND SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach, Florida 6:49 P.M. EST SECRETARY POMPEO: Good evening. Myself, with Secretary Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, came here to Florida today to brief the President on the activities that have taken place in the Middle East over the course of the last 72 hours. I will leave to Secretary Esper to talk about the military activity, but I want to put it in the context...

The US has carried out air strikes against a pro-Iran militant group in Iraq, killing 19 fighters, two days after a rocket attack that killed an American civilian contractor. The Pentagon said on Sunday it targeted weapons caches or command and control facilities linked to Kata'ib Hezbollah (KH) in Western Iraq, as well as Eastern Syria, in response to a barrage of 30 or more rockets fired on Friday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy". Four US service members...

The Obama administration finally highlights Iran’s key role in supporting al Qaeda On July 28, the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda operatives involved in shipping money and men from the Persian Gulf to senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The move targets a node of the global terror network that is critical to its overall strength, freezing any of its financial assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting any transactions with the operatives. Of the many conduits for al Qaeda funds and personnel across the world, the U.S. government believes this one is the most important. “This network...

SNIPPET: "The top US general in Iraq has identified the three main Shia terror groups in Iraq that are backed by Iran. General Ray Odierno said Iran continues to back the League of the Righteous (or Asaib al Haq), the Mahdi Army spin-off Promised Day Brigade, and the Hezbollah Brigades (or Kataib Hezbollah). "The Iranians... continue to fund, train and provide weapons and ammunition to Shiite extremist groups," Odierno told reporters in Baghdad according to AFP. Qods Force, the special operations branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has "gone to a more sophisticated program with a smaller set of...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....