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At least 23 members of Iranian and Syrian-regime forces were killed in Israeli air strikes in eastern Syria early Wednesday, and more than 28 militiamen wounded, some seriously, according to a U.K.-based war monitor. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that Israel had struck targets in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, quoting a military source as saying that the strike occurred just after 1 a.m. but providing no further details. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the area between the city of Deir ez-Zor and the Syria-Iraq border, in the al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal districts, had been hit no...

The Trump administration will place Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, according to two senior State Department officials, reversing an Obama-era decision and making it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to quickly revive diplomatic ties with Havana.Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is expected to indicate he’s designating Cuba because the country continues to harbor American fugitives including Joanne Chesimard, convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, and refuses a Colombian extradition request for National Liberation Army members linked to a 2019 bombing that killed 22.Cuba joins only Syria, Iran and North...

When you meet the unbelievers, strike necks.” (Qur’an 47:4).. “Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Pakistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority that kills 11,” by Gul Yousafzai, Reuters, January 3, 2021 (thanks to Henry): QUETTA, Pakistan -Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed 11 miners from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Hazaras in Baluchistan province. The attack took place early on Sunday morning in the Mach area of Bolan district around 100 kms southeast of Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, killing the miners who were in a shared residential room near the coal mine where they worked, officials said. “The throats...

The global anti-American alliance is now on full display in the Middle East, with Iran at the lynch point. The headlines have told us about the coordination of Iranian/Iraqi/Syrian/Russian/Chinese activities, and of course there is a division of labor. That was all worked out in recent weeks in a series of Iranian visits to Moscow (General Suleimani, who commands the Revolutionjary Guards’ foreign ops, twice traveled to Russia in open defiance of existing sanctions). Basically, the Russians are sending some crack troops and their favorite heavy weapons (tanks, big guns). It goes via an Iranian air bridge and thence across...

Iran’s state media has alleged that in addition to the United States, several countries, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Germany and Britain, had played a role in the assassination of its senior military leader Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020, while visiting Baghdad. According to DEFA Press, more countries would be added to the list once the investigation into Soleimani’s killing is completed. “We must learn from this experience, which came at a great price, and we must make every effort to preserve national unity and cohesion that was achieved...

The Greeks who represent the last vestiges of Christian Byzantium and the Roman Empire are heading towards their final extinction in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with their numbers dwindling to a mere handful under his Islamist government. What is now Turkey only began to be colonised in by the Turkic peoples in earnest from around 1071, after their Seljuk ancestors had arrived from Central Asia and vanquished the Greek-speaking Christian ruler Romanos IV Diogenes’s forces at the Battle of Manzikert. The last vestiges of the Byzantine state where finally snuffed out with the brutal conquest of Constantinople, widely regarded as...

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear in his staffing plans and public remarks that he intends to return America to many of the foreign policy positions championed by his former boss, President Barack Obama. While American mainstream media has largely cheered this – and glowered at President Donald Trump for defending his achievements by making regression more difficult under Biden – many of America’s allies, and some of its foes, around the world are making moves suggesting they expect a full return to the state of global affairs in 2016. The Obama administration’s foreign policy was defined by the tension...

BEIRUT: Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli toward the Masyaf area. It said Syrian air defense “confronted...

Listening to US Vice President – Elect Kamala Harris speak about Hanukkah frightened me more than Rashida Tlaib’s vulgar tweets. As I see it , the danger lies in distorting the meaning and intent of the Hasmonean revolt against the Syrian occupation. If one may paraphrase Churchill’s tribute to the RAF during the battle of Britain, we may say of the Maccabees that never before in the history of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few. Had the Maccabees failed there would be no Judaism, no Jews and no Christianity or Christians. Neither would there be...

The Trump administration on Dec. 3 added China’s top chipmaker, SMIC, and oil giant CNOOC to a blacklist of companies tied to the Chinese military. The Department of Defense designated a total of four additional companies as owned or controlled by the Chinese military, including China Construction Technology Co Ltd and China International Engineering Consulting Corp. The move, first reported by Reuters on Sunday, takes to 35 the total number of blacklisted companies. While the list did not initially trigger any penalties, a recent executive order by President Donald Trump will prevent U.S. investors from buying the firms’ securities from...

Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat to veto a $740bn (£549bn) defence bill that does not include a repeal of protections for internet companies. Congressional negotiators reached a compromise deal on Thursday regarding the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), which addresses pay for service members, troop levels and weapons procurement. The bill is expected to go to the House and Senate floors next week, where it will likely pass, before going to Mr Trump for final sign-off. But shortly before midnight on Thursday Mr Trump, in an angry late-night Twitter tirade, vowed to veto the legislation over its...

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports. Judge Patricia Millett characterized the DOJ’s argument as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens,” according to coverage of the argument by Courthouse News Service. “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” The government’s brief in the case supplies details of the lawsuit. The plaintiff, Bilal...

If Donald Trump doesn’t take the Oath of Office on January 20, 2021, one principal but little-noted reason for this may be that he crossed one of the most powerful and least accountable forces in the nation: the military-industrial complex. As Trump said last September, “the top people in the Pentagon…want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars, you know how we’re doing.” Now, however, that Joe Biden has been anointed “President-elect”...

Jim Jeffrey, the United States’ retiring Special Representative to Syria and the special envoy in the fight against the Islamic State, confirmed Thursday that he and other senior administration officials routinely misled President Donald Trump on troop levels in the Middle East. Jeffrey, speaking to Defense One, explained how despite Trump’s stated promise to withdraw America from endless Middle Eastern engagements, he was able to convince the president to commit to keeping between 200 to 400 troops in the region in 2019 to “secure” oil fields held by U.S. allies and other strategic positions. (RELATED: Trump Performs ‘Near Total Decapitation’...

The decision by three Arab states to make peace with Israel can be credited both to efforts by the Trump administration and the recognition by these Sunni states that their security would improve against the ongoing threats they face from Turkey and Iran. Iran and its proxies interfere with Arab states while promoting their Shi’ite revolutionary ideology; likewise, Turkey pushes its Sunni revolutionary ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. Turkey and Iran look to overthrow the Sunni Arab states that do not align with them, such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The normalization deals between the...

The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran has sought to reach out to its Arab neighbors, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warning them that US President Donald Trump will be leaving in 70 days, but Iran’s regime will remain “forever.” He urged them to realize that “betting on outsiders to provide security is never a good gamble.” In Arabic and English, he called for dialogue and to work together. The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran was offering them...

Israeli Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi warns that a Biden presidency could ignite war in the Middle East, while Egypt fears Biden would aid the resurgence of Islamists in the region. Hanegbi pointed out that Biden has indicated he will resurrect America’s nuclear agreement with Iran which was cancelled by the Trump administration. For Israel, this would represent an existential threat to national security and drastically increase the chances of war with Tehran. “If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Hanegbi. Meanwhile, other Middle Eastern countries such as...

The United States announces that it killed seven senior leaders of Al-Qaeda in Syria in an air strike last week as they were meeting near Idlib, US Central Command announced on Monday. Central Command spokeswoman, Major Beth Riordan, said the strike was conducted on 22 October. The leaders were not identified. “The removal of these AQ-S leaders will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carryout global attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,” Riordan said. “With our allies and partners, we will continue to target al Qaida and other terrorist organisations.” she added. According to...

Russian air strikes in northern Syria have killed more than 50 Turkish-backed militia fighters in the mainly rebel-held province of Idlib, reports say. Many others were wounded in the attack, which marks an escalation of violence in the region. A training base for an Islamist group called Faylaq al-Sham was hit. The assault puts at risk a ceasefire in Idlib, brokered and monitored by Russia and Turkey, which back opposite sides in the war. UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number of dead at 78.

Russia on Saturday pledged to "necessary" help for Yerevan in the conflict with Azerbaijan if fighting reached Armenian territory, after its ally requested security assistance. Armenia's request for assistance from Moscow further raised fears of Russia and Azerbaijan's ally Turkey getting sucked into a decades-old conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan formally asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin "urgent" consultations on security assistance as Azerbaijani forces make gains against Armenian separatists who control Karabakh. The request also came after Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to agree a fresh ceasefire during talks in Geneva on...