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Russia knew about Kuntar hit, says expert Israel would not have struck Samir Kuntar inside area protected by S-400 without Russia's knowledge, says IMRA. By Gil Ronen First Publish: 12/20/2015, 9:00 PM Israel notified Russia that it intends to strike a target inside Damascus before the airstrike that killed Samir Kuntar, estimates Dr. Aaron Lerner, of Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA).

President Vladimir Putin says Russia will continue to develop nuclear weapons but doesn't intend to use them. The Russian leader made the comment in a documentary called "World Order" that was aired on state television Sunday night. ...

The West is making a strategic mistake by focusing its anti-terrorist effort on Islamic State (IS. previously ISIS/ISIL) and overlooking other groups, an upcoming report claims. Sixty percent of fighters in the country can be classified as Islamists and have goals similar to IS. Those fighters belong to at least 15 other militant groups, which are mostly being ignored by the West, British media cited the Centre on Religion & Geopolitics, a think-tank run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, as saying. Fewer than one quarter of the groups surveyed by the center had no ideological agenda, but many of...

BEIRUT (AFP) - Human Rights Watch charged Sunday that Syrian government forces and their Russian allies have been making "extensive" use of cluster munitions against rebel groups since late September. The New York-based rights watchdog said in a report it had documented the use of cluster munitions on 20 occasions since Russian and Syrian forces launched their assault on September 30. HRW "collected detailed information about attacks in nine locations that have killed at least 35 civilians, including five women and 17 children, and injured dozens", the report said. All the bombs were either made in Russia or the former...

Iraqi military planes dropped leaflets on Sunday on Ramadi, asking residents to leave within 72 hours the western city which is under the control of Islamic State militants, an army spokesman said."It is an indication that a major military operation to retake the city center will start soon," one officer said on condition of anonymity. The leaflets indicated safe routes for civilians to exit the city and asked them to carry proper identification documents, joint operations spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told Reuters by phone. "All security forces were instructed on how to deal with civilian approaching them." Last week...

NATO allies agreed on Friday to send aircraft and ships to Turkey to strengthen Ankara's air defenses on its border with Syria, the alliance's chief said. Diplomats said the package is partly designed to avoid more shoot-downs of Russian planes. Envoys to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization approved the plan and must now decide what military assets to send to Turkey, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters, stressing that it was a defensive measure. "We have agreed on a package of assurance measures for Turkey in view of the volatile situation in the region," Stoltenberg said, although he avoided any...

Four days of clashes in southeast Turkey have reportedly killed at least 69 Kurdish militants and two members of the Turkish security forces. Turkish jets also reportedly bombed several Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq on Friday, destroying shelters and fighting posts. In July, a two-year ceasefire between Turkey and the militant PKK crumbled, triggering a relapse of violence in Kurdish territories in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the Kurdish insurgency began in 1984, and the peace process recently fell apart after the PKK claimed responsibility for the fatal shootings...

Syrian President Bashar al Assad attended Christmas choir preparations in an ancient church close to a frontline area in the capital Damascus where his army is engaged in heavy fighting with rebels, state media said on Saturday. State television showed footage of Assad and his wife Asma making the visit overnight to the Notre Dame de Damas Church, where he was shown chatting to the choir. He took a seat near the altar and listened to a recital of Christmas poems in the main cathedral hall. The surroundings of the church in the old part of the ancient capital were...

Diyarbakir, Turkey (dpa) - Teargas wafts over the police checkpoint, as helicopters clatter over the roofs of Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey. Shots can be heard as the security forces battle fighters of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). A 24-hour curfew has been in force in much of the Old City since December 2, with only a brief interruption. Earlier this year, the Turkish government and the PKK were engaged in peace talks, but now conditions characteristic of a civil war prevail in much of south-eastern Turkey, where hundreds have been killed since July. Fighters from the PKK's youth wing,...

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has warned his armed forces are ready to use "more military means" to obliterate Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria as his fight against the terror group rages on. The Russian leader boasted about how the twisted jihadis have yet to see the full force of his aggression, as he said Moscow was ready to batter the militants with "the most modern weapons". I want to stress that these are by far not all of our capabilities. We have more military means. And we will use them - if need be."

Islamic State militants have managed to steal chemical weapons from underground storage facilities in Libya that were not properly guarded and the gas has already been used, a cousin of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi told RT Arabic in an exclusive interview. "ISIS has managed to find some of the secret underground storage facilities, still holding chemical weapons, hidden in the desert. Unfortunately, they weren't properly guarded," said Ahmed Gaddafi Al-Dam, a cousin of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader who was killed in 2011.

The Russian Defense Ministry held an open briefing devoted to the results of the decoding of flight recorders of the Su-24 bomber aircraft that was shot down by Turkish Air Force. As it was said at the briefing, Russia has all evidence to prove that the warplane of the Russian Air Force did not violate Turkish airspace. Also read: Scenarios of real war between Russia and Turkey "We have all the necessary evidence to confirm the absence of facts to establish violations of Turkey's airspace by the Russian aircraft,"Sergei Dronov, Deputy Commander of the Russian Air Force said, RIA Novosti...

Trump Brushes Off Putin’s Alleged Killing Of Journalists Zeke J Miller @ZekeJMiller Dec. 18, 2015 Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump brushed off well-documented allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin has had political opponents and journalists killed, following praise from the Russian leader for his presidential campaign. In an interview with “Morning Joe” Friday, Trump said he was pleased to be praised by Putin. “Sure, when people call you brilliant it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia,” he said.” Putin had called Trump “bright and talented” and all-but-endorsed his campaign this week. But when host Joe Scarborough raised...

Hamas and Islamic State in Sinai have been cooperating in the smuggling of weapons, demonstrating that while Hamas is a nationalist Islamist movement, it also has common roots from which to build a functioning relationship with jihadists. "Over the past two years, IS Sinai helped Hamas move weapons from Iran and Libya through the peninsula, taking a generous cut from each shipment," according to a Washington Institute for Near East Policy report on Tuesday by Ehud Yaari, a Lafer International Fellow at the think tank. [...] Both Hamas and Islamic State trace their origins back to the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood,...

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused opposition MP Eren Erdem of “betrayal.” Erdem told RT that Islamic State terrorists had obtained sarin gas supplies through Turkish territory – and that Ankara did nothing despite having all the evidence. “There is a deputy in this country, buried so deep in a pit of betrayal, and to a party that claims to be as old as the republic saying during an interview to a foreign television channel that Turkey is selling chemical weapons to terrorists,” Erdogan told a crowd in the city of Konya. The Turkish President also called the silence...

The main point is, however, that Russia's 'conservative turn' since Putin's return to the Kremlin in March 2012 — widely deplored in the West as a creeping authoritarianism with roots only in the wiles of Putin's mind — may be closer to the world view of Russia's conservative and patriotic majority than most Western governments would care to admit. In foreign and economic policy, Russia's post-Soviet government may never have cleaved as close to the views of the majority as it does now. That's the view of Igor Okunev, a vice-dean at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, whom...

Turkey Hunkers Down In Mosul. All This Escalation Is Drawing The Scenario And The Main Players For World War III Turkish maritime authorities have detained 27 Russian ships on the country’s ports on Black Sea in retaliation for the seizure of eight Turkish-flagged ships at Russian ports. This escalation including the situation in Iraq, Syria, Mecca … it all spells out a near collision. Russia detained five Turkish-flagged ships in its ports for audit under the Black Sea Memorandum in the week after November 24, a move to retaliate against Turkey’s downing one of its war planes on the Turkish-Syrian...

You notice it on the road to Damascus. New posters of President Bashar al-Assad hang from the centre of soaring archways that welcome you into Syria and replace the once-fading images all along this route from the border with Lebanon. You notice it on the main highway, the strategic artery that runs to the city of Homs and on to the Mediterranean coast. Military checkpoints have been bolstered and brightened by fresh coats of paint in the black white and red tricolour of Syria's flag. And you sense it in the comments of President Assad's supporters - the new signs...

A jihadi boasted on his Telegram Messenger account about confiscating an assault riffle that he alleged was given to the Free Syrian Army by Israel and taken by the Islamic State in battle: “A customised AK47 made in Israel. Given to FSA as a gift. Taken by Dawlah (the State) as Ghaneemah (spoils.) Jihad is so fun alhamdulillaah. Go around killing kafirs (non-Muslim) taking their stuff. It's a dream job, lol.” Abu Sa-eed Al-Britani, 27, a British Jihadi named Omar Hussain from High Wycombe in the U.K., also known as the “Supermarket Jihadi,” because he used to work in the...

Sen. Ted Cruz on the U.S. Role in the Middle East | The Daily Signal (Video) TED CRUZ: The policy of military adventurism, and trying to promote democracy, hurts U.S. national security, and it helps radical Islamic terrorists.