US and Jordanian forces have launched an operation against ISIS in Syria, killing at least five members of the extremist group including a cell leader, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
The US strikes overnight on Friday were a response to an attack in Palmyra last week that killed three Americans, Centcom and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said.
Syria has seized drones and explosives from a suspected ISIS hideout in Damascus, in a swoop it said “confirms” it is capable of fighting extremists.
The raid, in which a suspected member of ISIS was arrested, was one of two against the group announced in the space of 24 hours. It came as US President Donald Trump prepared to receive the bodies of two Americans killed in an attack in Palmyra that authorities blamed on ISIS.
Amid mounting domestic pressure on President Saied, the Trump administration should take modest but useful and forward-looking steps like lifting tariffs, supporting less-politicized trade projects, and otherwise backing the people’s vision for a more prosperous future.
Latest Developments
Erdogan Accuses Israel of Seeking ‘Fragmentation’ of Syria: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan labeled Israel the “primary obstacle” to a stable Syria on December 16, pledging that Ankara would continue to support the Ahmed al-Sharaa-led government responsible for ousting former dictator Bashar al-Assad from power in late 2024. “It is clear who will benefit from the fragmentation of Syria,” Erdogan said, adding that “a safer tomorrow for Syria is only possible with a vision of common history and all segments of society.”
While everyone focuses on tankers transferring the Iranian oil, a massive financial valve remains open to Tehran on NATO’s eastern border. On paper, Iran is entering its most restrictive sanctions environment since 2012. United Nations snapback has reactivated global measures on Iran’s energy trade, but Western enforcement remains partial. And Iran continues to sell crude oil to China. Yet one of Tehran’s most strategically important export routes, the Tabriz–Ankara gas corridor, has expanded rather than contracted.
Le modus operandi juif : Diversité orchestrée : Importer systématiquement une population « diverse » dans des nations historiquement blanches grâce à un système politique et organisationnel sophistiqué et bien financé…
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced former Janjaweed commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abdelrahman, known as ‘Ali Kushayb’ and feared in Darfur as the “Colonel of Colonels” to 20 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 2003–2004. The sentence, handed down on today in The Hague, follows his October conviction on 27 counts, including murder, torture, persecution, rape, and the forcible displacement of civilians.
France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office in Paris has requested that the court impose a 1.125 million euro fine on the cement company Lafarge and sentence eight of its former senior executives to prison terms of up to eight years.
A Druze poet and activist who has previously criticised local separatist militias has been shot dead in the east of Syria’s Suweida province
A poet and political activist critical of local authorities was killed in Syria’s Druze-majority Suweida province on Sunday night by unknown assailants.
Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been assaulted seven times in Israeli prisons since the start of the Gaza war, according to prisoner rights groups.
Senior Palestinian Fatah leader and longtime prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been subjected to seven “brutal assaults” inside Israeli prisons since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza two years ago, according to Palestinian prisoners’ rights organisations.