Author: M Barbu

Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie said radicalization would remain a problem unless countries repatriate and reintegrate the children of suspected Islamic State fighters.

The head of US forces in the Middle East warned that displacement camps run by US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria will breed a new generation of Islamic State (IS) fighters if foreign governments don’t repatriate their stranded nationals.

A US Navy patrol ship fired warning shots to ward off Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf on Monday, marking the second run-in between the two countries’ naval forces this month.

A US Navy patrol ship fired warning shots to ward off Iranian fast-attack boats in the Persian Gulf on Monday, marking the second run-in between the two countries’ naval forces this month.

Biden White House avoids row with Israel over nuclear negotiations with Iran, offers to help counter Tehran’s ballistic and cruise missiles.

The Biden administration and Israeli officials agreed this week to set up an interagency working group to coordinate on ways to counter Iranian drones and precision-guided missiles that have proliferated across the Middle East in recent years.

The latest Turkish military operation against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan comes at a time when Ankara finds itself increasingly under strain, both on the domestic front and in its frosty ties with Washington.

The Turkish military has launched a critically timed ground and air offensive against Kurdish militants in a mountain range in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan, the latest in a series of cross-border campaigns since 2019 that have resulted in dozens of Turkish bases in the region.

For U.S. officials who worked under former President Barack Obama, many of whom are now beginning or contemplating jobs in Joe Biden’s administration, the war in Yemen casts a long shadow. What started on their watch as a primarily internal power struggle has since metastasized into a messy and multilayered conflict. It is the world’s most dire humanitarian crisis, involving alleged violations of international law—many of them perpetrated with American-made arms—and has become a potential trigger for a region-wide conflagration. For much of Biden’s foreign policy team, then, Yemen represents both unfinished business and, potentially, a small but significant piece of a wider course correction in U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

Six separate terrorist attacks took place in Europe between late September and late November of last year—three in France, and one each in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. All six attacks were inspired by Salafi-jihadist ideology, which is, and will remain, a persistent terrorism threat to Europe and elsewhere in the West for the foreseeable future.