Four Autonomous Administration’s Internal Security Forces members were killed by a Turkish drone targeting their car in the Ain Issa area, according to al-Modon.
On Thursday, the Kurdish Autonomous Administration’s local authorities stated that they had found a mass grave containing dozens of bodies in northern Syria. The statement suggested that ISIS may have killed the victims during the group’s control of the area.
On Tuesday, the Men of Dignity movement took control of a military security militia headquarters in Sweida governorate.
The Suwayda 24 said that the Men of Dignity movement took control of the Raji Falhout military security headquarters in Sweida and burned it. It was a center for kidnapping, murder, and torture used by the Falhout group.
The killing of longtime al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri could accelerate a trend that has been consistently emerging in recent years—the factionalization and regionalization of the global jihadist movement.
Advances in Iran’s nuclear program have heightened concerns that it could develop a nuclear bomb in a matter of weeks.
Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat and has signaled it would take aggressive military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program if it passes the nuclear threshold.
Ankara has said both sides are focused on confidence-building steps to be taken “one at a time.”
Ankara has broken its official silence and provided details on ongoing reconciliation talks with its historic foe, Armenia. In a lengthy background briefing, a senior Turkish diplomat described the substance of the talks, what their goal was and the multiple challenges that lie ahead. Speaking on the sidelines of the annual ambassadors’ huddle organized by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the official stressed that in order to avert “big disappointments,” the sides were focused on confidence-building steps to be taken “one at a time.” The official was addressing critics’ claims that Turkey is deliberately keeping the pace of the talks slow in order to allow its regional ally Azerbaijan to pressure Armenia into further concessions on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Comments by Turkey’s foreign minister hinting at normalization with Damascus drove hundreds of Syrians across Turkish-occupied areas of northern Syria to stage demonstrations.
The chorus of Turkish officialdom calling for engagement with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is growing louder by the day. The moves are calculated to draw votes ahead of elections and weaken Kurdish aspirations for autonomy. They are backed by Russia as it seeks to drive wedges between Turkey and its Western foes.
It has been ten months since Iraqis went to the polls, for the fifth general election in the post-Saddam era, and the new parliament has yet to form a government. Drawn-out periods of government formation are nothing new in post-2003 Iraq, but this time around the implications may be more serious than usual. Tensions among the Shiite parties, which together hold the most total parliamentary seats, run so deep, and the rest of the political field is so fragmented, that politicians may be unable to agree on a compromise solution. With populist protesters occupying parliament since late July, observers are even concerned that Iraq may slide back into civil strife. This time, it would be intra-sectarian, unlike the bloody sectarian war that ravaged the country from 2005 to 2008. There are several factors, however, that militate against such an outcome, including that outside powers could re-engage to help Iraqi leaders find a way out of the impasse.
Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have had a love-hate relationship over the decades, but their ties are undeniably strong.
The Russian and Turkish presidents have also become known for their antagonistic relationship, particularly when it comes to geopolitics. While both leaders have been accused of clamping down on civil liberties at home, they’ve also positioned themselves as world leaders who can stand up to Western liberal democracies. The tension between these two men is not new, however.
The statement in support of China is yet another example of the Palestinians’ betting on the wrong horse. Always on the side of the despotic regimes and countries, Palestinians appear to have learned nothing from their mistakes.
Ankara agreed that part of its natural gas payments to Moscow would be switched to rubles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed that Ankara would switch part of its payment for Russian natural gas to rubles, in what appeared to be the most concrete result of their four-hour long meeting in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi today.