An onslaught of attacks on Kurdish peshmerga forces and villages in northern Iraq has sparked concerns over the presence of Islamic State cells and whether they have been bulked up by jihadis arriving from Syria.
A recent string of attacks targeting Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in areas disputed between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has raised questions about where the attackers came from and how long they have been in the area.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met at the Pentagon to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, and the possibility of a military response if negotiations continue to stall.
Israel’s defense chief Benny Gantz sat down with US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon to discuss a range of issues on Thursday, including shared concerns over Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
The defeat-IS coalition will continue its advisory mission into next year, despite a declared end to a combat role.
Iraq’s national security adviser said today that the US-led military coalition had completed its combat mission in Iraq, but American troops aren’t leaving the country just yet.
Qasim al-Araji announced the completion of the long-planned transition on Twitter on Thursday.
With the world still reeling from the global COVID-19 pandemic, nearly two years in the making, few know what to expect terrorism trends to look like heading into 2022. However, certain trends from previous years seem likely to continue and may grow more severe. The terrorist threat is arguably more diverse than at any point in recent memory, with the threat posed by far-right extremists and jihadists joined by a growing roster of political and socio-cultural motivations, including ‘technophobia’ or neo-Luddite terrorism, violent anarchists, and extreme misogynists, especially those following the so-called ‘Incel’ ideology. ‘Salad bar’ ideologies, those that combine a sampling of different ideologies, sometimes diametrically opposed to one another, are also on the rise and are best exemplified by neo-Nazis growing fetishization of jihadist ideology. And while the most lethal terrorist threats are likely to remain jihadism and far-right extremism, it is important to think about how recent developments could shape patterns of terrorism over the coming year.
United States special operations forces in northeastern Syria have been quietly visiting local villages to help provide medical care to communities which have seen little health care in the wake of years of war.
The visits are done in partnership with the Syrian Defense Forces, (SDF) which operate in the region alongside the US in a years-long effort to root out any ISIS fighters.
Prosecutors brought terror charges Friday against an ethnic Albanian man from Kosovo who allegedly joined an extremist group in Syria and brought his family there.
A statement from the prosecutor’s office in Kosovo said the suspect, identified only as N. L., joined the Jabhat al-Nusra group along his son. Authorities allege he trained as a fighter and participated in attacks in Syria.
A recent string of attacks on Iraq’s Kurdistan Region peshmerga forces have raised concern over how effective long-discussed coordination with the central government is in the country’s flashpoint disputed territories.
Peshmerga forces operating in territory disputed between the central government and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) have in recent days incurred multiple casualties in a number of attacks attributed to Islamic State (IS) cells.
Moscow is likely to welcome a Turkish mediation effort if it serves to restrain Ukraine from a military adventure.
Turkey has offered to mediate in the Ukraine crisis as tensions between NATO and Russia escalate, with fears that Russia might be gearing up to invade eastern Ukraine. The proposal from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has previously passed messages between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, seems to have generated little enthusiasm in Moscow and Kyiv.
Humanitarian aid groups are often targets in politically charged areas. As pressures mount in the West Bank, they are posing a real threat to those who are trying to help – and to accountability.
The Israeli military’s designation in October of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations has dramatically escalated the politicization of humanitarian work in the West Bank, turning their work into a battleground.
