The Islamic State, or ISIS, made global headlines recently on account of two significant developments in Syria: a prison uprising in Hasakeh in late January and the raid by U.S. special operations forces a week later, on Feb. 3, that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.
Although the response in Western capitals to Russia’s aggressive military posturing on its border with Ukraine has been couched in clear diplomacy-first terms, military contingency planning has stepped up a notch in recent weeks. The intent of these moves, at least judging from the rhetoric of U.S. and NATO leaders as well as respected commentators, is to strengthen deterrence.
Belgian police arrested 13 suspected members of an Islamist terror group in an operation in Antwerp on Tuesday.
The suspects were detained for spreading jihadist propaganda on social media, though police said it was unclear whether they had made concrete plans to launch an attack. Around 100 police officers were deployed at 13 different addresses during the raid.
Lt Gen Erik Kurilla, the nominee to head Centcom, floated the prospect of co-operation as ISIS step up attacks in Afghanistan
President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia is floating the possibility of co-operating with the Taliban in certain instances to take out ISIS targets in Afghanistan.
Lt Gen Erik Kurilla — who is the Biden administration’s pick to head US Central Command, or Centcom — raised the idea during his nomination hearing before the Senate on Tuesday.
The dire effects of massive jailbreaks a decade prior and the thousands of Islamic State convicts and suspects in Iraqi detention have induced greater attention to facilities in the country following an attack across the border.
In a January 28 interview with the Russian media about the Ukraine crisis, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said, “if it depends on the Russian Federation, there will not be a war.” He also suggested that there were “kernels of rationality” in the formal responses to Russia’s demands that the United States and NATO had delivered a few days earlier. To some Western commentators, Lavrov’s comments were a hopeful sign that the Kremlin had achieved its intermediate aims and might be shifting course. According to this analysis, Russian President Vladimir Putin had the West exactly where he wanted it: by moving more than a hundred thousand troops to the Ukrainian border and issuing an ultimatum, he had forced the United States and NATO to enter into a dialogue with Moscow. All along, then, the Russian government had been acting with calculated brinkmanship, pursuing an approach that has left the United States and its NATO allies with few choices other than to negotiate on an equal footing.
U.S. troops could be used to help evacuate American citizens from Ukraine should Russia invade the country, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.
Kirby’s comments came as roughly 850 troops with the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., arrived in Poland in response to more than 100,000 Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders. Another 850 troops with 82nd Airborne are expected to join them in the coming days.
Strykers and combat support vehicles lined up at the Army airfield Wednesday as about 1,000 American troops prepared to head to Romania for an open-ended deployment meant to reassure allies worried about Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine.
The Vilseck-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment soldiers will remain in Romania to shore up NATO’s eastern flank as long as the mission requires, said Col. Joe Ewers, the regiment’s commander.
China on Tuesday vowed to take countermeasures after the US announced a plan to sell $100 million worth of Patriot missile upgrades to the island of Taiwan, which would be the first US arms sale to the island in 2022 and the second under the Biden administration.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday there is an opportunity for further negotiations to de-escalate the crisis on the Ukraine-Russian border, after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv.
“Our desire for the following weeks and months is for the situation to stabilize and for us to be able to re-engage through new mechanisms of guarantees, a sustainable de-escalation,” Macron said Tuesday.