Author: Steven Sahiounie

Turkish military troops and allied militants have once again cut off drinking water supplies to about a million people living in and around the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah by stopping a border water pumping station, a report says. In an interview with Syria’s official news agency, SANA on Sunday, Director General of Hasakah Water Company Mahmoud al-Ukla said that Turkish soldiers and Ankara-baked militants stopped Alouk Water Station on Saturday evening and barred workers of the station from entering the facility. The major water station is located in the vicinity of the border town of Ra’s al-Ayn, which Turkish troops and…

Iran is planning to sue the United States over the impact that their sanctions have had on the Islamic Republic’s ability to fight the illness. According to the Fars News Agency, Iran’s Vice-President for Legal Affairs Laya Joneydi said on Saturday that her country has filed a complaint against the United States regarding the impacts of sanctions on the fight against coronavirus. Joneydi said that Iran will take the U.S. to the International Court of Justice. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States offered to help Iran fight the illenss, especially after it spread quickly through the…

The Iran-based agency “Noor News”, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran, said Israel was responsible for fire that broke out at the Natanz nuclear complex last Thursday. In the article published on Saturday, the agency said Israel had targeted the nuclear reactor as part of their campaign against the Islamic Republic. The news agency said that “despite the silence of Israeli officials as a result of the incident, media campaigns, an important part of which is directly or indirectly related to Israel, may cause consequences for Israel.” The article said that journalists and researchers…

The perimeter of the American embassy in Baghdad on Saturday night was subjected to a missile attack, before it was addressed by the Iraqi air defenses. The Iraqi media said that the Patriot system repelled a Katyusha rocket attack against the American embassy, ​​and after its interception the missile landed on one of the apartments near the embassy. They added, “The rocket landed, injuring a child and causing material damage to an apartment.” On Saturday, the U.S. military tested the Patriot missile defense system in the Iraqi capital several times. Iraqi media said that “the defense systems known as the…

On July 2, the Houthis repelled an attack by Saudi-backed Yemeni fighters on their positions in the area of Rshaha al-Sharqiyah on the border with the Kingdom’s southern province of Najran. The Yemeni group’s media wing released a 4-minute video documenting the failed attack. The video shows Houthi fighters targeting the attackers with artillery, heavy machine guns and improvised rocket-assisted munitions, IRAMs. The fighters can be also seen fighting with the attackers at a short range. Saudi-led coalition warplanes supported the attack by carrying out a series of airstrikes on Houthi positions in Rshaha al-Sharqiyah. Nevertheless, the coalition’s airstrikes were…

Khalifa Haftar is losing not only militarily positions but, above all, the political support of his international allies. Among the powers behind the Libyan camp in the East, the rating of Marshal is collapsing as the rating of the Chairman of the Tobruk “Parliament”, Aguila Saleh, grows. It seems that Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have supported Haftar since his ascension in 2015, but also his more restrained sponsors like Russia and France, are less supportive of the Marshal’s policy and may find it necessary to change his figure as the leader of Eastern Libya. Hawtar’s…

The United States is seeking to seize four tankers sailing towards Venezuela with gasoline supplied by Iran in itslatest attempt to disrupt ever-closer trade ties between the two states. According to the US, the sale was arranged by a businessman, Mahmoud Madanipour, with ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the US designates as a foreign terrorist organisation. “The profits from these activities support the IRGC’s full range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad,” prosecutor Zia…

The Libyan Air Force has destroyed a Turkish MIM-23 Hawk air-defense system in al-Watiya Air Base in the western Libya, a source in the Libyan National Army (LNA) told the media on July 5. According to the source, nine pinpoint airstrikes targeted the Hawk air-defense system and a KORAL electronic warfare system that was stationed nearby. “We were monitoring the deployment and installation of a Hawk air-defense system along with its attached radars by the Turkish occupation for the last few days,” the source told Libya al-Hadath, adding “today the Turkish Minister of Defense was informed while he was in…

For the second day in a row, an explosion rocked the Turkish-occupied city of Afrin in the northern countryside of Syria’s Aleppo. An improvised explosive device, which was planted under a SUV, exploded on July 5 morning. The explosion took place near a headquarter and jail of the Turkish-backed Hamza Division in Afrin’s city center. According to the North Press Agency, the SUV’s driver, whose identity is yet to be revealed, was killed in the explosion. Two other people were reportedly injured. A day earlier, an officer of the so-called Free Police, a law enforcement body backed by Turkey, was…

The Damascus government wants the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to hand over the SDF-held parts of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in exchange for a political settlement, Commander-in-Chief of the SDF, Ferhat Abdi Şahin, claimed on July 4. Şahin, whose is known by his nom de guerre Mazlum Abdi, made his remarks while he was attending a rare meeting with Arab tribal leaders from Raqqa in al-Hasakah city. The Kurdish commander said that the SDF will not accept these demands, stressing that Raqqa and Deir Ezzor will be run by their respective councils. He also noted that the two areas were…