Author: Steven Sahiounie

On June 24, a unit of the Russian Special Forces attacked a position of Turkish-backed Suqur al-Sham in southern Idlib, according to opposition sources. Russian forces raided the position, which is located in the outskirt of the town of Benin, in the early hours of the morning. Suqur al-Sham claimed that its militants fought back. However, the results of the attack say otherwise. Sources in Suqur al-Sham, a part of the so-called National Front for Liberation, revealed that four militants of the group were killed and three others were injured in the raid. The slain militants were identified as Mohamad…

A Turkish drone strike has claimed the life of Zahra Barkal, an official in the Self-Administration in North and Northeast Syria. Barkal and two other Kurdish women, Amina Wissi and Habun Khalil, were killed on June 23 when a Turkish combat drone targeted a house they were meeting inside, in the village of Helince, southeast of the border town of Kobane in northeast Aleppo. 33-year old Barkal, a law graduate from the University of Aleppo, worked with the Kurdish Red Cross in Kabane in 2013. Later, she occupied several key positions in the town’s local administration, which is overseen by…

Late on June 23, ISIS cells assassinated Col. Adnan Mahmoud Bakar of the Syrian National Army in the Turkish-occupied part of northern Aleppo. According to opposition sources, the colonel was shot and killed by the group’s fighters as he was leaving a mosque in the town of Kafr Ghan, near the town of Azaz. “With the grace of God Almighty, Caliphate soldiers targeted an officer from the apostate Sahawat [term for Sunni factions fighting against al-Qaeda or ISIS] in the village of Kafr Ghan in the vicinity of the town of Azaz, with a handgun, which led to his death,…

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt has a legitimate right to intervene in Libya and has ordered his army to stand ready. “Any direct intervention from the Egyptian state has now acquired international legitimacy,” Sisi said after inspecting military units at an airbase near the border with Libya. He stressed that Egypt has the right to self-defense after receiving “direct threats” from “terrorist militias and mercenaries”, in a clear reference to terrorists transported from Syria to Libya by the Erdogan regime in Turkey.  The mercenaries are followers of Radical Islam who failed to institute…

The Iranian-backed militant group last clashed with Israeli forces in September 2019 following a retaliatory strike in northern Israel. Hezbollah has repeatedly warned that it is ready for a war with Israel but does not seek one. Hezbollah has threatened to bomb Israel with pinpoint accuracy using precision-guided missiles. A video released by the Lebanese militant group appears to show the coordinates of sensitive sites in Israel and the Palestinian territories that could be targeted in the event of an attack. It features a voice-over provided by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, saying that the group is able to bomb “very…

Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) announced on Sunday that they had established complete control over the distant Socotra Island located off the Horn of Africa. According to a statement issued by the STC, Socotra Island was “completely released.” The head of the STC in Socotra, Ali Ibrahim al-Sakli, said that the council approved the introduction of self-government on the island. In response, the Yemeni government slammed the island’s seizure as “a full-blown coup that undermined the state’s institutions” in the province of Hadiboh, the country’s SABA news agency reported citing a source in the government. The Yemeni government has repeatedly…

The east-based Libyan National Army (LNA) has introduced a no-fly zone around the city of Sirte on Sunday, LNA spokesperson Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mismari said, also welcoming Cairo’s announcement of being prepared to send in its forces. “The area from the As Sultan settlement east of Sirte until the al-Heesa village in the west is being declared a no-fly zone where the flights of any aviation, except for LNA aircraft, are prohibited,” Mismari said in a statement obtained by Sputnik. According to the LNA spokesperson, the no-fly zone stretches across 200 kilometers (124 miles). On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi said that…

Twenty Indian army personnel were killed in the violent clashes that broke out in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh on 15 June. Since then India’s Ministry of Railways and Telecom ministry has terminated contracts with Chinese firms. Amid border tensions with China, India has frozen three investment projects worth $667 million made by Chinese companies in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The projects have been put on hold at the behest of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. The projects include a major automobile plant deal and an electro-mobility project. “The decision has been taken in consultation with the Union government. These…

Earlier, Trump said that he might consider meeting Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to reiterate his administration’s objection to what he described as the “oppressive Maduro regime”. This comes shortly after Trump said in an interview with Axios news website that he has had second thoughts about his decision to recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and said he might consider having a meeting with President Nicolas Maduro. Trump said that he was not very supportive of his administration’s decision to back Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who tried to oust Maduro amid protests that…

Trump ally-turned-whisteblower John Bolton spent 17 months in the president’s administration. Widely described as tough-nosed foreign policy hawk, Bolton insists that President Trump was acting in his personal interests and not in the best interest of the United States. John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, offered a brutal review of his former employer’s presidency in an interview with ABC News, aired on Sunday. Bolton, who is set to publish a tell-all memoir about his stint at the White House, expanded on some of the anecdotes from the book and gave a broader picture of a president who is…