Author: Steven Sahiounie

This comes amid the visit of US Under Secretary of Defence John Rood to Iraq for talks with senior officials in Baghdad and Erbil on regional security and the fight against terror. At least six people were killed and 15 more injured in three blasts that rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Reuters has reported, citing security and medical sources. Three people were killed and five others wounded when a motorcycle exploded in the northern Shaab district. When another motorcycle exploded in the southwestern Bayaa district, two people were killed and six more injured, the agency says, quoting its sources.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen says it has released 200 Houthi rebels to advance a UN-brokered deal aimed at ending the war in the Arab world’s poorest country, AP reports. Coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki was quoted by Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency as saying on Tuesday that the move was aimed at paving the way for a larger and long-delayed prisoner swap agreed upon last year. The coalition will also work with the UN to fly patients out of the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, for treatment abroad, Al-Malki said. The coalition has been battling the rebels since 2015. The…

The Iraqi Air Forces have carried out a successful airstrike on the Daesh* terror group fuel and vehicle storage facilities and bed-down locations, Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) said in a press release on Tuesday. “Two Iraqi Air Force 9th Fighter Squadron F-16s dropped two precision-guided munitions weighing 2,000 pounds each during an Iraqi-led operation to defeat Daesh [Islamic State] fuel and vehicle storage facilities and bed-down locations,” the release said. “The Iraqi Air Force led the effort to include the pre-brief, execution and debrief of the mission.” After the strike, Salah ad-Din operations commander Iraqi…

The tragedy comes just days after another car explosion left at least 10 people dead and 25 injured in the town of Tell Abyad near the Syrian-Turkish border. A car bomb attack near the city of Ras al-Ain in northern Syria has claimed the lives of 17 people, the Turkish Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. The Ministry said that the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara labels a terrorist group, was responsible for the attack. Earlier, SANA news agency reported that a number of civilians were killed while others were critically injured after a car bomb exploded in the…

US troops stationed nearly Deir ez-Zor have joined back up with Kurdish allies for a new operation against Daesh remnants in eastern Syria, despite triumphalist claims by the Trump administration to have defeated the militant group. Only a small contingent of US troops is slated to stay in Syria to protect oil wells in the country’s east, but that doesn’t mean they’re sitting around doing nothing: Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the US-led coalition against Daesh, has announced a new clearance operation against Daesh in conjunction with Syrian forces. CJTF-OIR commander US Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric Hill…

According to reports, the housing ministers of their respective countries will sign a contract on Tuesday, under which Iranian firms will construct 30,000 residential units in the Syrian capital, Damascus. A new bilateral agreement will see Iranian companies build 30,000 residential units in Syria, the chairman of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), Gholamhossein Shafei, said on Tuesday, and reported by state media. Shafei unveiled the proposals at the Iran-Syria Business Forum, and outlined Iran’s commitment to supporting Syria’s reconstruction, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported. “Iran hopes to see Syria’s reconstruction following the full restoration of peace and…

The White House and the US Capitol have been put on temporary lockdown following an airspace violation in Washington D.C. According to law enforcement sources the North Lawn of the White House was cleared as fighter jets from Air Force Base Andrews were mobilized on Tuesday. “The White House was locked down this morning due to a potential violation of the restricted airspace in the National Capital Region,” a spokesperson for the Secret Service responsible for protecting the President and his family told media in a statement. “The lockdown has been lifted at this time.” A small aircraft, which had…

By Pepe Escobar Just in time to shine a light on what’s behind the latest sanctions from Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a speech at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan delivered a searing account of Iran-US relations to a select audience of high-ranking diplomats, former Presidents and analysts. Zarif was the main speaker in a panel titled “The New Concept of Nuclear Disarmament.” Keeping to a frantic schedule, he rushed in and out of the round table to squeeze in a private conversation with Kazakh First President Nursultan Nazarbayev. During the panel, moderator Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, managed…

By Omid Rahimi and Aveek Sen On November 6th, early in the morning at 7:50 AM local time, the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Tajikistan published a statement about an attack on a Tajik border outpost in “Ishqobod” along the border with Uzbekistan. The first statement informed that 15 of the assailants and 2 members of the state forces have died.  On the same day, in the second statement -that of the State Committee on National Security (SCNS)- claimed that the invaders were members of ISIS and entered the country from Afghanistan. After 2 days, on November 8th, ISIS officially took the responsibility of the attack by publishing…

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned of an epidemic of dengue fever in Yemen as the impoverished country is already grappling with cholera due to a years-long Saudi aggression. “We have been recently extremely worried and concerned by reports of dengue outbreak, in addition to cholera,” Robert Mardini, head of the ICRC’s delegation at the United nations (UN), told a gathering of journalists on Monday. Mardini said more than 3,500 people have come down with dengue fever and 50 are reported to have died in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah from late October to early…