Author: Steven Sahiounie

Turkey, which likes to present itself a ‘defender’ of the Palestinians, is employing Israeli-made loitering munitions to attack units the Libyan National Army (LNA). (Another fun fact is that the core of the Turkish tank fleet was created thanks to Israel) A wreckage of the Israeli-made IAI Harop suicide drone was discovered by the LNA near the village of Hamada. The Turkish military and Turkish-funded Syrian militants (redeployed from the Turkish-occupied part of Syria) are fighting against the LNA on behalf of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

Libyan government forces have shot down a cargo plane operated by rebel forces near the capital, Tripoli. Sources from both sides said the military plane had been downed near Tripoli on Sunday. Fighting has in recent days intensified near the capital, which is the seat of Libya’s internationally-recognized government. Rebel forces under the command of a general named Khalifa Haftar have been fighting in an offensive to take over the capital and unseat the government since April last year. They have remained bogged down on the city’s outskirts. On March 21, Haftar claimed full adherence to a humanitarian truce that…

Yemeni army and popular committees have purged areas in eastern al-Jawf Province of Takfiri militants and uncovered homes-turned-prisons that were run by the Daesh terrorist group. Yemen’s al-Masirah TV channel released footage that uncovered prisons run by Daesh, and the cooperation between the terrorists and the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen in al-Jawf. The video showed that Daesh terrorists had turned homes in al-Marwan district in eastern al-Jawf into prisons. It showed the basements where women and children had been tortured. According to the report, Saudi Arabia conduced 15 airstrikes on factories used by al-Qaeda terrorists to make explosive devices and booby-trap cars shortly after…

Syrian media say the United States has dispatched truckloads of military and logistical equipment to the country’s northeastern province of Hasakah as Washington and some of its regional allies keep vying with one another to seize oil reserves and plunder natural resources in the war-battered country. Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that a convoy of 35 trucks crossed the Waleed border crossing on Monday and headed toward US positions in the Jazira region of the province. The sources added that the majority of the equipment was sent to a base that American troops have set up…

The Russian side of the Russian-Turkish commission monitoring the implementation of the Syrian truce has recorded one ceasefire violation in Syria over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defence Ministry said in its daily bulletin on Sunday. “The Russian part of the representation of the joint Russian-Turkish Commission on issues related to violations of the cessation of hostilities recorded one fact of opening fire in the province of Latakia. The Turkish side has not registered cases of ceasefire violation”, the bulletin said. On 4 April, the Russian Defenсe Ministry’s centre for Syrian reconciliation has not registered any fire coming from militants in…

The Turkish Defenсe Ministry has ordered to minimise the movement of its military in Syria due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Due to the coronavirus epidemic, a decision has been made to minimise the troops’ movements in the zones of military operations in Syria if it is not essential”, the Ministry said. The Turkish military, which operates 12 observation posts in Idlib to monitor a 2018 de-escalation agreement, intervened in early February to push back Syrian troops who had been trying to recapture Idlib Province since mid-December. On 5 March, Russia and Turkey managed to implement a ceasefire in Syria to stop the fighting in…

In late March, the US military deployed its Patriot missile defence system to the Ayn al-Asad base in Iraq in a move to “protect against another potential Iranian attack”. Reuters on Monday reported, citing its sources, that missiles hit near sites of foreign and state-run oil companies in Basra, Iraq. No casualties have been reported so far. According to police, the missiles were Katyushas launched at around 3 a.m. local time and hit the Burjesia residential and operations headquarters west of Basra. At the same time, the Iraqi military stated that the rockets hit near US-based Halliburton company site. The strike on…

by Svetlana Ekimenko For years, “gold bugs” – investors encouraging buying precious metals at low prices as a hedge against future global economic risks, were shunned amidst consistently rallying global equities markets. “Gold bug” analysts who have long advocated investing in gold and silver ahead of an allegedly looming “financial apocalypse” appear to be correct as markets crash and the accumulation of physical metals is predicted as likely to pay off in a big way, writes Bloomberg. “We’ve been trying to warn people that something like this would happen”, said Jim Rickards, the author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next…

The day before, it was reported that the main participants in the OPEC+ group supported the idea of meeting on 6 April to discuss cutting oil production. The Kremlin on Sunday stated that Russia never supported the idea of abandoning the OPEC+ oil output cut deal, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to have constructive negotiations. Speaking further, the Kremlin stated that an increase in oil output would lead to very low oil prices, which wouldn’t benefit any country. Oil prices suffered their worst decline in decades in March after Russia and Saudi Arabia failed to reach a deal on…

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have adopted fresh measures to tackle the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic amid an uptick in the number patients in both Persian Gulf countries. Saudi Interior Ministry announced a lockdown and a partial curfew in seven neighborhoods of the port city of Jeddah starting on Saturday. The ministry said in a statement that residents in those districts could only go out for grocery shopping and medical care between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. local time and that movement in and out of the areas will be restricted. The kingdom had already taken similar measures in Dammam, Ta’if and Qatif to rein…