Author: Steven Sahiounie

Iraqi security officials said Monday that anti-government demonstrators in the south had blocked roads leading to the country’s main port while protesters in Baghdad forced the closure of Iraq’s central bank. Protesters burned tires, blocking the roads to the Umm Qasr port, responsible for the bulk of the country’s imported commodities, AP quoted a Basra official as saying. This is the second time the port has been blocked since the protests began on October 1. In Baghdad, staff were evacuated from the Central Bank of Iraq located on Rasheed Street as crowds approached the area.

The goal of the patrol was to monitor the situation in Syrian settlements eastward from the customs checkpoint in Aylishar along the Syrian-Turkish border. The Russian military police and the Turkish border service have carried out their eighth joint patrol in northern Syria, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday. “On 18 November, starting at 10:06 a.m. local time [08:06 GMT], the joint patrol of Russian military police and the Turkish armed forces began operating in the border area, located several kilometers north from the settlement of Kobane,” the ministry said in a statement. The joint patrol included eight units…

At least seven civilians have been killed, most of them foreign workers, and 30 wounded in an airstrike that hit a biscuit factory in southern Tripoli, Libya’s health ministry says. Ministry spokesman Amin al-Hachemi told AFP that two Libyans and nationals from Bangladesh, Egypt and Niger died when the factory in Wadi Rabi took a direct hit, with foreign workers also accounting for the 30 wounded. The suburb has been at the center of an assault launched in April by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s forces to wrest control of the capital from fighters loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National…

Syrian government troops have managed to wrest control over a major hydroelectric power plant in the country’s northwestern province of Aleppo as they continue to score territorial gains in battles against foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists. The Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported that Syrian army forces seized back Tishrin power plant, located 90 kilometers (55.9 miles) east of the provincial capital city of Aleppo, on Monday. The report added that Russian military forces will soon start patrols near the strategic facility, which has an electricity generating capacity of approximately 630 megawatts (MW). Syrian government troops had earlier taken back control of Tabqa Dam,…

Fighters from Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement have managed to seize a ‘suspected vessel’ off the western coasts of the impoverished country in the Red Sea, but will release it once it proves to belong to South Korea after completing legal procedures, a top Houthi official says. Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the Chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, made the remarks in an interview with Reuters on Monday. “Yemeni coast guards… are checking to see whether (the vessel) belongs to the countries of aggression or to South Korea, in which case it will be released after completing legal procedures. The…

By Sarah Abed Washington’s latest attempt to dissuade an ally from making arms deals with Russia came in the form of a letter sent on last Wednesday to Egyptian officials warning them that they could face sanctions if they continued with their $2 billion dollar Su-35 fighter jets contract. In addition to sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Ahmed Zaki that “Major new arms deals with Russia would — at a minimum — complicate future U.S. defense transactions with and security assistance to Egypt,” in Wednesday’s letter. The United States sends Egypt $1.3 billion annually in military assistance.…

By Nauman Sadiq In July 2015, the security officials of Afghanistan and Pakistan were holding an important meeting in Islamabad to initiate a dialogue process with the Taliban when the Afghan National Directorate of Intelligence publicly announced that Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar had died two years ago in 2013. Though the Taliban immediately announced Mullah Akhtar Mansour as Mullah Omar’s successor, who was also killed in an American drone strike a year later in May 2016 while returning to Pakistan from a visit to Iran, it transpired that for two years prior to the revelation of Mullah Omar’s death, the affairs of…

The price range for Saudi Aramco shares published on Sunday ahead of an IPO indicates that the value of the oil giant is between $1.6 trillion to $1.7 trillion, which falls short of the initial $2 trillion target. The indicative price range for about 3 billion shares that Saudi Aramco offers is between 30 riyals ($8) and 32 riyals ($8.53) per share. This would bring anywhere between $24 billion and 25.6 billion into its coffers, depending on the final price that is to be announced on December 5. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. raised $25 billion in its 2014 IPO. The…

Two Palestinian teenagers, aged 13 and 14, were seriously injured in clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Sunday, citing a Red Crescent report. “Two Palestinian teenagers were seriously injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers at the Jalazone refugee camp in the West Bank,” the report said, as quoted by the agency. The agency said, citing local sources, that Israeli forces had broken into a refugee camp and started provoking students who returned after classes, triggering clashes near the school. Earlier in the day, Palestinian border control said all checkpoints on the border…

The US Air Force strategic unmanned aerial vehicle RQ-4B Global Hawk made a many-hour reconnaissance flight off the coast of Syria, where the Russian naval base in Tartus and the Russian Hmeimim airbase are located. According to the monitoring data from PlaneRadar.ru, the drone made a series of flights near Russian bases, at times approaching them at a distance of 35–45 km. Further data showed the aircraft along the coast of Israel and Lebanon, from where it could technically observe the area of the Syrian capital of Damascus.  The flight was carried out at an altitude of about 16 thousand…