Author: Steven Sahiounie

A combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), operated by Turkish military forces, has reportedly launched an airstrike against a residential neighborhood in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, in the aftermath of a cross-border incursion by Turkish army troops and their allied militants into the Arab country’s Kurdish-populated region. Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the drone fired a missile at al-Dardara village on the outskirts of the key border town of Ra’s al-Ayn on Sunday. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties, and the extent of damage caused. Separately, a landmine planted by the Turkish forces in al-Assadiya village went…

By Drago Bosnic Russia’s decision to develop weapons previously banned by a now-defunct deal was only a reciprocal measure amid steps taken by Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a conference on non-proliferation in Moscow. The foreign minister stressed that NATO is making it clear that it will not agree to a moratorium on short- and intermediate-range missile deployment in Europe, Sputnik reported. The INF Treaty, signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987, was terminated in August at Washington’s initiative after the country formally suspended its INF obligations six months earlier. Both countries had repeatedly accused…

The earlier company’s report showed that the net profit of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Saudi Aramco for the first nine months of this year amounted to $68 billion, revenue for the same period reached $244 billion. According to the largest state-run oil company in the Kingdom, the prospectus confirms to offer up to 0.5 percent of its shares to individual investors, adding that selling shareholders will receive all of the proceeds of the offering and will reimburse Saudi Aramco for all fees, costs and expenses in incurs. The document also stresses that the company will be prohibited from listing additional shares…

by Tim Korso Previously, Ankara boasted that it had captured a number of people linked to the late Daesh* leader, including his sister, Rasmiya Awad along with her husband, daughter-in-law, and five children. Ankara received “a lot of information” about the “inner workings” of the Daesh* terrorist group from the “first wife” of the group’s late leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, AFP reported, citing an anonymous Turkish official. According to the source, the wife, whose real name is Asma Fawzi Muhammad Al-Qubaysi, was captured around a year ago in the province of Hatay, near the Syrian border. “We discovered [her] real identity…

BY HANA SAADA Five candidates have been approved to run for the Algerian presidential election, slated for December 12, 2019. The contenders are, as announced by Mohamed Chorfi, head of the Independent National Electoral Authority (ANIE): Interim Secretary-General of the National Democratic Rally party (RND), Azzedine Mihoubi, President of El-Bina Movement party Abdelkader Bengrina, former Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune, President of Talaie El Houriyet party Ali Benflis, and President of Al-Moustakbel Front party Abdelaziz Belaid. Twenty-three candidates, out of a total of 147 applicants who have withdrawn the subscription forms for individual signatures, had applied to the election authority, submitting their candidacy…

BY ELIJAH J. MAGNIER In 1975, Lebanon went through 15 years of violent and destructive civil war. The circumstances before the beginning of the war were aimed at destroying and removing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat. Palestinians were drawn into a civil war in Lebanon, paving the way for an Israeli invasion in 1982 that finally led to the departure of the PLO from Lebanon (and the “Islamic Resistance” that became years later known as Hezbollah). Today, in Lebanon, Hezbollah believes the same scenario could be repeated if dragged onto the street to face protestors. This is…

The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) announced on Saturday that Tehran had raised the uranium enrichment level to five percent as part of the scaling back of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal following the re-imposition of sanctions by the US. The collapse of the Iranian deal will affect commodity and financial markets, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Saturday at a non-proliferation conference in Moscow. “Neither Iran, nor the US, nor Europe nor the rest of the world can win from the collapse of the deal. A spike in tensions could grow into an open conflict…

Syrian government troops have retaken a village in the country’s northeastern province of Hasakah from Turkish military forces and their allied militants following intense clashes. Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that heavy skirmishes broke out on Saturday afternoon when the Turkish forces and their mercenaries launched an offensive against the village of Um Shuaifeh near the border with Turkey. The report added that the battles involved heavy and medium weapons, noting that Syrian army soldiers finally managed to liberate the village and establish full control over it. They forced Turkish forces and their allies to retreat towards the village of…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator Nearly 300 protestors in Iraq have been killed, and 9,800 wounded since protests began on October 1.  Security forces have cracked down on protestors while using live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas.  The protests have been held in various locations across the country, but have been absent in the North.  The protestors are demanding an end to systematic government corruption which will need a rewrite of the constitution and new leadership, including a new parliament.  Iraq has the world’s second-largest reserves of crude oil, while the protestors have complained of poverty conditions, and lack of…

Earlier, amid repeated claims by President Trump that Washington would be “securing” and “keeping” Syria’s oil, US media reported that as many as 800 US troops would be kept in the war-torn country to keep the black gold out of the hands of both Daesh (ISIS)* and Damascus, the oil’s legitimate owner. US claims to Syria’s oil fields are absolutely illegitimate and have no basis in international law, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said. “They [the US] acknowledge and openly state that they are present there [in Syria] because of oil fields. No one has a right to Syrian…