Author: Steven Sahiounie

By Drago Bosnic A senior Iraqi security expert disclosed that Washington is attempting to transfer 3,000 members of the ISIS terrorist group from Syria to Iraq. Hafez Al-Basharah told the Arabic-language al-Ma’aloumeh news website on Tuesday that the US which has created and supported the ISIS terrorists in the past few years is now plotting to create a safe area for them in Iraq. He added that Washington, which has chosen three areas in Iraq for the ISIS relocation, wants to transfer the militants first to the regions under Turkey’s military attacks in Syria and then to Iraq. “The first region that the…

By Pepe Escobar In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing: here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a “false premise.” No wonder the Pentagon is not amused. Trump’s tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical spectacle of Turkey attacking a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates to essentially expel Syrian Kurds. Even after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleared with Trump the terms of the Orwellian-named “Operation Peace Spring,” Ankara may now face the risk of US economic sanctions.…

By Andrew Korybko President Putin gave an extensive interview to Arab media before departing for Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but it’s useful to highlight some of the most relevant parts in case interested observers don’t have the time to watch it in full or skim through the transcript since the Russian leader powerfully refutes the Alt-Media narrative that his country is supposedly “allied” with the Resistance against the GCC and “Israel”. President Putin’s extensive interview that he gave to Arab media before departing for the Gulf is extremely informative in that it authoritatively reveals the true nature of Russia’s foreign policy…

Sarah Abed, political analyst On Monday, after a weekend of bloody chaos in northeastern Syrian brought on by Turkey’s cross border military incursion “Operation Peace Spring” which included airstrikes, ISIS prison breaks, and a continuation of the exodus we’ve seen over the past few days of over a hundred thousand civilians fleeing their homes, President Trump signed an Executive Order authorizing sanctions against current and former Turkish government officials and anyone who is contributing to Turkey’s actions in destabilizing northeast Syria. In a formal statement, published by the White House, President Trump went on to say that steel tariffs will…

Syrian government troops have entered the northern Kurdish-held city of Manbij on the sixth day of Turkey’s aggression against the Arab country, state media says. Syria’s official news agency SANA made the announcement without providing further details. A local official in Manbij also confirmed that troops had “entered (Manbij) and deployed on front lines.” Manbij was liberated from the Daesh terrorist group in 2016. Since then, it has been controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants. The development came a day after Syrian government forces and the Syrian Kurds struck an…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed plans to boost economic ties with Saudi Arabia by setting up a $1 billion oil plant there. He also reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to the OPEC agenda of keeping the oil market steady. “There is still a lot to be done, but we have set a good pace. Last year [trade turnover] was up 15 percent. In the first six months of 2019, growth was as high as 38 percent,” said Putin. “We are considering some good joint projects. Our Direct Investment Fund and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia have jointly established a…

Clashes between the Houthi rebel movement, also known as Ansar Allah, and the Yemeni government forces resumed on Monday in Yemen’s northwestern province of Hajjah, a local military source stated. “The Ansar Allah movement launched a large-scale attack on military positions of the Yemeni government troops in the districts of Abs, Hiran and Harad, northwest of Hajjah”, the source said. According to the source, the Saudi-led Arab coalition’s warplanes carried out seven raids on Houthi groups in Hajjah’s districts of Abs, Harad and Mustaba and also provided the Yemeni army with reinforcements coming from the neighbouring province of Amran. Some…

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken control over the Brigade 93 base in northern Al-Raqqa this afternoon, a source from the military told Al-Masdar News. According to the source, the Syrian Arab Army moved into the Brigade 93 base after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) withdrew from parts of ‘Ayn ‘Issa, a town that was also handed over to the military. The Syrian Army lost Brigade 93 during the Islamic State’s 2014 offensive in the Al-Raqqa Governorate. However, the base was later captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces during their Euphrates offensive (2016-2019), which culminated in the eventual seizure…

The Syrian and Russian air forces carried out several airstrikes in the Arba’een Mountain region of Idlib last night, hitting a number of jihadist targets near the city of Ariha. A Sputnik News field source has now revealed what the Syrian and Russian air forces were targeting in Idlib. “The joint Syrian-Russian aircraft carried out before midnight on Sunday, a series of airstrikes on sites belonging to HTS gunmen in Jabal al-Arbaeen south of Idlib. The source said that the reconnaissance planes were able to detect the movements of the HTS gunmen when they were working to transport shipments of…

The Kremlin reiterated Russia’s position which calls for avoiding any action that could conflict with or hinder the political solution for the crisis in Syria. This came during a press conference on Monday, in a response by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to a question about the Turkish aggression on Syrian territory. Peskov said that since the beginning, Russia has been reiterating on all levels its absolute rejection of any action that could conflict with or hinder the political solution for the crisis in Syria or could cause tension in it, asserting that this position hasn’t changed. He also noted that…