Author: Steven Sahiounie

Turkey is paying higher salaries to militants who go and fight in Libya, Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov said. According to her, fighters from the Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups were paid approximately $50 a month in Syria, but the rumored salary in Libya was $1,500 per month. In addition, fighters are being promised Turkish citizenship after 6 months of deployment in Libya. Reportedly 3 Turkish-backed militants died fighting against the Libyan National Army (LNA), and there is even a debate on how to report their deaths, and even if to report them at all. Meanwhile, there was a…

Iran is considering “13 revenge scenarios,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said on January 7th, Fars News Agency reported. The initial report has since been removed from the website, it could be found on this dead link. Other media, such as Hezbollah affiliated al-Manar, however, republished the story. Ali Shamkhani was quoted as having said the following: “Iran has 13 scenarios to respond to America, in retaliation for the blood of the martyr leader Qassem Soleimani, the weakest of which will be a historical nightmare for America.” He spoke of the scenarios in a press statement: “We…

By: Nebojsa Malic While protests in India and Hong Kong may look similar at first glance, Western reactions to them reveal fundamental differences. Dig deeper, and we hit the bedrock of hypocrisy about “human rights” and “democracy.” There are superficial similarities between the protests that have rocked the Chinese autonomous territory of Hong Kong since May, and the protests around India for the past several weeks. Both ostensibly started due to a proposed law; extradition to the mainland in the case of Hong Kong, a citizenship amendment in the case of India. In both cases, protesters have set public property…

The US says that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks against its diplomats and military personnel. But when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pressed for evidence of this, he gave none. Soleimani, commander of the Iranian military’s Quds Force, was assassinated in a drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, on Friday. Before the strike, President Donald Trump implicated Iran in a fatal rocket attack on an American base in Iraq in December, and in the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad by protesters last week. Afterwards, he said that Soleimani was killed to prevent “imminent and…

China’s annual quotas for corn, wheat and rice will remain unchanged, the country’s senior agriculture official has reportedly said. The news comes days before the first part of the US-China trade agreement is due to be signed. “They are quotas for the whole world. We will not change them just for one country,” Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Han Jun told Chinese news outlet Caixin. As part of the breakthrough trade deal reached between the two sides last year, China promised to significantly boost purchases of American goods, including farm products critical to the US, over the next two…

Saudi authorities captured the country’s “most wanted terrorist” in the city of Qatif in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, state-run broadcaster Al Ekhbariya reported on Tuesday. “The most wanted terrorist, Hussein Ali Aal Ammar, has been detained in Al-Qatif,” the broadcaster said. The Saudi Interior Ministry accuses Aal Ammar of a number of major crimes, including the abduction and murder of prosecutor Mohammed Al-Jirani, the shooting of a patrol car in Dammam and an attack on cash collectors.

Earlier, the alliance announced that it would be scaling down its activities in the Middle Eastern country following the spike in tensions caused by the US assassination of a senior Iranian military commander. The NATO alliance is moving ‘some personnel out of Iraq’ amid concerns for their security, an alliance official cited by Reuters has said. “We are taking all precautions necessary to protect our people. This includes the temporary repositioning of some personnel to different locations both inside and outside of Iraq,” the official said. The official added that the continued safety of NATO personnel was “paramount.” On Monday,…

The tensions between Washington and Tehran have escalated after Iran’s top military commander was killed in a targeted US drone attack at the Baghdadi International airport on 3 January. In response to the Iranian threats of retaliation, Trump suggested striking 52 Iranian cultural sites if attacks against US assets were to take place. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the US is prepared for any retaliation on the side of Iran and that Washington is ready to retaliate in return. He added that he wants to obey international law when it comes to striking cultural sites. “If that’s what the…

Utah’s Hill Air Force Base put on a powerful show of force, practicing a maneuver known as an “elephant walk,” in which they launched more than 50 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in just minutes. However, the US Air Force swears it has nothing to do with simmering tensions with Iran. Two fighter wings at Hill Air Force Base practiced a rapid deployment method called an “elephant walk,” quickly launching 52 F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft with just seconds between each takeoff. The whole exercise took just over 10 minutes, according to local paper The Standard-Examiner. ​“Today’s exercise marks the accomplishment of…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator Iraq’s parliament met on Sunday and passed a resolution asking all 5,200 US troops to be expelled.  After hearing of the Iraqi decision, US President Trump refused the request, balking at the democratic process of an elected body of a sovereign nation, and insisted,  “We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” referring to a US air force base in Iraq, one of 12 US military facilities there.  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “We are confident the Iraqi people will want the U.S. to remain.” He also disregarded the democratic process in…