Tag: ISIS

The Russian Ministry of Defense released a barrage of statements to state-owned media outlets this week, claiming that an American F-22 fighter was chased away from Russian bombing runs in Syria by the Kremlin’s advanced Su-35s fighter.  There’s just one problem: according to U.S. officials in CENTCOM, this first interaction between these two storied fighters […]

While many greeted the strategy presented by President Trump in August with what it is best described as a lukewarm embrace, at least one US general officer, tasked with breaking the war’s 16-year stalemate, believes that things are about to change for the better. U.S. commanders on the ground are now free to target Taliban […]

“Habibi! Aluminium!” The call echoes through the courtyard of a trash-strewn home in Tal Afar, a remote outpost in northern Iraq. It is late September and still hot, the kind of heat that seems to come from all sides, even radiate up from the ground, and the city is empty except for feral dogs and […]

The Pentagon isn’t buying into the claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Russian are pulling a “significant part” of their troops from Syria after their mission in the war-torn country has been completed. Putin visited the country on Monday and it is estimated to have 10,000 active duty troops and private contractors currently […]

The United Nations Human Rights Office and the U.N. Assistance Mission in Somalia have said that more than 4,500 civilians have been killed or wounded in the conflict in Somalia since the start of 2016. And their report has pointed the finger at the guilty parties responsible for the majority of the violence plaguing the […]

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi publicly announced that the three-year war aimed at driving the Islamic State out of Iraq was successful and has come to an end. But what he didn’t do was acknowledge the role the Iraqi Kurds played in the defeating of ISIS. And that has the peshmerga forces rightfully mad. “Our […]

Three years after militants from the Islamic State captured nearly a third of the nation, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has declared final victory over ISIS in a televised address to his nation on Saturday. Haider al-Abadi’s speech comes two days after Russia announced victory over the same terrorist organization in Syria, where their military […]

A high-level defector from Kurdish-led forces that captured the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State has recanted his account of the city’s fall, saying thousands of IS fighters – many more than first reported – left under a secret, U.S.-approved deal. Talal Silo, a former commander in the Syrian Democratic Forces, said the SDF […]

The White House and the Pentagon have publicly blasted the Russians and Syrians for what is viewed as a weak attempt to oust the Islamic State and ISIS from the Syrian borders. In a scathing statement, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning said, “The Syrian regime and Russian Federation’s actions have thus far demonstrated that countering […]

Fatou Bensouda, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said on Monday there is a “reasonable basis” to believe that some British soldiers committed war crimes during combat operations in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Bensouda’s statement said, that in a 74-page report on preliminary inquiries that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that members […]

President Trump’s push for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians stems from a belief that his broader goals of stopping Iranian aggression and Islamist extremism will not be possible without it, presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a rare public appearance Sunday. “If we’re going to try to create more stability in the […]

Reports from CNN earlier this week are saying that the government of Niger has granted the US military the authority to arm its drones in Niger. US military officials had been seeking the authority to arm its drones for months prior to the ambush of a US Special Forces unit that left four soldiers dead. […]