iran

Reports out of Moscow confirm a Russian military transport aircraft crashed in Syria on Tuesday. All 26 passengers and six crew members are confirmed dead. Everyone on board was Russian military personnel. The Antonov An-26 dual prop transport and cargo aircraft reportedly crashed as it was approaching a runway at Russia’s Khmeimim airbase in the […]

A bomb exploded in Erbil, Kurdistan yesterday around 4:00 pm local time in what appears to be a targeted attack. The bomb was placed under the chassis of a car belonging to two Peshmerga from PDKI (Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan) and was detonated remotely. The Peshmerga injured were a father and son and remain […]

The Iranian army is constructing another base in Syria. Recently released satellite images show the base, being constructed by Quds forces, part of the Revolutionary Guards from Iran. The base is located at Jabal Ash Sharqi outside of Damascus. Two large hangars are visible which the Israelis claim are being used to store missiles that […]

With the defeat of Islamic State, both Russia and China are attempting to grow their influence across the Middle East, adding to the growing concerns for the United States, the commanding general of Central Command said on Tuesday. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), described an array of steps those “great power” […]

The United States military in Afghanistan has disputed Moscow’s claim the number of Islamic State militants in the country runs into the thousands, and urged Russia and Iran to support the Kabul government, not the Taliban, to help defeat IS in the country. Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson made the remark […]

Transparency International is a Berlin based organization that has bestowed upon Iraq a corruption ranking of 169th out of 180 different countries. The report was filed yesterday and it comes as no surprise given Iraq’s propensity for extortion on any given level of authority or government. Turkey was ranked 81, Iran was 130, and Syria […]

Though the movement began before 2018, #WhiteWednesdays has gained steam and more international attention since the Iranian protests that ended in early January. Women have been removing their hijab in protest of the strict dress code, enforced by law since 1979. The first image/video to really go viral was of Vida Movahed, taken on December 27, […]

On Sunday Hasdt al-Shaabi forces began anti-terror operations in southwest Kirkuk, where they engaged a substantial force of Islamic State fighters. In the course of the battle, 27 Hasdt al-Shaabi were killed or captured in the province of Hawija over the span of several days. The operation was in an effort to combat known ISIS […]

The Israeli military hit multiple Hamas targets located in the Gaza Strip in the second decisive action on Sunday after an earlier counterattack on Saturday. The Israelis were hitting Hamas in response to a bomb detonation that wounded 4 IDF soldiers and rockets, fired from Gaza which landed in Israeli territory. The Israeli Army in […]

Iraqi Kurdistan has an unofficial border crossing with Iran in the far Southeast recesses of of it’s territory that is set to be inspected by a ministry delegation. It is in doing this that the governing body for  the Halabja province hopes that the crossing will eventually become recognized as a official border point of […]

In a brash demand from the Iraqi government, they have ordered the political parties and governing officials in Kirkuk to restructure all government posts based on ethnicity in one month’s time. The division of personnel would be a three-part split (32%) of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds, with the remaining 4% left to Christian minorities. The […]

On Saturday, Israel suffered its first loss of a fighter jet in contested airspace in 36 years, when an F-16I was shot down over Syria while conducting combat operations against Iranian assets within the region. The inciting incident, a violation of Israeli airspace by an Iranian drone, ended with Israeli forces downing the drone and […]