Blog Posts

"Libya's warring parties will continue talks this month to try to reach a lasting ceasefire in a war for control of the capital, Tripoli, the United Nations said Saturday, after a first round in Geneva recently failed to yield an agreement."

"Israel has begun to draw up maps of land in the occupied West Bank that will be annexed in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday."

Syria's civil war, which has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011, has drawn in several foreign powers to the country, including the United States, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Here is a map of where the four main foreign players are in the Syrian territory.

"A shootout between Afghan and American soldiers during joint operations in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday resulted in fatalities on both sides, Afghan and American officials said."

"The pro-regime coalition is poised to make further gains in Greater Idlib Province, adding on to already substantial territorial advances. Russia will govern the speed at which these advances happen based on its political calculus, both in Syria and elsewhere. The conflict has the potential to escalate dramatically, posing a risk to the U.S. and its allies."

United Nation agencies warn a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in northwest Syria and many more civilians will be killed and injured, with infrastructure destroyed unless hostilities stop.

"Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, under pressure from the Trump administration, has beefed up his strategy to fight drug cartels, including bringing the marines, Mexico’s elite security force, back to the front lines of the drug war."

Terror groups in Africa are getting more ambitious, increasingly mustering the resources and expertise to make their presence felt across the region with an eye toward wreaking havoc even further afield.

"The U.S. Air Force may only want a handful of light attack aircraft, but U.S. Special Operations Command now appears to want at least 75."

"A co-founder of a task force focused on radically improving close combat across military services said the initiative may be headed toward irrelevance outside of a small sector of the Army."

"The United States has killed the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), President Donald Trump said."

Syrian government forces continue to whittle away at Turkish-supported rebel forces inside Syria's besieged Idlib enclave, gaining more ground along the strategic Damascus-to-Aleppo highway. Despite warnings by both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron to halt the offensive, the Syrian army appears poised to capture another strategic town.

"A Palestinian driver rammed a car into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, injuring 14 people, and clashes in the West Bank left two Palestinians dead, one of them a security officer, a week after President Trump unveiled his peace plan for the region."

"Iraq and Russia discussed prospects for deepening military coordination, Iraq’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, amid a strain in Baghdad-Washington relations after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general inside Iraq."

"Nearly one month has passed since Iran attacked U.S. troops in Iraq with a barrage of ballistic missiles. As considerably more information has now come to light, a reassessment now seems in order."

FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday that 2019 was the deadliest year for domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City truck bombing in 1995, adding that he'd raised combating racially motivated violence to a national priority for the bureau.

"Israeli warplanes have fired missiles at targets near Syria's capital, Damascus, Syrian state media report. The Sana news agency said air defences intercepted most of the missiles, but that eight people were wounded."

"Russian personnel are engaging in tense standoffs with U.S. troops on highways in northeastern Syria in violation of agreements between Washington and Moscow to stay out of one another’s way in the war-ravaged country, the top U.S. envoy to Syria said Wednesday."

"Although the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) proved a vital partner in fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and its territory has served as a rare oasis of stability in a war-torn country, the October 2019 American pullout from the northern Syrian border region brought to bear the unrealistic notion of an enduring American partnership with the SDF and the unclear nature of the U.S. presence."

"Some members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are considering withdrawing thousands of their forces from Afghanistan once the United States begins to officially cut its own presence in the country, according to American and European officials."

"Afghan special operations forces and commandos are conducting more partnered missions with their America allies, raising questions about the elite unit’s ability to hold the line should U.S. troops withdraw from the nearly 18-year long."

"Turkey’s president threatened Wednesday to use force against Syrian government forces if they don’t pull back to an earlier cease-fire line in northern Syria by the end of the month."

"The Iraqi government has told its military not to seek assistance from the U.S.-led coalition in operations against the Islamic State group, two senior Iraqi military officials said, amid a crisis of mistrust between Washington and Baghdad after an American strike killed a top Iranian general and an Iraqi militia commander."

"President Donald Trump hailed the U.S. military as “unmatched anywhere in the world” and vowed to use it to pursue terrorists worldwide in his annual State of the Union speech Tuesday night, but also vowed to end America’s wars in the Middle East because of the strain they have put on military families."

U.S. defense and intelligence officials say the special forces operation that killed former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria last October has done little to hinder the terror group. Instead, the Defense Intelligence Agency warns the organization’s command and control structure, as well as many of its clandestine networks remain intact, and recent turmoil in the region due to Turkey’s incursion into northeastern has played to its advantage.