A suicide bomber blew himself up as security forces raided his hotel room in Beirut’s Raouche district Wednesday evening, injuring at least 11 people, in the third such blast to strike Lebanon in less than one week. Firefighters rushed to extinguish flames on the third floor of the Duroy Hotel ...
Read More »Questions rebels use to tell Sunni from Shia
BAGHDAD — Whether a person is a Shia or a Sunni Muslim in Iraq can now be, quite literally, a matter of life and death. As the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized vast territories in western and northern Iraq, there have been frequent accounts of fighters’ ...
Read More »Iran: IRGC Quds Force Commander Not in Iraq
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected recent media reports that Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani is in Iraq to help the country in its war on terrorists, stressing that no Iranian military official is in the country. “No military ...
Read More »Iran returns military aircraft to Iraq after 20 years
A spokesman for the Office of the Adjutant General of the Iraqi armed forces has said that his country has returned 130 military aircraft to Iraq, which were held in Iran for more than 20 years. General Qassim Atta explained in a televised press statement that the Iranian authorities have ...
Read More »Israel helps ISIS with airstrikes in Syria
Israel launched airstrikes against Syria yet again (22 June 2014), hitting at least nine military targets and killing several Syrian soldiers. These strikes were supposedly in response to a cross border rocket attack that left an Israeli teenager dead at the Golan Heights border. The reality of the matter however, ...
Read More »Iraq rejects granting immunity to US forces
Baghdad has not agreed to grant immunity from local prosecution to US forces that are being deployed to Iraq, which is fighting against Takfiri militants, reports say. According to Iraqi local media reports, a government source on Tuesday rejected the claims after reports from the Pentagon said Iraq had assured ...
Read More »Sunni tribes register to help Iraqi army against ISIL terrorists
A Sunni Muslim group called “Ahl al-Sunnah”, consisted of eight Sunni tribes in the Iraqi southern province of Basra, has registered to fight against radical militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). Al-Alam correspondent in Basra reported on Tuesday that fighters from eight Sunni tribes registered ...
Read More »More than 1,075 people killed in Iraq in just 17 days: UN
The deadly unrest in Iraq has killed more than 1,000 people were between June 5 and 22 according to UN figures, as extremist militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Levant attacked large swaths of northern and western Iraq. At least 1,075 people were killed and 658 injured ...
Read More »Iraqi army soldiers recapture 2 border crossings
Iraqi security forces have retaken control of two border crossings in their latest battles against Takfiri militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Troops recaptured the Trebil border crossing with Jordan and al-Waleed crossing on the border with Syria on Monday. Also, Iraqi warplanes launched ...
Read More »ISIS sets its sights on Jordan
The ramifications of ISIS’ recent victories [in Iraq] did not take long to reach Jordan, in particular the southern Maan region, a hotbed of tension where a few days ago dozens of Salafi jihadis held a pro-ISIS march. They called for the removal of the borders established by the Sykes-Picot ...
Read More »