Military & Security

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties (NYT) with Iran in the regional fallout triggered by the Saudi execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric. Nimr was one of forty-seven prisoners executed (BBC) across the country on Saturday. The severing of ties comes after protesters stormed the …

Zalmay Khalilzad If history is any indication, even the most promising news from Iraq must be celebrated with caution. But the liberation of the heart of Ramadi, if consolidated, can offer lessons for long-term strategic successes in Iraq and for broader campaign against ISIS. While the outcome in …

ISIS loyalists are brainstorming more creative ways to inflict violence against their enemies. A prominent user put out a call on an online forum frequented by supporters of the terror group, asking for outside-the-box ideas for terrorism. More than dozen Islamic State sympathizers added and discussed ideas, Vocativ …

Iraqi commandos and U.S. airstrikes drove the terror army from much of the city. But that war plan could backfire the next time around. Pentagon officials hailed the U.S.-trained Iraqi army this week for retaking much of the western Iraq city of Ramadi from the self-proclaimed Islamic State. …

The Yazidi shopkeepers in Snuny, in northern Iraq, have a warmth about them that belies their circumstances. A year ago their town was liberated from ISIS by Kurdish peshmerga forces. The hope was that some of the 250,000 Yazidis who fled ISIS after the extremist group began massacring …

China has confirmed it was building a second aircraft carrier, as neighbors worry about Beijing’s new assertiveness to claims in the South China Sea. Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the carrier had been designed in China and was being built in the port of Dalian. Foreign military analysts …

According to preliminary information, over 30 were killed and dozens injured in a triple explosion in the center of the Syrian city of Homs, a police source told RIA Novosti Monday.  “The suicide bomber blew himself up, almost immediately a car bomb exploded, and then another explosive device …

The Syrian Air Forces have conducted 168 sorties and hit 190 terrorists targets since mid-December, the Syrian Army spokesman Brig.Gen. Ali Maihub said. “Between December 17 and December 26 the Syrian Air Forces conducted 168 sorties hitting 198 terrorist targets in the provinces of Homs, Hama, Idlib, Aleppo and Damascus …

The Syrian army confirmed on Friday that Zahran Alloush, the leader of Jaysh al-Islam terrorist group operating in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, has been killed in an airstrike by the Syrian air force.  Earlier reports indicated that Alloush along with seven other terrorist field commanders and 10 …