“Omar the Chechen,” a top-ranking ISIS commander apparently killed in a US air-strike in Syria, is said to have been trained by the Pentagon when he fought the Russians in Georgia. (Photo via Levant Report)
US drones and warplanes killed more than 150 al-Shabab militants in Somalia, with the Pentagon citing an "imminent threat" to US and African Union forces.
A Turkish court released two journalists who were arrested last year after reporting that the Ankara government was running a smuggling operation to arm Islamist factions in Syria.
President Obama delivered his plan to close Guantánamo Bay to Congress—to be immediately met by Republican opposition, with Ted Cruz calling for the facility's expansion.
The Israeli security establishment and its neocon allies are divided between those who would destabilize Assad and those who would prop him with up as the Devil they know.
Syria's Rojava Kurds are accused of coordinating with Russian air-strikes to take territory held by Islamist factions—while Turkey warns them against any further advance.
The US aids Syrian Kurds against ISIS even as it acquiesces in Turkey's counterinsurgency against allied Kurdish forces just across the border—undermining anti-ISIS unity.
With Turkey insisting that the Syrian Kurds be barred from upcoming Geneva peace talks, Russia is pressing for their participation—while pursuing its grisly campaign of aerial terror.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb issued a statement saying the Ouagadougou attack was carried out by "mujahideen brothers" of its West African franchise, al-Mourabitoun.
The ISIS-affiliated network that carried out the Jakarta attacks emerged from the sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province.
The last Kuwaiti held at Guantánamo, supposed Osama bin Laden advisor Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari, was repatriated after years of pressure from Kuwait's government.
Two Yemeni men captured in Afghanistan and detained at Guantánamo Bay for 14 years have been released to Ghana, bringing the number held at the facility to 105.
