“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)
In a surprise dawn raid, ISIS forces attacked Ben Guerdane, the first Tunisian city west of the border with Libya, in an apparent attempt to establish an "emirate" there.
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.
The UK is preparing to send troops to Tunisia to help prevent ISIS fighters from entering the country from Libya—and has broached direct intervention in Libya itself.
With a lull in the fighting since the Syria "ceasefire," civil movements now re-emerge in the "free" areas, residents filling the streets under the slogan "The Revolution Continues."
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.
Amid confused fighting in northern Syria, accusations are mounting that the Rojava Kurds are collaborating with Russia—and, by extension, the genocidal Bashar Assad regime.
Amid continued confused multi-factional warfare in Libya, the hard-right UK Independence Party warned that the North African country could be the "EU's Vietnam."
US warplanes hit an ISIS camp at Sabratha, about 70 kilometers west of Tripoli, killing at least 49—said to be mostly foreign fighters who were preparing an attack in Europe.
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.
Hundreds of Yazidi women who escaped from ISIS sex slavery have formed an all-female battalion to join an assault against their former abusers in northern Iraq.
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.
