Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
In 2016, the Middle East continued to be a major focus of the US public, and it often came up in the primary and presidential debates. Alas, the Middle East referenced by US politicians and many pundits does not actually exist, and the American fixation on this region has a creepy stalker-like quality to it.
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Syrians walk over rubble of damaged buildings, while carrying their belongings, as they flee clashes between government forces and rebels in Tariq al-Bab and al-Sakhour neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo towards other rebel held besieged areas of Aleppo, Syria November 28, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail/File Photo Moscow accused the U.S. Tuesday of a "hostile act" for taking action to more easily arm the Syrian rebels, Reuters reported Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
Islamic State militants re-entered the historic city of Palmyra in central Syria on Saturday for the first time since they were expelled by Syrian and Russian forces nine months ago. The activist-run Palmyra Coordination network said the militants had nearly encircled the city and entered its northern and northwestern neighborhoods.
The Obama administration has "high confidence" that missing American journalist Austin Tice is alive in Syria, Sen. John Cornyn said Friday. Freelance journalist Tice disappeared while reporting near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August, 2012.Texas Republican Cornyn, the second-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said he had been briefed on the latest situation by White House hostage envoy James O'Brien.
Whenever a country falls into civil war, there are always observers who suggest that the problem could be resolved by a partition of that country. It is as though they think the parties to the war are like squabbling children in the back seat of the car, who can be dealt with by making them sit far away from one another.
The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria on Thursday said U.S. President Barack Obama could well keep working until his last day in office to end the war in Syria, and Russia did not want to be held responsible for the demolition of eastern Aleppo. "I would never underestimate an outgoing U.S. president as a lame duck," Staffan de Mistura said in an interview published on Friday in Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
In this Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 photo released by the Syrian Presidency, Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks to The Associated Press at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria.
Through five years of war in Syria, President Obama has been in a constant internal struggle with hawks in his administration who want the U.S. to directly intervene militarily to overthrow the Syrian government. On at least four occasions Obama has stood up to them, although at other times he has compromised and gone half way toward the hawkish position.
MOSCOW: Americans should vote for Donald Trump as president next month or risk being dragged into a nuclear war, according to a Russian ultra-nationalist ally of President who likes to compare himself to the US Republican candidate. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a flamboyant veteran lawmaker known for his fiery rhetoric, told Reuters in an interview that was the only person able to de-escalate dangerous tensions between Moscow and Washington.
"The provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. ... The United States of America should be prepared to use military force, to strike military targets of Bashar Assad regime."
Josef Joffe is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg and fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he teaches U.S. foreign policy. For a country supposedly in decline, the United States is getting a lot of attention these days.
The U.S. must consider a no-fly zone and other aggressive actions to prevent an imminent bloodbath in the besieged rebel-held city of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian government forces, the head of civil defense forces known as the "White Helmets" warned on a Washington visit Tuesday. Many of the city's 275,000 civilian residents are "sitting in their homes, waiting to die," as Russian and Syrian warplanes unleash wave after wave of airstrikes, White Helmets chief Raed al-Saleh said Tuesday.
Sergei Rudskoi, center, of the Russian Military General Staff listens to Russian and Syrian officers during a video call, as a Syrian army facility is displayed on screen, at a Russian Defense Ministry buil... . In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, walks on a street with officials after performing the morning Eid al-Adha prayers in Daraya, a blockaded Damascus suburb, Syria, Monda... Ryan Lochte says he feels "a little hurt" after being involved in an incident on "Dancing with the Stars" that prompted producers to cut to a commercial.
Illustrative photo of an IAF F-15 fighter jet flying over Israel during the 'Blue Flag' exercise at Ovda Airfield near Eilat on October 21, 2015. Syrian state television said the Syrian army shot down an Israeli fighter jet and drone Tuesday morning, a claim swiftly denied by the IDF.
"Should we think of Russia as an adversary?" John Dickerson, host of CBS's "Face the Nation," asked CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday. "I think, in certain areas, they are adversaries, yes.
The United States and Russia, two former Cold War foes that have brokered a ceasefire deal for Syria, rely mostly on air raids in their separate military campaigns in the war-wracked country. Here are key points about how these two powers are trying to fulfill their military objectives in Syria, where a bloody civil war has raged since 2011.
The foggy aftermath of Gary Johnson's "What is Aleppo?" gaffe revealed how little U.S. policymakers know about ISIS The 2016 campaign story of the week seemed to be Gary Johnson's blunder during an MSNBC interview when he shockingly asked, "What is Aleppo?" That story, though, is really only the tip of the iceberg. The real story is the response to his gaffe.
Near-simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck in and around strongholds of the Syrian government and Kurdish troops Monday, killing at least 48 people in a wave of attacks that came a day after the militants lost a vital link to the outside world along the Syrian-Turkish border. The IS-run Aamaq news agency said the attacks included six suicide bombings and one remotely detonated blast.