February 23rd, 20180NEW YORK — A former plumbing assistant from New York City pleaded guilty on Wednesday to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
Sajmir Alimehmeti, 24, also pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan to committing passport fraud in order to facilitate an act of terrorism, federal prosecutors said....
February 21st, 20180BEIRUT — Lebanese intelligence arrested a man on Wednesday they believe was a financial official for ISIS in Syria, a security source said.
The Syrian, arrested in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, was responsible for collecting money for the militant group in Albu Kamal, a city in eastern Syria, before ISIS was expelled from...
February 16th, 20180BEIRUT — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Lebanon on Thursday that Hezbollah's growing arsenal and involvement in regional conflicts threatened Lebanon's security.
Speaking alongside Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri in a Beirut news conference, Tillerson also said the United States was engaging with Lebanon and Israel...
February 9th, 20180WASHINGTON — The United States does not plan to contribute any money at a conference in Kuwait next week to fund Iraq's reconstruction drive after the war against ISIS militants, U.S. and Western officials said, a move critics say could deal a new blow to American standing internationally.
"We are not planning to announce anything,"...
February 9th, 20180DAMASCUS/ANKARA — The leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran agreed on Thursday to meet in Istanbul to discuss the conflict in Syria, a Turkish presidential source said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed the meeting in two phone calls on Thursday with the Russian and Iranian presidents, the source said. The date of the summit...
January 26th, 20180DAVOS, Switzerland — Iraq called on Thursday for foreign investors to help it rebuild after defeating ISIS and making progress in reuniting the country, saying it would need up to $100 billion to fix crumbling infrastructure and war-torn cities.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said help was needed with dozens of projects, as Iraq...
December 15th, 20170BAGHDAD — The mainly Shi'a Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries have lost more than 7,000 and sustained more than 21,000 injuries during the war against the ISIS terror group since 2014, an Iraqi militia leader has revealed.
Qais al-Khazali, the head of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, which is funded and supported by Iran, said that with the...
December 15th, 20170WASHINGTON — Sophisticated weapons the U.S. military secretly provided to Syrian rebels quickly fell into the hands of ISIS, a study released Thursday disclosed.
The study stated that ISIS's possession of these weapons remains a threat to the forces still operating against the terror group in Iraq and Syria.
The arms included...
CAIRO — ISIS threatened attacks on U.S. soil in retaliation for the Trump administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, one of the group's social media accounts reported on Thursday without giving any details.
In a message on one of its accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service titled "Wait for...
December 2nd, 20171CAIRO — On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered his military command to use all force necessary to secure the Sinai peninsula within the next three months, following a militant attack on a mosque that killed more than 300 people.
No group has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack in which authorities say...
November 28th, 20170CAIRO — ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that took place on Monday targeting the Nahrawan area southeast of Baghdad, the group’s Amaq news agency said.
The militant group said it had killed 35 members of paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilization Forces but the Interior Ministry had earlier said the attack targeted...
November 26th, 20170CAIRO - The death toll in a devastating terrorist attack on a mosque on Friday in Egypt’s North Sinai has risen to 305 killed, including 27 children, and 128 more people were wounded, MENA state news agency said on Saturday.
The gunmen were carrying an ISIS flag and were between 25 to 30 in number, the public prosecutor’s office...
November 21st, 20170BEIRUT - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared the end of Islamic State on Tuesday while a senior military commander thanked the thousands of martyrs killed in operations organized by Iran to defeat the militant group in Syria and Iraq.
“Today with God’s guidance and the resistance of people in the region we can say that this...
October 20th, 20170
KABUL- Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 72 people including children, officials and witnesses said.
One bomber walked into a Shi‘ite Muslim mosque in the capital Kabul as people were praying on Friday night and detonated an explosive, one of the worshippers...
October 17th, 20170RAQQA, Syria ― U.S.-backed militias in Syria have declared victory over ISIS in its capital Raqqa, a milestone in the fight to roll back the theocratic “caliphate” declared in 2014.
The city
Sunni militant group ISIS overran Raqqa in January 2014, seizing control from rebel factions opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar...
October 6th, 20170On Sunday night, Oct. 1, a White terrorist named Stephen Paddock, sadly not branded as such by the president, police or media outlets, shot more than 500 people and killed 59 at a country music concert from his 32nd floor suite of the Mandalay Bay Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
According to police, Paddock, 64, had 23 guns in his hotel...
September 29th, 20170RAQQA ― U.S.-backed militias expect to push all ISIS fighters out of their former Syrian headquarters of Raqqa in less than a month, a Kurdish commander told Reuters on Monday.
Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militias have hemmed the jihadists into a few districts in the north of the city.
The Kurdish...
September 28th, 20170CAIRO ― ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has exhorted followers across the world to wage attacks against the West and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
The message released on Thursday was his first purported audio communication in almost a year during which his jihadist group lost much of its self-proclaimed...
September 14th, 20170BAGHDAD ― Three suicide attacks claimed by ISIS killed at least 60 people in southern Iraq on Thursday, a health official and police sources said, suggesting a shift in the ultra-hardline group’s tactics since it lost control of its stronghold in Mosul.
Iraqi and Kurdish security officials say the militants are likely to wage a...
September 13th, 20170BEIRUT/MOSCOW — The Lebanese group Hezbollah has declared victory in the Syrian war while Russia said government forces had driven militants from much of the country where President Bashar al-Assad’s rule seemed in danger two years ago.
The comments from two Syrian government allies mark the most confident assessments yet of...
September 8th, 20170BEIRUT — The Syrian army and its allies reached Deir al-Zor on Tuesday in a sudden advance following months of steady progress east across the desert. On Thursday, the army advanced against militants in a pocket they still hold further west, pro-Damascus media reported.
Syrian state media reported an aid convoy arrived at Deir...
September 3rd, 20170BEIRUT —A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families left the Lebanon-Syria border region on Monday under Syrian military escort, surrendering their enclave and traveling to eastern Syria after a week-long battle.
A line of ambulances and buses were shown on Syrian state television driving slowly through the arid countryside, the...
September 3rd, 20177Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, has been reduced to rubble. It has been finally conquered, snatched back from the notorious group, Daesh, after months of merciless bombardment by the U.S.-led war coalition, and a massive ground war.
But "victory" can hardly be the term assigned to this moment. Mosul, once Iraq's cultural jewel and...
September 3rd, 20170BEIRUT - The governor of Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, Mohammed Ibrahim Samra, said the Syrian army would reach Deir al-Zor city, which has been besieged by ISIS for years, within 48 hours.
“The heroes of the army will arrive at Deir al-Zor in 24-48 hours at the most,” he told Reuters by phone, adding that the army was now...
August 29th, 20170BEIRUT - A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families left the Lebanon-Syria border region on Monday under Syrian military escort, surrendering their enclave and traveling to eastern Syria after a week-long battle.
A line of ambulances and buses were shown on Syrian state television driving slowly through the arid countryside, the...
August 20th, 20170AIN ISSA, SYRIA — Washington's main Syrian ally in the fight against ISIS says the U.S. military will remain in northern Syria long after the jihadists are defeated, predicting enduring ties with the Kurdish-dominated region.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of militias dominated by the Kurdish YPG,...
August 10th, 20170Young men who leave their homes to fight for terrorist groups in Syria mainly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have low levels of education and “lack any basic understanding of the true meaning of jihad or even the Islamic faith”, according to a study for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.
The report, which was...
July 27th, 20170BEIRUT ― The United States will give Lebanon an extra $140 million to help Syrian refugees and the communities hosting them, the State Department said during a U.S. visit by Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
Lebanon is hosting at least 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have fled the more than six-year conflict there and who now make...
