France has carried out a massive airstrike on an Islamic State stronghold in Raqqa, Syria. It struck dozen’s of targets including a command and control center, training camp and munitions warehouse, the country’s defense ministry announced. Twelve French aircraft, including 10 fighter jets, took part in the country’s biggest air raid in Syria, the statement from the defense ministry read. [...]

In response to the deadly Paris attacks, the French military has deployed a further 1,000 troops to ensure safety on the capital’s streets. The military deployment comes amid French Defense Ministry’s promises to revise national security strategy. [...]

NATO has been dropping bombs for a very long time on the Arab people in the Middle East, says Richard Becker from the anti-war 'Answer' coalition. And that has consequences to the countries that launched such aggressive policies in this region, he adds. France is not the only player involved in tackling ISIS. Why was Paris chosen as the target once again in this act of terror? [...]

If the recent horror visited upon Beirut and Paris, as Islamic State/Daesh seeks to broaden its war against civilization, does not succeed in re-focusing the mind of the West when it comes to its role in the Middle East, then nothing will. For far too long Western governments and ideologues have performed the modern equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns when it comes to the conflict against I [...]

Coping with the terrorist threat and assisting refugees is only possible by combined efforts, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during an informal meeting of the leaders of the BRICS countries, which is running on the margins of the G20 summit in Antalya. "We all understand perfectly well that coping with the terrorist threat and helping millions of people who have lost their homes, is poss [...]

A day after the devastating terror attacks in Paris, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said his country’s intelligence services had warned governments of three countries, including France, that terrorists had chosen as primary targets. “Information has been obtained from Iraqi intelligence sources that the countries to be targeted soon are Europe in general, specifically France, as [...]

French President Hollande has declared a state of emergency across the country as Paris comes to grip with a series of terrorist attacks that led to the death of 127 people in the capital, which was placed under curfew for the first time since World War II. [...]

The world is mourning with France, the victims of Friday’s terror assaults in Paris that claimed the lives of at least 129 people. Security has been tightened up globally as Islamic State, who claimed responsibility for the massacre, threatened more violence. A second person who was reportedly involved in the Paris massacre is “very likely” to have entered European Union via Greece, sourc [...]

In the aftermath of the slew of horrific terror attacks in Paris last night, European nations must come to admit that, with their continuous and blind support of US foreign policy, they are sowing the seeds of their own demise. For more than a year and a half, Washington, with little concern for consequences, has used Europe as a tool in its futile attempts to batter Russia into submission. [...]

As October ended, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest announced that the U.S. would be sending "less than 50" boots-on-the-ground Special Operations forces into northern Syria in an “advise-and-assist” program for Kurdish rebels and their (essentially nonexistent) Arab allies. Only days before, in yet another example of twenty-first-century mission creep, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter h [...]

Elite Syrian army units have broken the siege of Kweires airbase, following weeks of intense fighting against Islamic State and other jihadist forces. The base, which opens up routes for offensives against Raqqa and Aleppo, had been encircled for nearly two years. [...]

Amid intensifying U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria, a group of 35 bipartisan House lawmakers issued an open letter on Friday calling for Congress to fulfill its responsibility by voting "as quickly as possible" on whether to authorize a war that is well over a year old. [...]

The US is not interested in defeating ISIS but would want to control its movements to create a geopolitical balance on the ground and provide the US-led coalition with leverage at the Vienna talks, said Middle East geopolitics analyst Sharmine Narwani. [...]

Although the US military “do not seek” a new Cold War, it is determined to oppose the rising global powers – Russia and China – in order to protect the US-dominated “international order,” US Defense Secretary Ash Carter has said. [...]

“The Great Silence.” That’s how the London Times newspaper (back then Britain’s newspaper of record and not a crude neo-con propaganda sheet), described Britain’s first Armistice/Remembrance Day, which took place on November 11, 1919. [...]

The US-led coalition has been "unbelievably" inefficient in fighting the terror group Islamic State, possibly because some members have their plans for the terrorists, Iraq's former PM told RT. [...]

Ankara is worried about possible Kurdish-American collaboration after the backing the Kurds got from Moscow, says Dr. Jamal Wakim, Professor of History and International Relations at Lebanese University. Turkey says it will carry out a military operation against ISIS in the near future, without specifying when. [...]

A new whistleblower has joined the ranks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and other courageous individuals. The unnamed person, who chose to remain anonymous because of the Obama administration’s vigorous prosecution of whistleblowers, is a member of the intelligence community. [...]

Calls for global support for a full inquiry into the U.S. bombing of a charity-run hospital in Afghanistan have gone ignored, according to the head of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) which is mourning the loss of 30 lives in the attack. [...]

One month after the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more, the Obama administration refuses to submit to an independent inquiry while the aid group charges that the lack of global outcry over the incident has become deafening. [...]

Another deep cry, followed by a shrug. The world is at war, at war, at war. But it only hurts them, the helpless ones, the anonymous poor, who absorb the bombs and bullets, who bury their children, who flee their broken countries. Sixty million people have been displaced by the current wars, the highest number of uprooted since World War II. But who cares? [...]

Transparency International warns: "Corruption has fueled political unrest, extremism, and formed a narrative for violent extremist groups" Western nations—led by the United States—are selling large quantities of weapons to governments in the Middle East and North Africa, providing little oversight for how these arms are used, and thereby fueling corruption and conflict in countries from Sau [...]