The Syrian town has been an outpost of the Jabhat an-Nusra* terrorist group in Idlib province. It is situated at a strategic crossroads of the M4 highway connecting Latakia and Aleppo and the M5 connecting Latakia and Damascus. The Syrian army has fully regained control of the town of Saraqib in Idlib Province, according to a military source. [...]

President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that all ties between the PNA and Israel, as well as the United States, would be cut following Donald Trump’s unveiling of his long-advertised peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many saw as being strongly biased towards the Jewish state. [...]

The plan was previously rejected by the Palestinian Authority, which vowed to cut ties with Israel and the US, urging people to participate in protests against the deal. People are gathering near the US Embassy in Lebanon in Beit Aaoukar to protest against the "deal of the century" – a new peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was recently announced by US President Donald Trump. [...]

Following the strike on two US military outposts in retaliation for the Trump-commissioned killing of General Qasem Soleimani, POTUS reported no losses, with the Pentagon eventually saying 64 service personnel sustained what he referred to as “brain injuries”. According to a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, cited by Press TV, the alleged number of “brain injuries” suff [...]

Moscow doubts the viability of the new peace plan for the Middle East recently unveiled by Donald Trump, as it is incompatible with UN decisions on the matter and does not sit well with the Arab world. Among other things, it cements Israel's sovereignty over the occupied West Bank; the Jewish state would also annex vast swathes of fertile Palestinian lands. Whereas the plan calls for establishing [...]

A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has accused the US of covering up deaths at a base in Iraq after a ballistic missile attack. The US insists nobody was killed, and that its troops suffered brain injuries. [...]

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that 50 - not 34 - US troops sustained various levels of brain injury from Tehran’s strike on Iraqi bases earlier this month. One expert explained to Sputnik that the Trump administration’s decision to trickle out this information is just a continuation of a series of lies from the White House regarding Iran. Ben Norton, a journalist with The Grayzone and co-host [...]

During self-congratulatory remarks about his “deal of the century” to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, Donald Trump threw in another boast; he claimed US forces defeated “100 percent” of the Islamic State caliphate. Have they? “Thanks to the courage of US forces, the ISIS territorial caliphate — 100 percent — not 95 percent, not 99 or any other percent — 100 percent of their ca [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries after Iran conducted ballistic missile strikes on two bases in Iraq with half of them still undergoing medical treatment, Department of Defence spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a press briefing on 24 January. "With regard to the number of recent injuries here is the latest upda [...]

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]

The Russian president made a small but noticeable contribution to keeping the Palestinian Authority in order when he put a fallen peaked cap back where it belonged – on the head of a member of an honor guard. The amusing interlude happened on Friday as Vladimir Putin was visiting the Palestinian city of Bethlehem to meet PA chief Mahmoud Abbas. [...]

Although Western media has a shoddy track record of lying on Syria (and Libya, Iraq...), the US State Department will pump $35 million more into future war propaganda on Syria, under the guise of promoting honest reporting. A US State Department grant, “Support for Independent Media in Syria,” is unabashed in stating one of its main goals is “to advance U.S. Government policy objectives in S [...]

A massive demonstration –called for by a prominent Shia cleric– has flooded the streets of the Iraq's capital Baghdad, with thousands voicing their anger at the US military presence there.  Early on Friday morning, throngs of protesters – men and women, young and old – began amassing at al-Hurriya Square in central Baghdad, near the city's main university. [...]

Moscow and Ankara are not responsible for starting the conflict which has ravaged Libya, but they may have a decisive role in ending it, as they lead international diplomatic efforts at the Berlin peace conference. The two countries opposed the US-led NATO intervention to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi nine years ago but, despite Turkey being a NATO member and Russia being on the UN Security Council, n [...]

BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Clashes between Lebanese anti-government protesters and law enforcement resumed near the parliament building in the capital Beirut on Saturday, with police resorting to tear gas and water cannons, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the scene. [...]

Bending under the pressure from the Trump administration, major EU states have taken yet another step away from the Iran nuclear deal, say academics, suggesting that it's unlikely that Tehran will engage in new nuclear negotiations with the same actors. On 14 January, the foreign ministers of the UK, France, and Germany – the countries-signatories to the Iran nuclear deal – announced that they [...]

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defence Committee, as saying that Baghdad was considering purchasing Russian S-400 systems amid concerns that the US may stop supporting the country. According to Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, Iraq’s possible acquisition of S-4 [...]

France, Britain and Germany have betrayed the 2015 nuclear deal after being threatened with US tariffs, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has claimed, noting that Europe has lost the moral high ground. The three European states accused Tehran of non-compliance with the accord after buckling under pressure from the United Sates, Zarif wrote in a tweet, citing a Washington Post report de [...]

Donald Trump’s threat to cut off Iraq’s access to its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if Baghdad insists on a withdrawal of US troops from its soil is bare-faced, modern-day colonialism. Let’s set the scene. On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve a resolution calling for the removal of US troops. A day later, Donald Trump threatened to hit Iraqis with deadly ec [...]

Europe could have saved the Iran nuclear agreement. Instead, it abused the rule of law by inappropriately triggering its dispute mechanism, all but ensuring the agreement’s demise. On January 5, 2020, Tehran announced that it would no longer comply with its obligations under the Iran nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA). Iran’s actions are in [...]

Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise. In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oi [...]

Iran is thousands of miles away from Britain, yet because the power elites support them, anti-government protests in Tehran receive much wider coverage in the UK than the ones in France, just across the Channel. How many British people have ever visited Iran? How many have lived there or have second homes there? I suspect the figures are very small. It’s quite a contrast with France. In 2018, [...]