Russia intends to start deliveries of nearly two dozen Su-35E air superiority fighter planes to Egypt between 2020-2021 in a deal worth the equivalent of over $2 billion. US officials have repeatedly warned that the deliveries could lead to sanctions against Cairo. Egypt's decision to purchase Russian-made fighter aircraft may result in sanctions and a halt in the delivery of US military equipment [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Trump’s decision to kill the top Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander on Friday, saying Tel Aviv stands alongside Washington in its “just struggle” against Iran. Mossad Director Yossi Cohen bragged that his agency could easily target Quds Force Commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani for elimination, telling an Israeli magazine in [...]

US President Donald Trump on Saturday addressed the annual Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit in Florida, where some 4,000 Israelis and American Jews gathered. Speaking on Saturday at the 2019 IAC National Summit in Florida, President Donald Trump said that people in the United States should love Israel more. [...]

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Trump administration’s unlawful execution of Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani is a strategic blunder of mammoth proportions that has now turned every American military official into a target, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik. [...]

General Qassem Soleimani was one of the most responsible for defeating Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, and his killing is a “great tragedy” that could result in a “vast war” with Iran, a Virginia senator and Marine veteran told RT. In a statement to RT on Friday, retired Virginia Senator Richard Black said that the assassination “may presage a new war of aggression—this time, against the [...]

A first-of-its-kind combined naval exercise by Iran, China and Russia has wrapped up in the Gulf of Oman. The US has been watching closely, as it could be the beginning of a security coalition to counter American influence. The Iranian Navy had announced that the December 27-30 exercise, codenamed Marine Security Belt, was aimed at enhancing maritime security in the region, which has witnessed a s [...]

Europe’s total dependence on Washington would lead it nowhere other than to its own demise, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has alleged, calling on Europeans to break free from America’s grip. Europe is a major political force on the international arena, yet it prefers to “quietly follow the policy imposed” by Washington, Ali Akbar Velayati told RT Arabic. [...]

The leadership of the chemical weapons watchdog took efforts to remove the paper trail of a dissenting report from Douma, Syria which pointed to a possible false flag operation there, leaked documents indicate.  In an internal email published by the transparency website WikiLeaks on Friday, a senior official from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ordered that the doc [...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to close US and NATO military bases in Turkey after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday, approved a bill imposing sanctions on Ankara after its offensive in Syria and purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems. 'If necessary, we can close Incirlik, and we can close Kurecik", Erdogan told Turkish channel Haber TV on Sunday. [...]

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close a vital airbase used by American forces, he wasn’t bluffing, and Washington should take his threats at face value, or risk losing a NATO ally, analysts say. [...]

Dozens of people were injured and hospitalized in Beirut during street battles between thousands of anti-government protesters and armed police amid a worsening political and economic crisis in Lebanon. Protesters hurled debris, bottles and fireworks while police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse the crowds on a second night of unrest in the capital this past weekend. [...]

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will not abandon the Russian S-400 air defence systems in order to buy American Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a statement that Ankara may insist that the US leave Incirlik air base if Washington goes ahead with the sanctions it has threatened in response to Turkey's purchase [...]

Washington has repeatedly threatened to sanction Turkey over its decision to buy the Russian air defense system, and moved to halt the delivery of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara over the purchase earlier this year. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed the 'Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act', which includes sanctions against Turkey over its dec [...]

Russian military forces have delivered food and provided medical assistance to the residents of Raqqa in the first such humanitarian mission aimed at helping civilians who are struggling to survive in the city scarred by war. The first column of Russian military trucks loaded with food and medical supplies entered the capital of Syria's northern province on Monday. [...]

Washington officials are reportedly demanding that Turkey “destroy or return” its Russian-made S-400 air defense systems to get back in the good books and rejoin the F-35 fighter program – but Ankara has no intention of complying. [...]

The White House has long sought to take counter-measures against the Turkish-Russian deal and now it is reportedly clinging to a new chance to put a spoke in the wheel. US President Trump has offered his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan a set of economic inducements for better US-Turkey relations, according to The Washington Post. [...]

The exit of Lebanon PM Saad Hariri brings more unrest in a turbulent region, a loss of an ally to the US, as troops withdraw from Syria, there’s conflict with Iran and issues with Saudi Arabia. Trump needs a new pal in the region. [...]

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden – who, back in the good old Obama administration days, lobbied for the arming of ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria – slammed Trump for downgrading the US military to an oilfield occupation force. “Leaving troops behind like [Trump’s] doing now – he says that what he wants to do is we’re going to occupy the oil fields and we’re going to take [...]

BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Lebanese banks resumed operations after a two-week break amid mass anti-government protests that broke out all over the country, a Sputnik correspondent reported from Beirut on Friday. The reopening of the banks was accompanied by long lines of people who wanted to get cash and make transactions and transfers. [...]

On Sunday President Trump announced that Baghdadi had been killed during the US-raid in Idlib. The number one terrorist was reportedly under the Pentagon's surveillance for quite some time before the conditions were ripe to eliminate him. The leader of the Daesh* terrorist group Abu Bakr Baghdadi was "the brainchild of the United States", and his elimination has not yet been confirmed, Russian For [...]

Last month, WikiLeaks published the evidence and testimony provided by an Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whistleblower who revealed that the watchdog appeared to have wilfully ignored data that the Syrian government did not stage a chemical attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018 in order to fit a convenient narrative. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian Defense Ministry published satellite intelligence images proving that oil from Syria was sent abroad under the guard of US servicemen before and after the defeat of the Daesh terrorists, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday. [...]