The defense funding bill for 2016 includes some lavish support to rebels in Syria and lethal aid to the current Ukrainian government. Although President Barack Obama is at loggerheads with lawmakers over some of the provisions, they are likely to remain. Obama has threatened to veto the $612 billion National Defense Authorization Act – also known as House Resolution 1735, or the NDAA – [...]

In between Russia's military intervention in Syria and Iran's challenging of Saudi Arabia's hegemonic power in the Middle East, the region is witnessing unprecedented political frictions. Those growing pains will ultimately see manifest a new order - which one remains to be determined.   [...]

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling for an independent investigation into the deadly US airstrike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz to determine whether the attack can be regarded as a war crime. According to Doctors without Borders, such an investigation should gather evidence from the US, NATO and Afghanistan, as well as testimonies of the Kunduz hospital staff and patients. [...]

The whole point of Islamic State’s tactic of hiding in mosques and using human shields is to try to make Russia look bad hoping the military would make an error, says Doctor Max Abrahms of Northeastern University in Boston. John Wight, a writer and political analyst, shared his opinion on what the Western media hopes to achieve by further speculation on the campaign. [...]

Four Russian Navy warships have fired a total of 26 missiles at the position of the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced. The missiles were fired from the Caspian Sea. The missiles flew some 1,500 km before reaching their targets, probing their efficiency. [...]

An estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters as well as militants from other extremist groups have fled Syria for Jordan fearing a renewed offensive by the Syrian army in addition to Russian airstrikes, a military official has told RIA news agency. “At least 3,000 militants from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), al-Nusra and Jaish al-Yarmouk have fled to Jordan. [...]

Russia is ready for contact with the Free Syrian Army, but it is now a 'phantom,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said at a news conference following talks with his Laos counterpart in Moscow. "They tell us about the Free Syrian Army, but where is it?  It remains a phantom group, nothing is known about it," Lavrov said, adding that Russia has sent a request about the group to the Un [...]

Seeing their colleagues and patients die was a horrifying shock, according to survivors of the deadly air raid on a hospital in Afghanistan. The tragedy, medical staff said, simply cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage” from a botched airstrike. Recalling the tense minutes of continuous airstrikes which hit the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, NGO staff said that the d [...]

The head of the Chechen Republic has asked the Russian president to send Chechen units to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, adding that his fighters have sworn to fight terrorists till the end. “This is not idle talk, I am asking for permission to go there and participate in special operations,” Ramzan Kadyrov said in the Friday interview with the RSN radio. [...]

The Russian Air Force has conducted more than 60 flights and bombed over 50 Islamic State targets in three days, according to Russia’s top armed forces official. He added the strikes have significantly reduced the terrorists’ combat capabilities. “The airstrikes were being conducted night and day from the Khmeimim airbase and throughout the whole of Syria. [...]

What happens when those allies you held closest to you turn out to be working towards your demise? Worse still, what if those truths you held as certainties were no more than a web of lies weaved by politicians to sell you on their wars? We are living in strange times indeed when politicians and governments can argue supporting radicals in the name of national security and democracy. [...]

Western policy in Syria and Ukraine has failed. Monday's events at the UN, suggest a change of tack. A new, more stable, international order could take hold. You almost felt sorry for Petro Poroshenko. The end for Ukraine as a major international cause célèbre was as ignominious as it was swift. As wretched as the violence on the streets of Kiev as Euromaidan began to tear Ukraine apart. [...]

The upper chamber of the Russian parliament has unanimously given a formal consent to President Putin to use the nation’s military in Syria to fight terrorism at a request from the Syrian President Bashar Assad. Consent was necessary for use of the country's military for foreign combat missions under the Russian constitution. [...]

It is increasingly difficult to watch the most recent coverage of the Syrian war and not be struck by how utterly illogical and convoluted it has become. But look through the media spin and it’s clear: the Russian leader's steady moves in Syria is perplexing the US. Whether it's the latest neocon claim that the way to ‘help’ refugees is to drop more bombs and train more Al-Qaeda-linked re [...]

In a rare interview with Russian media, including RT, Syrian President Bashar Assad opened up about terrorism, the refugee crisis, and Western propaganda. He went back in history, saying that the US invasion of Iraq had set the stage for Syria's unrest. RT has picked some of President Assad’s worthwhile quotes. [...]

Washington is considering a Russian proposal of direct military talks regarding the situation in Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said as his spokesman struggled to explain the setbacks to US efforts against Islamic State militants in the region. Reporters grilled deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner over revelations that only a handful of US-trained “moderate Syrian rebels” [...]

Sustainable development, global security and efforts to diffuse ongoing conflicts, many of which have resulted in explosive global refugee crises, top the agenda of the 70th anniversary UN General Assembly session that has begun its work in New York. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speech marathon will see more than 160 leaders in attendance at the 70th anniversary. [...]

In the mind of State Department spokesman John Kirby, Russia should not back Syria against the terrorists, president Assad is to blame for ISIS, Iraq is much better off because of the US invasion, and it’s ‘absolutely astounding’ anyone would dare to disagree. That is what the press briefing at the State Department on Tuesday amounted to in a nutshell. [...]

Syrian Girl on the monumental media deception behind the crisis Syrian Girl explains how the crisis is being exploited by both governments and economic migrants who aren’t even refugees. [...]

Transparent effort to demonize sound money and gold standard. A video purportedly released by Al Hayat, said to be the Islamic State’s media center, extols the gold standard and Austrian economics. Video has been removed! The video, featuring a perfect English voice over, denounces the Federal Reserve: …as history repeated itself, one of the great forms of corruption that the earth cam [...]

In the latest atrocity in Yemen, Saudi warplanes bombed a residential area, killing at least 65 people. Most of the victims are reported to be civilians from the Salah district of Taiz, Yemen's third largest city. The apparent war crime committed has tragically become an almost daily occurrence during five months of relentless aerial bombardment of Yemen by a Western-backed coalition of foreign [...]

Parliament should not vote on military action against Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria until the Chilcot Inquiry’s report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published, a senior Tory MP has warned David Cameron. David Davis MP, a vocal opponent of intervention, said the report should be published urgently in light of calls for extending airstrikes from Iraq into Syria. [...]