The USS Nitze, a guided missile destroyer, was intercepted by four Iranian military boats near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, US defense officials said. The Iranians ignored attempts to communicate and acted in an “unprofessional” manner the US said. The Nitze and guided missile destroyer USS Mason encountered the Iranians in international waters, where…
https://www.rt.com/news/357144-turkey-more-tanks-syria/video/ More Turkish tanks have crossed the border into Syria in a military operation ostensibly aimed at taking the border town of Jarablus from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). Damascus has called the move “a blatant violation of sovereignty.” According to a witness cited by Reuters, at least nine Turkish tanks entered northern Syria on…
So Turkish President, a.k.a. Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan is about to make a high-profile visit to Tehran – the date has not yet been set – to essentially kick start the ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow) coalition in Syria. Anyone as much as hinting at such a massive geopolitical tectonic shift a few weeks ago would be branded…
Damascus promised to destroy its entire arsenal, but the world’s chemical weapons watchdog suggests Assad may have squirreled some away. The world’s chemical weapons watchdog has repeatedly found traces of deadly nerve agents in laboratories that Syria insisted were never part of its chemical weapons program, raising new questions about whether Damascus has abided by…
While the granting of the use of the Iranian airbase in Hamedan to the Russian Aerospace forces was greeted with a lot of coverage, the recent departure from Hamedan of the Russian Tu-22M3 has attracted much less attention. The official Russian line on this was very neutral, as shown by this article in Sputnik. What…
North Korea fired a submarine-launched missile on Wednesday that flew about 500 km (311 miles) towards Japan, a show of improving technological capability for the isolated country that has conducted a series of launches in defiance of UN sanctions. Having the ability to fire a missile from a submarine could help North Korea evade a…
