The “Race for Raqqa” might have long been over ever since the Kurdish-led “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) reached the northern edge of Daesh’s so-called “capital” a few months ago, but that didn’t mean that the battle for northeastern Syria was anywhere close to finished. So long as the besieged desert town of Deir ez-Zor remained…
A military and diplomatic source has told Sputnik that a US Air Force plane had evacuated Daesh (ISIS, banned in Russia) field commanders from Deir ez-Zor. The US-led coalition has denied the allegations. “Amid successful actions by Syrian government troops in the eastern part of Syria in late August, a number of field [Daesh] commanders backed by US special services, had…
Expect “Israel” to try and obtain Russian diplomatic support for pressuring Iran to on Hezbollah’s post-war presence in Syria, but don’t necessarily assume that it’ll succeed. Hezbollah swiftly defeated Daesh in an effective anti-terrorist campaign coordinated with the Syrian Arab Army along the mountainous Syrian-Lebanese border. Observers were taken aback by how quickly victory was…
The creation of a sovereign Kurdish state in Iraq could result in the remapping of the Middle East and the collapse of the established status quo, Israeli political analyst Avigdor Eskin writes for RIA Novosti. Eskin notes that regardless of the potential repercussions the Iraqi Kurds are determined to hold an independence vote on September…
Libyans have described their fears of an emboldened Islamic State reasserting itself in vast swathes of lawless territory, as the group seeks to re-establish a new power base after the fall of Mosul in Iraq and ongoing operations to end its control of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in Syria. Almost a year after the liberation…
As Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, has stated, if there’s a worse place to be in the world at the moment than the Syrian city of Raqqa, then it’s hard to imagine. This week, the UN estimated that the battle to capture the de facto ISIS capital is costing the lives of…
