Kurds

Western powers, including the United States, are tentatively opening lines of communication to the new rulers of Syria — an alliance of Islamists led by an al-Qaeda splinter group whose boss is, inconveniently, a designated terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a brief visit to Turkey on Friday to meet with Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his counterpart Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, intended to discuss the collapse of the Assad dynasty in Syria and the ongoing war between Israel and the genocidal jihadists of Hamas.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will begin a brief trip to the Middle East on Wednesday with stops in Jordan and Turkey.

The Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish proxy force in the neighboring country, captured the Kurdish-held city of Manbij, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw confirmed on Tuesday, a day before Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) claimed to take the city of Deir ez-Zor.

Russia’s top Kremlin spokesman confirmed on Monday that strongman Vladimir Putin made the ultimate decision to grant political asylum to former Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad and his family.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday urged the al-Qaeda-linked jihadi rebels who toppled Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to consider teaming up with Turkish forces against the Kurds.

The foreign minister of Iran traveled to Baghdad on Friday for a meeting to discuss, alongside his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts, how to address the surging campaign by Sunni jihadists to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed Syrian militia group led by Syrian Kurdish forces, said on Tuesday that its fighters clashed with Syrian government troops and took control of seven villages near Deir al-Zor, potentially opening a new front against the regime of dictator Bashar Assad.

The Syrian National Army (SNA), a militia formerly known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with ties to Turkey, began attacking Kurdish forces in Aleppo province, Syria, this weekend after the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) laid siege to the city of Aleppo, reportedly ousting the forces of dictator Bashar Assad.

British counter-terror officers arrested six people as part of an investigation into activity linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodgan on Thursday invited President-elect Donald Trump to visit his country and discuss various topics of mutual interest, including the war in Gaza, which Erdogan wants Trump to “stop” by applying more pressure against Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent over half of his very lengthy address to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday criticizing Israel for its war against the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah. Erdogan accused the Israelis of genocide, compared them to Nazi Germany, and demanded the U.N. authorize “coercive measures against Israel” to halt the war in Gaza.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he plans to invite Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to visit Ankara and mend relations that were strained by Turkey’s support for rebel groups during the long and bloody Syrian civil war.

The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, traveled to Tehran on Monday to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who warned him to prevent “anti-revolutionary elements” from getting too friendly with the autonomous Kurdish region.

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad claims his regime has meetings “from time to time” with officials from the Biden administration.

Turkish election officials on Tuesday refused to allow pro-Kurdish Mayor-Elect Abdullah Zeydan take office in the city of Van. Instead, the national government tried to install a member of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party as mayor, even though Zeydan defeated him by almost 30 points in the election. The decision was reversed by Turkey’s High Election Board on Wednesday after unrest spread across southeastern Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP suffered their worst defeat in more than twenty years in local elections.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to be preparing for another military incursion into the border regions of Syria and Iraq to fight the PKK, a violent Kurdish separatist group seen by Erdogan’s government as the primary threat to Turkey’s security.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led coalition of fighters in Syria allied with the United States, announced on Monday that an attack, apparently by Iran-backed militias from Iraq, on an American base killed at least six of their fighters.

The Kurdish news outlet Rudaw estimated in a report published Thursday that the southern Iraqi city of Basra lost 80 percent of its Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christians in the past two decades as a result of extreme persecution by jihadist groups.

Iraq condemned Iran’s missile attack on the Kurdistan region as a violation of sovereignty, but Kurdish leaders want Baghdad to do more.

Iran’s IRGC on Monday vowed to continue missile campaigns “until avenging the last drops of martyrs’ blood.”

Turkey carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Saturday after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.

Turkish lawmaker George Aslan caused a controversy by delivering a Christian message to Assyrians in their Syriac language.

The Pentagon confirmed that American armed forces shot down a Turkish drone near Hasakah, Syria, as it posed a ‘potential threat’ to a nearby U.S. base.

The government of Turkey announced a bombing campaign on Sunday consisting of airstrikes on 20 alleged strategic positions within the borders of Iraq, a response to a suicide attack against the Turkish General Directorate of Security in Ankara this weekend.

Turkish Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his address before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to renew his calls for expanding Security Council membership, claim that his country had “actually fought the biggest battle against ISIS,” and politely suggest to genocidal China to recognize the rights of its Muslim population.

A group of senior U.S. officials, including a deputy assistant secretary of state and the commander of the coalition against the Islamic State, visited Syria’s oil-rich Deir al Zor province on Sunday to manage a conflict between its Kurdish rulers and insurgent Arab tribes.

Competition for the lucrative human trafficking trade between ethnically-based gangs operating in northern France is driving rising violence.

NATO must agree unanimously for countries to join. Turkey´s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient on Kurdish groups.

The newly elected Turkish Parliament will feature 16 different political parties, reports say, including a radical Islamist party accused of ties to the Turkish terror organization Hizballah.

Observers sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the Turkish presidential election said on Monday that Turkey’s High Election Board (YSK) was not transparent in its handling of ballots.

Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expecting “millions” to attend an event in Istanbul branded the “rally of the century,” pro-government Turkish media reported on Tuesday, as support for the longtime strongman incumbent dwindles.

Turkey on Tuesday announced the arrest of 110 individuals for allegedly financing, colluding with, or recruiting for the PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist organization.

Iraq’s ancient Christian community is still hanging on, twenty years after the U.S. invasion forced thousands of Christians to flee and nine years after the Islamic State threatened to wipe out those who remained.

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad during a visit to Moscow this week wholeheartedly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, offering his government’s official recognition of the phony “independent republics” Russia carved out of eastern Ukraine, and said he would like more Russian forces stationed permanently in Syria.