The Pentagon announced this weekend that President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of 200 additional U.S. troops to Syria amid reports that the embattled city of Aleppo had nearly fallen to Russia and Iran-backed forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declined on Saturday an offer from Turkey to take part in the battle to drive Islamic State militants from Mosul, a decision that could rile Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
America’s NATO ally Turkey launched airstrikes against Kurdish fighters allied with a U.S.-backed militia in Syria, a testament to the growing rift between Ankara and Washington over the war against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in the Middle East.
Any military or intelligence cooperation between the United States and Russia to strike targets in Syria would include measures to ensure U.S. operational security and would not be based on trust, a top U.S. military official said on Monday.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members and the United States have reached an agreement to prevent the shipment of Iranian weapons to Yemen, according to Abdullatif al-Zayani, the alliance’s secretary general.
The Pentagon will deploy 250 tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled howitzers to Eastern European countries near Russia, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on Tuesday.
