Blog
Iraq’s Shi’ite paramilitaries said on Tuesday they had taken charge of the campaign to drive Islamic State from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni population. The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse its biggest military setback in nearly a year, the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to recapture
By Praveen Menon and Andrew R.C. Marshall BUKIT WANG BURMA, Malaysia (Reuters) – Malaysian police forensic teams, digging with hoes and shovels, on Tuesday began pulling out bodies from shallow graves found in abandoned jungle camps where an inter-governmental body said hundreds of victims of human traffickers may be buried. The Malaysian government said it was investigating whether local forestry officials were involved with the people-smuggling gangs believed responsible for
By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) – Japan will join a major U.S.-Australian military exercise for the first time in a sign of growing security links between the three countries as tensions fester over China’s island building in the South China Sea. While only 40 Japanese officers and soldiers will take part in drills involving 30,000 U.S. and Australian troops in early July, experts said the move showed how Washington wanted
A 14-year-old boy from Austria who downloaded bomb-making plans onto his Playstation games console was sentenced to a two-year jail term on Tuesday after pleading guilty to terrorism charges, a court spokeswoman said. As well as researching how to build a bomb, the boy made contact with militants supporting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, prosecutors said ahead of the trial. The boy, a Turkish national, will serve what
By Sami Aboudi DUBAI (Reuters) – A suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia as it presses on with its war against Shi’ite fighters in Yemen has exposed the Sunni kingdom’s failure to curb sectarianism at home and prompted fears that such tensions can only get worse. Islamic State, which claimed Friday’s attack on a Shi’ite mosque, is trying to stir up sectarian confrontation as a way of hastening the overthrow of
Sanctions relief for Iran under a potential nuclear agreement would not take place before the end of this year under the best-case scenario, German Ambassador to the United States Peter Wittig said on Tuesday. Wittig was speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. The French ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, also said it was possible there might be a “fuzzy” end to the Iran negotiations even
SAO PAULO (AP) — Police in Brazil say they have arrested a suspected boss of the Naples-based organized crime syndicate known as the Camorra after almost 30 years on the run.
NEW YORK (AP) — As TV watchers increasingly look online for their fix, cable companies are bulking up. In the latest round, Charter Communications is buying Time Warner Cable for $55.33 billion.
Turkey and the United States have started training moderate Syrian rebels on Turkish territory to prepare them to fight Islamic State (IS) militants, the Turkish foreign minister said on Tuesday. The US-led programme to equip and train Syrian rebels on Turkish territory has started “with small groups” after months of delays, Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by the official Anatolia news agency. “Both the Turkish and the American personnel
Washington (AFP) – The United States on Tuesday blasted the “complete lack of transparency” in the trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian held by Iran on charges of spying.
