An Israeli fighter jet has crashed amid Syrian anti-aircraft fire after an offensive against Iranian targets in Syria, the Israeli military says. The two pilots ejected and parachuted to safety after the crash in northern Israel. They were taken to hospital. Israel said its aircraft, an F-16 jet, was carrying out strikes in response to … Read more
Afghan security forces supported by US air power have retaken the center of volatile Nawa district from the Taliban in southern Helmand province, US officials said Monday. Backed by strikes from F-16 fighters and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Afghan troops began the two-day operation Saturday near the city of Lashkar Gar, which is the capital … Read more
Twenty-six Egyptian soldiers were killed or wounded on Friday in attacks on checkpoints in the Sinai Peninsula where the Islamic State group is conducting an insurgency, the military said. Security officials who requested anonymity said at least seven soldiers were killed, but it was not immediately possible to obtain an official death toll. The military … Read more
A Russian fighter jet chased off a NATO aircraft after it buzzed a plane carrying defence minister Sergei Shoigu over the Baltic Sea, Russian news agencies have said. The F-16 had tried to approach the aircraft carrying the defence minister even though it was flying over neutral waters, agencies said today, before a Russian Sukhoi-27 … Read more
Authorities in Bahrain have clamped down on dissent in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Gulf last month — a move that experts say is no coincidence. “The human rights situation was already bad, but the timing of the latest crackdown is striking and it’s unlikely to be coincidental,” said Jane … Read more
US Vice President Mike Pence announced $10 billion in deals between American and Indonesian companies during a visit to Jakarta Friday, as he pushed for greater access to Southeast Asia’s top economy. Eleven deals were signed. Energy firm Exxon Mobil, General Electric, and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin were among the American companies involved in the … Read more
The United States has dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, otherwise known as the ‘Mother of All Bombs’, on an Islamic State stronghold in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province. It is the first time the bomb, developed in the early days of the Iraq war, has been used in combat. – How powerful … Read more
President Donald Trump is raising pressure on North Korea, touting the US naval “armada” he ordered to the troubled peninsula and promising America will “solve the problem” if China won’t help. He wants to stop Pyongyang from developing a long-range nuclear missile, but North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sees such a weapon as key to … Read more
The US State Department is removing human rights conditions on a large sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain, as the Trump administration moves to shore up ties with the Gulf ally, reports said Thursday. President Donald Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had imposed the conditions on the sale to Bahrain of the 19 single-engine supersonic … Read more
The Iraqi air force has targeted a meeting of commanders from the Islamic State group that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been attending, a statement said on Monday. It was not clear in the statement sent by the Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against the jihadists in Iraq whether the world’s most … Read more
The relations between unpredictable allies, Russia and Turkey, appear to have deteriorated in the past few years. The relationship between Moscow and Ankara have deteriorated since the Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot a Russian Su-24 bomber out of the Syrian skies, citing an airspace violation that did not take place. This is one … Read more
The last, recent joint note of Italian and Egyptian attorneys on Giulio Regeni’s murder shows that a good degree of cooperation in the investigation has been finally reached. Unfortunately that has required various months during which Egyptian transparency wasn’t so high. Moreover, as the Italian attorney Pignatone has reminded, that underway is not a joint … Read more
US-led coalition air strikes have killed at least 62 Syrian troops fighting so-called Islamic State in the east, the Russian military says. Aircraft flew in from Iraq and bombed Syrian troops near Deir al-Zour airport, allowing the IS jihadists to advance, the Russians said. The US has not yet commented. Russia earlier expressed fears the … Read more