A UN-monitored crossing in the Golan Heights which had been captured by Syrian rebels has been retaken by government troops, the Israeli military says. The crossing is adjacent to territory held by the Israelis. Meanwhile, Austrian troops assigned to the UN contingent in the Golan say they will withdraw because of the increased, encroaching, fighting. [...]
New questions are being asked about the CIA drone attacks on terrorists with a new, exclusive report by NBC which says the CIA didn’t even know who it was targeting, much less killing, in Pakistan, during a more than one-year-long period. This according to classified intelligence reports reviewed by the network.
The battle is over. The rebels have lost. That’s the word from Syria, where civilians and members of the Free Syrian Army have fled the town of al-Qusayr. Now overrun by government troops. According to reports, those troops were augmented by Hezbollah fighters. The city is located close to the Lebanese border.
The court-martial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the onetime Maryland resident at the center of the largest security breach in U.S. history, begins today at Fort Meade. Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, has admitted to leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents — including diplomatic cables, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and gunsight video footage of [...]
A second suspect in the killing of British soldier Lee Rigby was charged Saturday with murder, London’s Metropolitan Police said. Michael Adebolajo, 28, also was charged with attempted murder of two police officers and possession of a firearm, police said. Police said Rigby was killed in a daylight attack a couple of hundred yards away [...]
Israeli fighter jets have carried out low-altitude flights over Lebanese airspace amid simmering tensions in the region. The aircraft flew over several parts of east and south Lebanon, apart from the capital Beirut, according to local reports. The last time Israeli jets flew over Lebanese airspace, there were airstrikes on Syria. Read more here.
t least one member of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has been killed overnight in clashes with Syrian rebels in Lebanon’s eastern border region. Lebanese security sources reported the death on Sunday, saying that about 15 rebels had also been killed in the violence, east of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley. The conflict in Syria has been increasingly spilling [...]
The United States risks “snatching defeat from the jaws of something that could still resemble victory” if it speeds up withdrawal from Afghanistan and fails to make long-term financial and military investments in the country, according to a new report co-authored by the former U.S. military commander there. Read more here.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the defense establishment to urgently get gas masks and protective kits into the hands of all Israelis, according to Israel’s Channel 10 News. Currently, only an estimated 42 percent of Israelis have up-to-date gas masks and protective kits. Budgetary constraints in recent years prevented both the manufacturing and distribution [...]
A majority of Americans are not hopeful that the Syrian civil war will end through nonmilitary means, a new Gallup poll finds. But more than two-thirds say they do not want the U.S. military to get involved to help end the conflict if diplomatic efforts fail. Read more here.