Hundreds of local residents took to the streets chanting slogans against US forces while Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party announced that it was suspending all official contact with US civilian and military personnel after a Friday morning raid by Iraqi and Coalition forces in Fallujah. The Iraqi Islamic Party says that the raid [...]
A French unit was surrounded last weekend in Kapisa Province Afghanistan and had to withdraw from the field, leaving behind two anti-tank Milan missiles and a launcher. Journalists say no French soldiers were hurt in the clash, but “all 14 Taliban insurgents were killed.” French Defense Minister Herve Morin sought to downplay the significance of [...]
Updated 10/26 12:00 PM EST Source close to Tzipi Livni, the new head of Israel’s ruling Kadima Party, accused the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party of having “deceived the entire country” in the wake of today’s announcement that they would not be joining a new coalition government headed by the would-be Prime Minister Livni. Livni said yesterday [...]
With political and popular support drying up and the Iraqi Council of Ministers unanimously demanding several amendments, the last draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the US seems all but dead as top Dawa party members say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will not submit the deal to parliament. The latest [...]
Numerous lawmakers from Pakistan’s Upper House of Parliament from several political parties condemned yesterday’s US drone strike in a village near Miramshah, North Waziristan, which killed at least 10 people and wounded an unknown number of others. Leader Raza Rabbani said the Pakistani government stands behind its previous stance against such violations of its territory. [...]
Turkish military spokesman Brigadier General Metin Gurak said today that last week’s air strikes into northern Iraq killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded an unknown number of others. Brig. Gen. Gurak cited intelligence reports as the source of his casualty figures. The rebels have not yet commented. He also said Turkish forces killed an additional [...]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned today that the European Union monitors in the buffer zone between Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are “playing with fire” in ignoring a reported upsurge in violence in the region. Lavrov reminded the EU today at a meeting with Latvia’s Foreign Minister that it [...]
Pakistan’s parliament has approved a 14-point resolution with seemingly sweeping ramifications for the nation’s counterterrorism policy. Among other things, it calls for Pakistan to make dialogue with militant groups “the highest priority as a principal instrument of conflict management and resolution.” It also calls for Pakistan to pursue “an independent foreign policy” and to eventually [...]
After several delays and threatened cancellations, 25 US military personnel arrived in Pakistan some time last week to begin a controversial training program aimed at bolstering Pakistan’s Frontier Corps (FC). The program would not directly train the corps itself, but rather would train Pakistani army instructors who would then be responsible for training the FC [...]
The current UN mandate for international troops in Iraq is set to expire on December 31, and as the United States and Iraq still struggle to put a mutually acceptable Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in place, the focus is increasingly on what will happen January 1 if, as is looking increasingly likely, the Iraqi [...]
