EghtesadOnline: Iraqis began voting in the first parliamentary election on Saturday since defeating Islamic State, but few people expect its new leaders to deliver the stability and economic prosperity that have long been promised.
EghtesadOnline: Syria’s army and its allies raced towards their enclave in the Euphrates city of Deir al-Zor after a rapid advance on Sunday, seeking to relieve it after years of Islamic State siege as jihadist defenses suddenly collapsed.
EghtesadOnline: Islamic State will eventually be defeated in Syria and after that world powers will re-focus on seeking a political solution that must lead to the departure of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
EghtesadOnline: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Iraq on Tuesday, just days after the start of an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar, to speak with Iraqi leaders about the next steps in the fight against Islamic State.
EghtesadOnline: Iraqi security forces launched on Sunday an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar, their next objective in the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State militants, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.
EghtesadOnline: The Lebanese army launched an offensive on Saturday against an Islamic State enclave on the northeast border with Syria as the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah announced an assault on the militants from the Syrian side of the frontier.
EghtesadOnline: A top Kurdish counter-terrorism official said on Monday he was 99 percent sure that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive and located south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, after reports that he had been killed.
EghtesadOnline: The Syrian army backed by heavy Russian air strikes seized a string of oil wells in southwest Raqqa province on Saturday, as retreating Islamic State militants battle to defend their remaining territory in the country.
EghtesadOnline: The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed, was killed in a strike on the group's headquarters in Kunar province earlier this week, the Pentagon said on Friday.
EghtesadOnline: A referendum on independence in Iraq’s semi-autonomous and oil-rich Kurdish region should not take place in September as planned because it would be destabilizing at time when the fight against Islamic State isn’t yet won, the U.S. envoy to the coalition confronting the extremist group said.