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The U.S. case against the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies, who was arrested in Canada last month, centers on the company’s suspected ties to two obscure companies. One is a telecom equipment seller that operated in Tehran; the other is that firm’s owner, a holding company registered in Mauritius. U.S. authorities allege CFO Meng Wanzhou deceived international banks into clearing transactions with Iran by claiming the two companies were independent of Huawei, when in fact Huawei controlled them. Huawei has maintained the two are independent: equipment seller Skycom Tech Co Ltd and shell company Canicula Holdings Ltd. But...

Russian military police have begun patrolling around the Syrian city of Manbij, a spokesman said Tuesday, moving into an area once held by US-backed Kurdish forces. Russian forces are acting in support of Syrian government troops who recently deployed in Manbij, in Aleppo province near the border with Turkey. Kurdish fighters, fearing a Turkish military assault, invited regime forces into Manbij late last month after US President Donald Trump’s shock announcement of a full American withdrawal from Syria.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is set to depart Turkey without meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an apparent snub over disagreements about Kurdish fighters in Syria. National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said U.S. officials were told Erdogan cited local election season and a speech to parliament for not meeting with Bolton. In the speech to parliament Tuesday, Erdogan criticized the U.S. position that the Kurds must be protected, reiterating his government’s position that they are a terrorist group.

The group are wiping out rivals and taking areas of strategic interest to Turkey and Bashar Al Assad's government. Al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria are strengthening their grip on territory in western Aleppo’s rebel-held countryside, nearly 18 months after taking most of the neighbouring province of Idlib. A sudden campaign by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham last week caught Turkey and allied rebels by surprise (when they moved their forces to attack the Kurds near Manbij)... “Tahrir Al Sham chose the right moment to attack.”

The substantial request for military support included air raids, logistics and transportation so Turkish forces could finish off the remaining fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, senior US officials were quoted as saying by the WSJ on Friday. "The Turkish requests are so extensive that, if fully met, the American military might be deepening its involvement in Syria instead of reducing it," the newspaper reported. The unidentified American officials told the Journal there was little chance Washington would agree to Ankara's requests in full. US President Donald Trump announced...

BEIRUT — Kurdish forces in Syria said Sunday that they had captured two American citizens hiding out in the country’s final Islamic State stronghold. In a statement, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, identified the detainees as Warren Christopher Clark, 34, and Zaid Abed al-Hamid, 35. It said the pair had been captured alongside three others suspected of being foreign recruits in the extremist group. Law enforcement agencies say several dozen Americans joined the Islamic State in its once-sweeping self-proclaimed caliphate across Syria and Iraq. The SDF did not provide additional information about the two Americans it detained, but according...

A US-backed roup says that it has captured an Irish citizen fighting for Islamic State in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said that it had arrested five militants who had been fighting for the Islamic State. It reported that one of these was a 45-year-old man originally from Dublin, Ireland. Two of the other men are from the US, while the other two are from Pakistan. In a statement, the SDF — which mainly fights against Islamic State and other extremist groups in Syria — said that it was carrying out Operation Jazeera Storm, which has the aim of...

President Donald Trump will not withdraw American troops from northern Syria until the Turkish government guarantees it won’t then attack Syrian Kurdish forces that have been critical allies in the fight against ISIS, national security adviser John Bolton said Sunday. Bolton said a commitment from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that protects the Kurds after American forces exit is something Trump is demanding, and that it’s just one of several conditions that have to be met before U.S. troops leave. “There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal,” Bolton said. He spoke to reporters traveling with...

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said Sunday that the U.S. military withdrawal from northeastern Syria is conditioned on defeating the remnants of the Islamic State group, and on Turkey assuring the safety of Kurdish fighters allied with the United States. Bolton, who traveled to Israel to reassure the U.S. ally of the Trump-ordered withdrawal, said there is no timetable for the pullout of American forces in northeastern Syria, but insisted it’s not an unlimited commitment. “There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal,” Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem. “The timetable flows from the...

Big JW Victory: California and Los Angeles County to Remove 1.5 Million Inactive Voters from Voter Rolls Trump’s HUD Keeps Obama’s Funding for Radical Leftist Groups The Obama-Clinton Administration Behind Syria Debacle Big JW Victory: California and Los Angeles County to Remove 1.5 Million Inactive Voters from Voter Rolls Good news for the voters in California and across the country. We have signed a settlement agreement with the State of California and the County of Los Angeles under which they will begin the process of removing from their voter registration rolls as many as 1.5 million inactive registered names...

The Syrian regime said Wednesday hundreds of Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from Manbij near the border with Turkey... "The information (we have) indicates that nearly 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far." The People's Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, last week invited regime forces to deploy to the key city following a shock announcement that American troops would leave the country.

President Donald Trump late last week told the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria that he could have several months to pull 2,000 troops out of Syria, backtracking on his initial order for a full and rapid withdrawal within 30 days, The New York Times reports. The report came after Trump tweeted that “we’re slowly sending out troops back home.” U.S. officials told the Times the conversation between Trump and Lt. Gen. Paul J. LaCamera took place during the president’s surprise trip to Iraq.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Sunday that "I feel pretty good about where we're headed" in Syria after suggesting that President Trump is "reconsidering" the planned pullout which had drawn bipartisan criticism and forced the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. Graham emerged from the White House after a two-hour lunch with Trump and said the president "told me some things I didn't know that make me feel a lot better about where we're headed in Syria." "He promised to destroy ISIS. He's going to keep that promise," Graham said of Trump. "We're not there yet. But as I...

Graham said Trump told him "some things I didn't know that make me feel a lot better about where we're headed in Syria." Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters Sunday after a lunch with President Trump that plans to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria are "slowing down in a smart way." Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said outside the White House that talks about removing military personnel from the country are in a "pause situation." The senator said Trump told him "some things I didn't know" about his plans in Syria "that make me feel a lot better about where...

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that withdrawing US troops from Syria could directly result in the deaths of Kurdish people there and that he plans to make a case to President Donald Trump today to reconsider his plans. "There are three things important for this country. Number one, make sure that ISIS never comes back in Syria," Graham said to CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." "We need to keep our troops there. They're inside the ten-yard line in defeating ISIS, but we're not there yet. If we leave now, the Kurds are going to get...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad authorized Iraqi forces on Sunday to attack the Islamic State group inside Syria without waiting for permission from authorities in Damascus, the state news agency SANA said, as the two allies coordinate their fight against extremists ahead of a planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria. ... On Saturday Assad received a letter from Iraq’s Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi calling for both countries’ coordination in “fighting terrorism.” ... In Tehran, Iran and Syria signed Sunday a long-term strategic and economic agreement as the war winds down in Syria where Iran and Russia were the main...

U.S. President Donald Trump reshaped U.S. policy in the Middle East by handing Ankara the job of finishing off Islamic State, in Syria in a move that poses both a risk/opportunity for Turkey, Israeli Haaretz newspaper wrote. Trump was expected to warn the Turkish president over his plan to launch a third crossborder attack targeting U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, namely the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northeast Syria, during a phone call 2-weeks ago. However, something unexpected happened, Haaretz said.Trump is reported to have asked if Ankara can ‘’clean up ISIS?’’ if the U.S. withdraws, with Turkey’s strongman responding  Turkish forces were...

On its face, Trump’s announcement that he is pulling US forces out of Syria seems like an unfriendly act toward Israel. But it isn’t. On its face, President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is pulling US forces out of Syria seems like an unfriendly act towards Israel. But it isn’t. Trump’s decision to pull US forces out of Syria is of a piece with outgoing US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley’s address on Tuesday to the UN Security Council regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Both statements reflect the depths of the administration’s friendship and support for the State...

Saudi Arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help rebuild Syria, instead of the United States. See? Isn’t it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the U.S., that is 5000 miles away. Thanks to Saudi A!

President Donald Trump’s announcement he will withdraw U.S. forces from Syria because the Islamic State (ISIS) has largely been defeated accomplishes two things — neither of which is positive. First, it undermines the security of two of our most stalwart Middle East allies, Israel and the Kurds. Second, it rewards our enemies, of which there are more than we openly acknowledge. Clearly, enemies list beneficiaries include the Iran/Syria/Russia alliance and ISIS... Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war...