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The US will have spent nearly $6 trillion on the war on terror by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to a startling new report. "If the US continues on its current path, war spending will continue to grow," the Costs of War report states. Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - including nearly 7,000 US troops - according to the Costs of War project. America is conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries and US troops are fighting and dying everywhere from Afghanistan to Niger....

**SNIP** President Donald Trump defended his controversial military draw-down in Syria during a surprise trip to Iraq on Wednesday, telling American soldiers stationed in the war-torn country that the U.S. military is no longer the laughingstock of the world. “We’re no longer the suckers, folks,” Trump told troops at the Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq while gushing about the genius of his military pullout in neighboring Syria. “We’re respected again as a nation.” **SNIP** “I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds,” Trump told soldiers dressed in...

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Moscow expects the Syrian government to take over the areas where the U.S. troops are currently deployed following their withdrawal. The ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said at Wednesday’s briefing that the territories in eastern Syria should be handed over to the Syrian government in line with international law. She noted that Moscow is unaware of any details of the planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria, but added that the move would help peaceful settlement in Syria if implemented. U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria last week, surprising allies and sparking the resignation of...

Libyan and Algerian officials denounced Turkey's recent arms shipments to a Libyan port near the Algerian border as a “declaration of war”, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Monday. The purpose of these shipments is to destabilise Libya and send an arsenal to unstable regions, an Algerian security official said, according to Asharq al-Awsat. The rockets and ammunition recently discovered at Khoms port, along the Algerian-Libyan border, are “a real declaration of war against us,” the official added. The military and security forces are on highest alert against any attempts to confront Algeria's security, according to the newspaper.

An award-winning German journalist who was recently found to have fabricated parts of stories may be facing more trouble. Claas Relotius, 33, is facing new accusations that he solicited donations for orphans of the war in Syria, donations that he ultimately pocketed, reported CBS. As part of the scandal over the former CNN International's Journalist of the Year, residents of Fergus Falls, Minn., dispelled a variety of falsehoods in his piece “ In a small town” that took aim at "the people who pray for Trump on Sundays." Relotius is accused of making up quotes, interview subjects, and facts in...

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey said Tuesday it is working with the United States to coordinate the withdrawal of American forces but remains “determined” to clear U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters from northeastern Syria. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters that “if Turkey says it will enter, it will,” in comments carried by private DHA news agency. For weeks, Turkey has been threatening to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish fighters, who partnered with the U.S. to drive the Islamic State group out of much of northern and eastern Syria. Ankara views the Kurdish forces as terrorists because of their links to...

“While nothing definite is being planned, the President is open to a potential meeting in the future,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement...The Turkish presidency said Trump and Erdogan agreed during a phone call on Sunday to coordinate to prevent an authority vacuum from developing as the United States withdraws from Syria...Turkey’s foreign minister said last week that during a meeting with Erdogan in Buenos Aires several weeks ago, Trump said he was working on extraditing Gulen. A senior White House official later said that during the Argentina meeting, Trump did not commit to handing over Gulen...

ANKARA: France will not gain in any way by retaining forces to protect a Kurdish militia in Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said on Tuesday, after Paris announced it would maintain a presence despite an imminent US withdrawal. Washington's decision to pull out 2,000 of his ground forces from Syria has stunned most allies including France but was greeted with approval by Turkey, which will now have a freer rein to target Kurdish fighters from the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG)...Critics say thousands of Daesh members are still in Syria and could pose a threat with some analysts concerned the withdrawal...

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted late on Sunday that Turkey’s president Recep Erdogan told him he would work to take out remaining pockets of so-called Islamic State, appearing to give Ankara his endorsement, saying that the country “will eradicate whatever is left of IS”. This poses major concerns for the ethnic Kurds who occupy northern Syria, a group the Turkish president considers a major threat due to what he says are their connections to the internationally recognized status of the Kurdish PKK in southeast Turkey. The United States-led global coalition, who recognizes the Kurds in Syria as distinct from the...

Stern warnings from Greece to Turkey. Stern words in return, as well. Defence Minister Panos Kammenos warned that Ankara would pay for violating Greek airspace by Turkish jets over the Aegean. The minister said whilst visiting a military outpost on the Aegean island of Leros, “If they make the slightest move, we will crush them,” adding that Athens wants peace and harmony but it won’t “concede a single centimetre” of its land. His words seem aligned with Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, chief of the Hellenic General Staff, who said: “If the Turks land on a rocky islet, we will raze it...

Turkey appears to be accelerating its endeavor to establish an Ottoman-style Islamic government encompassing several Muslim nations. One such effort was apparent in early November at the second "International Islamic Union Congress," in Istanbul. The conference is sponsored mainly by the Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM), headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's chief military advisor, Adnan Tanrıverdi, a retired Islamist lieutenant general. Other organizers of the congress -- the next one of which is to be held in December 2019 -- include the Association of Justice Defenders (ASDER), Istanbul's Üsküdar University (ÜÜ), the Union of NGOs...

Further evidence was revealed in Turkey earlier this month accentuating the long-held ambitions of the corrupt President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan to steer the Muslim world, or Ummah as it is called in religious discourse, into sort of a caliph-like leadership position. Away from the spotlight, his close advisors convened a gathering in Istanbul of Islamists from various countries to cultivate and promote the idea of an Islamic union to be spearheaded by the Turkish president as early as 2023. Not surprisingly the Muslim BrotherhoodÂ’s international network has been tapped as the main conveyer for fulfilling the Turkish leaderÂ’s dreams of...

Nato's Parliamentary Assembly recently published what some have called a "scathing" report on Turkey. Until now, Nato had given almost no input on the country's deterioration in human rights and rule of law, despite Turkey being one of its largest member states.The report mentioned the impact of emergency rule, elimination of independent media, and related concerns. But it left unmentioned other grave violations - namely, the fate of the thousands of people falsely imprisoned in the post-coup crackdown - including officials of Nato itself. One such Nato official is Cafer Topkaya, a Turkish man who was serving in Belgium at...

The Maarif Foundation, which was established by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2016, has taken over the management of two schools linked to the Gülen group in Venezuela, the pro-gov’t Sabah daily reported on Saturday.The Foundation has so far taken over at least 78 schools linked to the Gülen group in Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, People’s Republic of the Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia, Senegal and Chad with their 8,506 students. The foundation has recently signed an agreement to take over Gülen movement schools in Afghanistan, which have more than 8,000 students.The foundation also has opened...

George Soros’s Open Society Foundation said on Monday it would cease operations in Turkey, days after President Tayyip Erdogan accused the billionaire philanthropist of trying to divide and destroy nations. The foundation said it had been the target of “baseless claims” in the Turkish media, which made it impossible for it to continue its work. It also faced an investigation by the Interior Ministry which sought to demonstrate a link, which it denied, between the foundation and protests at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013. One of its founders in Turkey, Hakan Altinay, was among 13 people detained 10 days ago....

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A delegation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has arrived in Moscow to discuss a possible plan to stop a Turkish attack as well as the future of the east of the Euphrates, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday. The SOHR cited sources which said the SDF delegation and Russian authorities were expected to meet in Moscow “in the coming hours” to discuss the future of east Euphrates. According to the monitor, the Russians offered to deploy border guards from the Syrian army in the border area from the east of Euphrates...

President Trump spoke with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday. They discussed the fight against ISIS, the issue of Syria including coordination of the US military withdrawal from the Syria and expanded trade with Turkey that has been on hold in recent years as relations were strained...... Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Turkish president Erdogan an "anti-Semitic dictator" on Sunday saying among other things about Erdogan...... Israel's Education Minister and leader of the Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett says President Trump's Middle East peace plan includes a Palestinian state in the West Bank...... President Trump has...

On Saturday, Brett McGurk submitted his resignation and is leaving the Trump administration. McGurk served as the US envoy in a global anti-ISIS coalition and reportedly resigned amid President Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria—a decision which also reportedly led to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis.

There have been some intriguing developments related to Syria that are now being reported in the wake of President Trump’s announcement of the withdrawal of U.S. troops. To begin with, it appears that the Kurds will be getting support from America’s regional allies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent military forces to areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG group in north-east Syria, Turkey’s Yenisafak newspaper reported. Furthermore, a Jordanian official reports that Russian forces currently in Syria will take action to restrain Hezbollah and Iranian activity there, according to understandings reached by the U.S., Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia...

NBC News is reporting – based on anonymous sources – that President Trump decided on the pullout of forces from Syria during a telephone call with Turkish leader Recep Erdogan. They are clearly appalled that a deal maker would make a deal, especially when the positions of his support staff were ignored. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was made hastily, without consulting his national security team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone involved in the fight against the Islamic State, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much...