Middle Orient

The Islamic State group vowed in an audio message released Monday that the extremists will start a new phase of attacks that will focus on Israel and blasted the U.S. administration’s plan to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Islamic State group’s self-styled “caliphate” across parts of Iraq and Syria seemed largely defeated last year, with the loss of its territory, the killing of its founder in a U.S. raid and an unprecedented crackdown on its social media propaganda machine.

Hoping to bring about a “new dawn in the Middle East,” U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his peace plan for the region on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing at his side.

The General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces announced that the army units operating in Idlib countryside have liberated during the past few days the city of Ma’aret al-Nu’aman and a number of villages and towns in the southern countryside of Idlib from terrorism.

The Ansarallah forces (var. Houthi) announced on Wednesday that their rocket battalion unleashed a new attack on the Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the southern region of Saudi Arabia.

Formed by Hezbollah and its allies, new government faces one of the biggest financial crises in the country’s history.

Islamic State fighters did not capitalize on a recent break in U.S. operations to significantly reconstitute their ranks in Iraq, according to a top general.

Militants in Syria set off car bombs and used heavy gunfire to storm army positions in Idlib on Thursday, state news agency SANA reported.

Up to 40 Syrian soldiers have been killed in an assault by hundreds of militants in north-western Syria, according to Russia’s defence ministry.

The United States has seen no uptick in Islamic State activity in Iraq and northeastern Syria, U.S. special representative for Syria James Jeffrey said on Thursday, weeks after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad.