SANA, Yemen — For nearly three months, Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, has been bombing Yemen, its southern neighbor, hoping to force the retreat of Shiite rebels who have seized major cities and to return the country’s president from the Saudi guest mansion where he lives to the presidential palace. So far, it has not worked. The rebels, known as the Houthis, have gained ground, more […]
BAGHDAD — When Umm Ahmed returned to her Iraqi hometown, Tikrit, in recent days she found a city devastated by fighting with militants from the Islamic State: buildings burned, shops looted, schools shuttered and hospitals inoperable. Still, it was home, and it was good to be back. “Today, I am in the middle of Tikrit,” Umm Ahmed, 39, said last week, preferring to be identified by her […]
JERUSALEM — A United Nations investigation found “serious violations of international humanitarian law” that “may amount to war crimes” by both Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip during their bloody battle last summer, according to a report released on Monday in Geneva. The report, written by a two-member independent commission of inquiry and submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, said that “impunity prevails […]
Yemenis waited to buy food and water in Taiz on Friday. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has appealed for a two-week humanitarian truce in honor of Ramadan, which began this week. By SOMINI SENGUPTA June 19, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations mediator for Yemen peace talks said on Friday that four days of discussions had ended with no agreement for even a brief pause in […]
Trevor Tasin with three of his sons: John, 11; Ben, 13; and Dominic, 2. Mr. Tasin, a pilot who retired as a major in 2014 after flying Predator drones and training new pilots. By CHRISTOPHER DREW and DAVE PHILIPPS June 16, 2015 CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — After a decade of waging long-distance war through their video screens, America’s drone operators are burning out, and the Air Force is being […]
By KAREEM FAHIM June 16, 2015 BAGHDAD — Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen released a video statement on Tuesday confirming the death of its leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, in an American missile strike last week. His death was also confirmed by the Obama administration on Tuesday. Mr. Wuhayshi, 38, who had led Qaeda operations in Yemen since 2002 and was also the global extremist network’s second-ranking leader, was killed along […]
The black flag of the Islamic State, left, flew over Tal Abyad, Syria, on Tuesday. After Kurdish and rebel fighters took over the town later Tuesday, they hoisted a Kurdish militia flag. By BEN HUBBARD June 16, 2015 ISTANBUL — Kurdish militias and rebel fighters on Tuesday took full control of the strategic Syrian town of Tal Abyad on Turkey’s border, striking a blow against the Islamic State and expanding […]
ISTANBUL — A coalition of Kurdish militias and Arab rebels stormed into a strategic Syrian town on the Turkey border on Monday, seizing most of it from Islamic State fighters who had long used the area to smuggle supplies and fighters into their self-declared caliphate, according to Kurdish militia leaders and activists. The complete loss of the town, Tal Abyad, would deal a major blow to the […]
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says it believes a weekend airstrike in Libya killed an Islamist militant leader responsible for the deaths of dozens of Westerners in North Africa, though the Pentagon was still conducting an assessment and could not confirm that the attack had succeeded. The Libyan government said on Sunday night that Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in the strike. But Col. Steven H. Warren, a Pentagon […]
By JODI RUDOREN June 14, 2015 JERUSALEM — In a pre-emptive strike against a forthcoming United Nations report on the war last year between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday issued a lengthy paper arguing that its troops adhered to international law and blaming the militants for most of the s civilian casualties in Gaza. Israel has refused to cooperate with the […]
Video | Explosion in Old City of Sana A Unesco world heritage site was damaged on Friday by a blast that witnesses said was caused by airstrikes in Yemen’s capital. By RICK GLADSTONE June 12, 2015 A protected 2,500-year-old cultural heritage site in Yemen’s capital, Sana, was obliterated in an explosion early Friday, and witnesses and news reports said the cause was a missile or bomb from a Saudi […]
WASHINGTON — In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province and send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi. Although a final decision by the White House has yet to be announced, the plan follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized the deployment of up to 450 more American troops to Iraq to train and assist the Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State, the White House announced on Wednesday, signaling a major shift of focus in the fight against the Sunni militant group. The United States forces will use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar […]
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and KAREEM FAHIM June 9, 2015 CAIRO — Islamic State militants staged attacks near Baghdad and the Libyan city of Surt on Tuesday, underscoring the group’s persistent strength on both fronts despite a monthslong American-led air campaign against it in Syria and Iraq. In Libya, the Islamic State captured a critical power plant along the coastal road westward from its stronghold in Surt toward Misurata, a commercial center […]
In an image taken from a video on a militant website, the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, addressed followers last year in Mosul, Iraq. New insights yielded by a seized trove of materials in Syria include how he operates and tries to avoid being tracked by coalition forces. By ERIC SCHMITT June 8, 2015 WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have extracted valuable information about the Islamic State’s leadership structure, financial […]
By SHUAIB ALMOSAWA June 2, 2015 SANA, Yemen — Warplanes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes Tuesday in Yemen that killed at least 16 fighters allied with the Saudi-led group, witnesses said. The victims were fighters supporting President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was forced into exile by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year. Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive against the Houthis in late […]
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR June 2, 2015 WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official held talks last week with the Houthi rebels of Yemen, opening a new round of diplomacy aimed at persuading the warring factions in that country to participate in a peace conference in Geneva, American officials said Tuesday. The meetings came just before the release on Monday of Casey L. Coombs, an American freelance journalist who had […]
By ANNE BARNARD June 2, 2015 ISTANBUL, Turkey — Syrian insurgents rushed reinforcements into combat on Tuesday against rival Islamic State militants who have seized crucial territory near the northern city of Aleppo in recent days, building on the momentum the group has achieved in other battlefield successes in Syria and Iraq. Amid increased fears that Aleppo could be the next big prize to fall to the Islamic State […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 30, 2015 BEIRUT — Syrian Army airstrikes killed at least 70 people, most of them civilians, and wounded scores in attacks on Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo. Activists said that civilian areas, including a packed market in a town held by the Islamic State group, were hit. The deaths occurred in two separate strikes when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels. One barrel hit the […]
Diane Foley in August after ISIS beheaded her son, James. She has taken part in a review of government policy on hostages. By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS May 29, 2015 WASHINGTON — When President Obama met recently with the mother of James Foley, the American hostage beheaded last August by the Islamic State, she said, he told her that freeing her son and the other American hostages held with him had […]
SYRIA. Islamic State fighters tightened their grip on the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday and overran Iraqi government defenses east of Ramadi, the provincial capital that they seized five days earlier. The twin successes not only pile pressure on Damascus and Baghdad but throw doubt on a U.S. strategy of relying almost exclusively on air strikes to support the fight against Islamic State. U.S. and […]
An anonymous painting of Turkish Emperor Mahmud II leading his troops. By DAVID MOTADEL May 23, 2015 CAMBRIDGE, England — THE last several months have brought a dramatic escalation in conflict across the Middle East, almost all of it involving tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — which are in turn fueled by a power struggle between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia for regional supremacy. Tehran runs a […]
