WASHINGTON—Iraq’s new prime minister and President Trump refrained on Thursday from setting a schedule for withdrawing American troops from the country, as they grappled with the threat posed by remnants of Islamic State and the ongoing need to train Iraqi forces. “We definitely don’t need combat troops in Iraq,” said Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who met with … Read more
Fighting between Islamic extremist rebels and Mozambique’s army over a key port is threatening to disrupt the East African nation’s burgeoning natural-gas developments, including a multibillion-dollar project led by French energy giant Total SA . The insurgent group, which is affiliated with Islamic State, seized control of the Mocimboa da Praia port this month and … Read more
Mindful of Russia’s warning against interfering in Belarus, European Union leaders have taken a nuanced approach to the unfolding crisis, preparing sanctions against officials they say are responsible for rigging this month’s presidential election and violently dispersing protesters, while emphasizing that only Belarusians can resolve the turmoil there. The EU’s 27 heads of state and … Read more
BERLIN—German police are investigating a series of apparently deliberate crashes on a Berlin highway as a possible act of terror, authorities said Wednesday. Police overpowered and detained a 30-year-old Iraqi-born man Tuesday night, after he allegedly rammed his car into several vehicles on the A100 highway that bisects the German capital, police spokeswoman, Patricia Bremer, … Read more
A senior ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a Mao-style purge of China’s domestic-security apparatus last month, saying it was time to “turn the blade inwards and scrape the poison off the bone.” The cleansing commenced swiftly. Within the first week after the call to action, Communist Party enforcers had launched investigations… Source … Read more
BEIRUT—An international tribunal convicted a member of Hezbollah of terrorism and homicide over the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 but acquitted three others and found no evidence that the militia and political group’s leadership was involved in the plot. Tuesday’s verdict comes just two weeks after the deadly Beirut explosion … Read more
Al-Shabaab militants’ deadly assault on a popular seaside hotel in Somalia’s capital has raised fresh questions about the threat posed by the terrorist group, despite a heightened U.S.-backed counterterrorism campaign in the Horn of Africa nation. The militants, carrying AK-47 rifles and explosives, detonated a car bomb outside Mogadishu’s Lido beach Sunday afternoon, before shooting … Read more
MOSCOW—When Svetlana Tikhanovskaya walked into Belarus’s election commission to complain she had been cheated out of a win in last weekend’s presidential election, her campaign team expected her to quickly emerge to carry on the fight. Instead, she disappeared, resurfacing the next day in Lithuania. In a video posted on social media, she called for … Read more