Thirteen Houthi militants and forces loyal to deposed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh were killed and 27 others injured in clashes with fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) and airstrikes waged by Arab coalition aircraft on their positions in the southern Yemeni governorate of Taiz.

A PRC source in the governorate said coalition aircraft waged a number of airstrikes targeting positions and groupings of Houthi militants and Saleh forces in Al Suweida’a , Al-Oshaqa areas, Al Gheel in Al Wazi’iya districts, west of the city and Al Jund and Sharman areas in eastern Taiz.

[Read more…]

Two Hezbollah commanders have been killed fighting alongside government forces against rebels in Syria’s Idlib province, reports indicate.

Hasan Hossain al-Haj, a senior commander in the Lebanese militant group, was killed Saturday amid a Syrian military offensive across the country. The Daily Star reports a second unidentified Hezbollah commander was killed Tuesday.

[Read more…]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made waves of late with his military offensive in Syria, and now he has on-the-ground backing of the Cuban variety. One of the world’s leading centers for research on Cuba has released breaking details of the Castro regime’s presence in the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami shared via email on October 13, 2015, that General Leopoldo Cintra Frías, head of the Cuban Armed Forces, had already landed in Syria. He is, they write, “leading a group of Cuban military personnel … in support of Syria’s dictator Assad” and, in Cold War fashion, the Russian contingent.

[Read more…]

Iraqi security forces said on October 11 that they bombed the convoy of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike near the country’s border with Syria, though his fate remained unknown.

“Iraqi air forces have bombed the convoy of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while he was heading to Karabila to attend a meeting with Daesh (IS) commanders,” Iraq’s security forces said in a joint statement.

[Read more…]

Ground troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have launched a major offensive in central Syria backed by Russian airstrikes, in an escalation in Moscow’s week-long campaign, which has so far been restricted to bombing runs to soften up rebel positions near major loyalist strongholds.

Russian warships fired missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea - more than 900 miles away – for the first time. Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said four warships launched 26 rockets at Islamic State targets.

[Read more…]