The Islamic State (IS) militants carried out an attack on pro-Iranian Hashd al-Shaabi in Kirkuk, killing two militiamen and wounding nearly a dozen, an official said according to basnews.com.

Hiwa Rasheed, a Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) representative in the area, told BasNews that the incident took place in Daquq district, southern Kirkuk, where in addition to the killing of two militiamen, 11 others were also injured in the attack.

“One of the wounded was a major and revealed that four of their fighters had gone missing,” Rasheed added.

The Iraqi security forces were later dispatched to the scene where clashes were ongoing for awhile, he noted.

The Islamic State has lately conducted several terrorist activities in separate areas in Iraq as the insurgent group is reportedly attempting to reorganize itself in the region.

On April 5, a series of large explosions rocked the village of al-Kastan in southwestern Idlib injuring 8 people, including 3 members of the so-called White Helmets. According to local sources, an ammunition depot located in the civilian area inside the city became the source of the explosion, like reported by zerohedge.com.

Al-Kastan is located near the town of Jisr al-Shughur, controlled by the Al-Qaeda-linked Turkistan Islamic Party. The exploded weapon depot likely belonged to the terrorist group or persons affiliated with it.

On the same day, the Turkish military established three new ‘observation posts’ around Jisr al-Shughur. They are located at the villages of Baksariya, al-Z’ainiyah and Furaykah. Idlib militants see Turkish positions as an important defense line that would allow containing possible Russia- and Iran-backed anti-terrorist operations in the area.

The 46th Regiment Base of the Syrian Army in western Aleppo came under Turkish artillery shelling. In response, Syrian forces struck position of Turkish-backed militants near Kafr Amma. The attack on the 46th Regiment Base became a third incident between the Turkish military and Syrian troops in less than a week. On April 3, two Syrian soldiers were killed in a Turkish artillery strike on their positions near Tell Abyad.

On April 4, Iraq’s largest resistance groups released a joint statement calling the US military “occupation forces” that “respect the language of force only”. In the statement, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Kata’ib al-Imam Ali, Harakat al-Awfiy’a, Saraya Ashura, Harakat Jund al-Imam and Saraya al-Khurasani added that recent attacks on US forces and facilities in Iraq were only a “minor response” to the US aggression and the decision to carry out full-scale attacks was not taken then.

Two days earlier, on April 2, Usbat al-Tha’ireen, the armed group that claimed responsibility for rocket strikes on Camp Taji and other US positions, released a 3-minute long drone footage of the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone. This is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, and is nearly as large as Vatican City.

The US Central Command officially confirmed deployment of Patriot air defense systems in Iraq. However, the US military announced that it will not provide “ status updates as those systems come online” for security reasons. At least two Patriot batteries are now located in at the US military bases of Ayn al-Assad and Erbil. Two more Patriot batteries will reportedly be deployed soon.

As part of its plan to redeploy forces to larger, more fortified bases, the US evacuated its troops from the al-Taqaddum Air Base in the province of al-Anbar. It became the fourth US military facility abandoned in Iraq within the last few weeks. The previous ones were located in al-Qaim, Kirkuk and al-Qayyarah.

Iraqi sources say that the US actions demonstrate that Washington is preparing for a new round of military confrontation with Iran and its allies in the region. Recently, President Donald Trump stated that the US was expecting attacks by Iranian-led forces on US troops and facilities, claiming that Iran will ‘pay price’ for this. Following the statement, Iran deployed additional anti-ship missiles and multiple rocket launchers on the Qeshm Island in the Strait of Horumz.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadists on Tuesday attacked the Iraqi army in the disputed Kurdish town of Tuz Khurmatu, a police officer has confirmed, like reported by basnews.com.

Khalid Mohammed, a police officer in Tuz Khurmatu, told BasNews that the incident occurred in the area of Zarga located between Tuz Khurmatu and Tikrit where the insurgents targeted a unit of the national army.

The extremists also exploded a number of bombs in the area, Mohammed said, noting that no possible casualties or serious damages to materials were immediately known.

Elsewhere in Jalawla, the Islamic State jihadists fired multiple mortar rounds at the village of Eslah without resulting in any casualties, Khalil Khwadad, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) representative in the area, confirmed to BasNews.

“One of the mortar rounds has targeted a civilian car which resulted in material damages to it,” he said.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched at least 15 airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa held by the Shia Houthi rebels amid escalating tensions despite the looming threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic, like reported by asianlite.com.

The Houthis’ al-Masira television channel reported that a man was killed and two others injured in the attacks on monday, reports Efe news.

Another strike targeted the al-Hodeida province located on the Red Sea, with no casualties reported.

Six attacks targeted a military academy in al-Rawdha outskirt north of the city, and three others hit a military site in the northwestern outskirts, Efe news has verified.

The coalition’s warplanes also attacked al-Dailami airbase which is adjacent to Sanaa airport north of the capital and other sites in the area.

The Saudi-led coalition, which has intervened in the Yemen war since 2015, announced a “military operation” to “neutralize and destroy legitimate military targets” of the Houthi rebels.

The attacks came as “precautionary measures to protect the civilians from any collateral damage”, the coalition added.

Months after tense calm in Sanaa, the Iran-backed Houthi on Sunday launched two missiles on Riyadh and the border province of Jizan.

Last week, the Houthis and the internationally recognized government led by President Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi welcomed calls by the UN for a “global ceasefire” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The calls came on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the coalition’s intervention.

Yemen has not yet reported any coronavirus cases, according to the World Health Organization.

The country would be unable to handle a health crisis of this magnitude, while the Houthi rebels have asked for international aid to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq are at a crossroads amid rising tensions with the US. Over the weekend several activists affiliated with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a group the US sanctioned in January, waved flags and celebrated the US “withdrawal” from Iraq. They may have spoken too soon. In Washington, a plan was revealed that shows US generals were asked to prepare to confront these groups, like reported by shafaaq.com.

The Iranian-backed groups in Iraq are a mass of former Shi’ite militias called the Popular Mobilization Units or Hashd al-Shaabi. Organized as brigades, they were incorporated into the Iraqi security forces in 2017 and 2018. They are well armed with their own warehouses, rockets and armored vehicles. Many of them, such as the Badr organization have been linked to Iran’s IRGC since the 1980s. Those who came out of these Iranian training networks, such as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, came to control groups like Kataib Hezbollah. Muhandis was killed alongside IRGC Qud Force head Qasem Soleimani by a US airstrike in early January.

Now, these groups say they are ready to fight the Americans. Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba has put up photos on Facebook in which it destroys the White House. At the same time the leaders of the groups are reticent to show their faces in public as much as in the past, afraid of US drone strikes.

Akram al-Kaabi of Harakat Hezbollah claims the US is hunting him. He should know, he was in Iran several times since January planning attacks on the US and his group has put out “secret” footage it obtained from US bases in which it says the “countdown” to US withdrawal has begun. Nujaba was sanctioned in March 2019.

Iran has sent an Iraqi-born Hezbollah member to unify the militias and sent Ali Shamkhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, to Iraq to coordinate pressure on the US.

Hezbollah’s man in Iraq, Mohammad al-Kawtharani hasn’t been seen much recently. Like the rest of the militias he is keeping a low profile. Alongside him is Qais Khazali, whose Asaib Ahl al-Haq has threatened and fought the US in the past. A one-time detainee of the Americans, Khazali was sanctioned in December. The US added Asaib Ahl al-Haq to its list of terrorist groups in March 2020.

Kataib Hezbollah has also upped its rhetoric about the US. It held a drill to prepare to “defend” against a US air assault last week. Along with other groups it has harkened back to the period 2005-2009 when it fought the US. One video shows Kataib Hezbollah attacking a US Abrams tank.

Adding all this together forms a picture of these groups preparing to fight the US. We know that US officials and local military commanders have received frequent warnings about such attacks. Additionally, there are almost weekly rocket attacks on bases where US soldiers are located and against the Green Zone where the US embassy is located.

The US is repositioning forces now in Iraq, consolidating them and removing trainers and diplomatic personnel. This could be preparation for what is expected to be more attacks or US retaliation. It could also be what the US says it is: Repositioning due to the coronavirus threat.

For the militias, the order from Iran must come to up their attacks. Most of them have remained at the stage of just propaganda and hoping to use parliamentary methods to get the US to leave.

The militias have their own party in parliament called the Fatah Alliance, the second largest in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the largest party, also wants the Americans out.

But peacefully. His former follower Khazali is prepared for a conflict. Hiding somewhere in Iraq he has hoped the Iranians will eventually take the reins off his fighters. In 2017, Khazali went to Lebanon to threaten Israel. His worldview, like the IRGC in general, is an “axis of resistance” from Iraq to Syria and Iraq that will fight the US and the Israelis.

But for now the leaders of the PMU must decide if it is worth risking their gains in a confrontation. They can read the US media which says the US is worried about escalation. They know the Pentagon was ordered to prepare plans to eradicate Kataib Hezbollah. They know that those plans faced some pushback. They also know the US is distracted by coronavirus and that US President Donald Trump wants to end “endless wars.”

Two roads lie ahead for them: Let the Americans slowly leave peacefully, or try to accelerate that withdrawal with attacks.

The US carried out airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq, according to the US Defense Department, CNN reported.

The strikes come one day after the US assessed an Iranian-backed group was responsible for a rocket attack on a base where coalition forces are located, killing two American service members and one British service member.

A US defense official told CNN that the strikes were carried out by manned aircraft and targeted five weapons storage facilities.

In a written statement, the Defense Department stated the strike was aimed at harming the ability of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored Shia militia group, to conduct future strikes against American troops. The weapons storage facilities included areas where weapons used to attack American and coalition troops were stored.

“These strikes were defensive, proportional, and in direct response to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups (SMG) who continue to attack bases hosting OIR coalition forces,” the department statement read. A briefing on the attack is scheduled for Friday morning at the Pentagon.

The statement added, “These terror groups must cease their attacks on U.S. and coalition forces or face consequences at a time and place of our choosing. The US and the coalition remain committed to the lasting defeat of ISIS, and the long-term security, stability, and sovereignty of Iraq.”

The United States is in the process of deploying air defense systems to Iraq to ensure the safety of its troops and diplomatic mission team, according to US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie and like reported by basnews.com.

“We are also in the process of bringing air defense systems, ballistic missile defense systems, into Iraq in particular, to protect ourselves against another potential Iranian attack,” the head of US Central Command said.

He pointed out that Iran remains the main concern for the US forces in the Middle East. The country carried out multiple missile strikes against US military bases in Iraq on 8th January this year after the US killed Quds Forces Commander Qasem Soleimani.

“Our presence sends a clear signal about our capabilities and our will to defend partners and US national interests,” McKenzie said. “Going forward, it is CENTCOM’s objective to posture forces in the region with the operational depth to achieve a consistent state of deterrence against Iran and be adaptable to future Iranian threats.”

The Security Information Cell announced on Monday, that the Special Operations Forces carried out an airdrop on “important targets” of ISIS in Salah al-Din Governorate, like reported by shafaaq.com.

The cell said in a statement today that “according to intelligence information, the special operations heroes of the anti-terrorist agency are carrying out airdrop operations on important targets of ISIS remnants, in Makhoul Mountains within the sector of Salahuddin operations and they are still continuing.”

“The elite special operations clashed after finding a tunnel in Makhoul Mountains from which this terrorist group can take refuge, where three terrorists have been killed and the clashed are still continuing,” the statement added.

Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government’s assault on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other militants who came from around the world to take part in the country’s civil war, like reported by dailymail.co.uk.

These hardened fighters have nowhere left to go as the war reaches an endgame in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib on the Turkish border. Like the civilians they terrorized for years, they are trapped in an ever-shrinking territory under constant bombardment by the Russian-backed offensive by the government of President Bashar Assad.

The militants are a mix of home-grown fighters and the foreign jihadis who began converging to Syria after the 2011 uprising against Assad turned into an armed insurgency. The influx made Syria one of the main centers for militants worldwide, described by a top U.S. envoy as the largest al-Qaida haven since Osama bin Laden’s days in Afghanistan.

Idlib is believed to have more than 50,000 fighters, including the hard-core militants as well as tens of thousands of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, most of them with Islamic fundamentalist ideologies. In the past few years, the Syrian government struck safe passage deals with rebels as it took back control of areas around the country. As a result, rebels from elsewhere flowed into Idlib, their last stronghold. The current Russian-backed government offensive now aims to capture Idlib and crush the rebellion for good.

Here’s a look at the militants and their options:

THE MAIN GROUPS

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, is by far the strongest militant group in Idlib, affiliated with al-Qaida. Also known as HTS, the group is led by Syrian commander and al-Qaida operative Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

The powerful HTS has militarily crushed many of its rivals within the opposition, carried out a crackdown against the civilian population and set up its own so-called “salvation government” in 2017 to run day-to-day affairs in the region.

HTS evolved from the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, which rebranded itself and changed names on several occasions, claiming it had cut its links with al-Qaida.

In February 2018, as HTS became more Syrian, most of its foreign members set up their own group known as Horas al-Din, Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.” That group is now largely seen as the main al-Qaida branch in Syria and takes a hardline stance, rejecting a political solution for the war.

Most of its fighters are deployed in the rugged mountains of Idlib where they could take shelter amid the offensive.

Idlib is also home to the Turkistan Islamic Party, largely made up of thousands of Chinese jihadis. Most are from the Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uighur community native to Xinjiang in China. Their main presence is in and near the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour on the edge of Latakia, an Assad stronghold.

Overall, as many as 8,000 foreign militants have been estimated to be in Idlib.

The National Front for Liberation is a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel coalition, formed in 2018, which has played a major role in fighting government forces in Idlib. The group, made up of 16 factions, includes Islamic fundamentalist fighters believed to be more moderate than those of al-Qaida-linked groups. One of the strongest factions is Failaq al-Sham, funded and armed by Turkey. They later became part of the Turkey-backed coalition known as the Free Syrian Army.

DISARM OR DIE

As the noose tightens around Idlib, most of the militants have no choice but to fight till the end and die. Some will try to blend in with the civilian population – although foreign fighters will have difficulty doing that.

Opposition activists in the region say local Syrian fighters have already begun separating themselves from the foreigners. A number of foreign jihadis have split away from locals and moved into mountainous areas, said Akram al-Ahmad, a Syrian opposition activist who spends much of his time in Idlib.

Al-Golani, the HTS commander, gave a rare interview in late January to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in which he presented HTS as a local Syrian group independent of al-Qaida’s chain of command “with a strictly Syrian, not a transnational, Islamist agenda.”

“Abu Mohammed al-Golani is a pragmatic person who comes from a generation of al-Qaida that tried to shift into local politics, contrary to al-Qaida ideology that tends to be international and has no borders,” said Wael Olwan, a former spokesman for a Syrian rebel group who now works as a researcher at the Turkish-based think tank Jusoor for Studies.

DISPERSE IN THE WORLD

As the Syrian government offensive pushes civilians toward the border with Turkey, analysts say that some foreign militants might try to cross the border into Turkey and from there move on to other parts of the world to carry out attacks for al-Qaida.

Sam Heller, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that if the government offensive moves all the way to the Turkish border, chaotic scenes might unfold as large numbers of civilians try to escape. Militants that could exploit such chaos to slip away.

“A military offensive on Idlib risks driving these militants into Turkey, and then dispersing them globally, including to Europe and the post-Soviet space,” Heller said.

“At that point, some of these more experienced foreign cadres could link up with militants elsewhere and serve as an accelerant for local jihadist violence,” he said.

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan are set to meet today in Moscow in a bid to ease tensions over the escalation in violence in Syria, where they support opposing sides. Erdogan is expected to persuade Putin to agree to a quick ceasefire in Syria’s last rebel stronghold, the Idlib province, like reported by neweurope.eu.

Last week, 34 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded in an airstrike by Russian-backed Syrian forces in Idlib. Turkey in response killed 19 Syrian soldiers in drone strikes and shot down three Syrian warplanes. Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad’s forces took over the strategic city of Saraqeb, which lies at the junction of the M4 and M5 highways.

Turkey later said it was pursuing a military operation called “Operation Spring Shield”, which is its fourth and biggest intervention yet into Syria’s nine-year civil war. The Turkish government has also opened the borders, allowing thousands of migrants to head for Europe, a move seen as Erdogan’s attempt to force the EU and NATO to support his military operation in Idlib. The US has expressed strong support for Turkey following last month’s attack on Turkish soldiers, saying that “we stand by our NATO ally Turkey” and demanding that Syria and Russia end their “despicable” offensive in Idlib. Turkey has the second largest army in the NATO alliance.

Turkey wants Assad’s forces to pull back behind lines agreed under the 2018 Sochi memorandum with Moscow. The deal allows Turkey to deploy troops at military observation posts around Idlib. In return, Turkey was obliged to separate jihadists from other opposition factions in the region and disarm them. However, the Syrian regime views the outposts with hostility, and has previously surrounded some of them. Russia earlier said that Turkey had failed to fulfil its obligations under the deal.

Analysts say that with the current situation, Erdogan’s desire to convince Putin to live up to the 2018 deal will not be easy, as the Syrian government forces have made major gains since December. Last month, they seized in one day an area that they could not take for eight years, including the strategic M5 highway and the northern city of Aleppo, which was Syria’s commercial center before the war. The M5 was once a major commercial route linking Alepo with Syria’s capital, Damascus.

Hours before the talks, an airstrike on Maaret Musreen, a rebel-held village in northwestern Syria, hit a farm where internally displaced families were taking shelter, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens, including children, opposition activists said. They blamed Russian warplanes for the strike.

On 3 March, a United Nations commission published a report that finds that the actions by the armed forces of both Russia and Turkey in Syria could amount to war crimes. It also found that Russia directed its attacks on civilian sites, including hospitals and schools. The Kremlin has immediately rejected the report.

The day before the talks, a fistfight erupted in the Turkish parliament during a speech by Engin Ozkoc, a legislator from the opposition Republican People’s Party. He had earlier accused Erdogan of disrespecting Turkish soldiers who died in Syria, and called him “dishonourable, ignoble, low and treacherous”. Dozens of lawmakers joined the brawl, some climbing on top of desks to throw punches, while others tried to stop the fighting.

This morning, Erdogan arrived in Moscow, accompanied by foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and defense minister Hulusi Akar, among others. He was welcomed at the airport by Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Akeksey Yerhov and Turkish envoy Mehmet Samsar along with other high profile representatives.

Erdogan has signaled he would seek a ceasefire, despite his recent threats that the latest Turkish attacks against Syrian government forces were “only the beginning” of revenge for the deaths of the several dozen Turkish soldiers in last week’s Syrian bombing attacks.

The war in Syria started with a popular movement against Assad’s rule that was brutally repressed. Russia entered the civil war in 2015, aiding Assad in what it insisted was an anti-terrorist campaign against Islamic State, and what Western powers have seen as an attempt to root out opposition to Assad’s rule.

More than 380,000 people were killed in nine years and about half of the country’s population is displaced. The United Nations said that the current escalation may be the worst humanitarian crisis in the nine-year war.