Israel has conducted several strikes on Iranian-controlled bases in Syria and Iraq in recent weeks with permission from the United States and Russia, a Western diplomatic source told a Saudi-owned newspaper Wednesday.

Moscow and Washington agreed that the Jewish state could conduct these attacks on Iranian targets in order to “ensure Israel’s security,” the source told the London-based Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat.

In recent weeks, a number of explosions have been reported in Iraqi military installations connected to pro-Iranian Shiite militias, including on Tuesday night in an arms depot north of Baghdad.

As part of the reported agreement, Israel would not publicly acknowledge carrying out the strikes. However, this has not prevented Israeli officials from hinting at their involvement in these attacks.

Asked about Tuesday night’s blast at the pro-Iranian militia base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli reporters, “Iran has no immunity, anywhere… We will act — and currently are acting — against them, wherever it is necessary.”

The explosions have occurred in bases and warehouses belonging to militia groups under the umbrella of the mainly Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces. The state-sanctioned PMF militias have fought alongside Iraq’s regular armed forces against the Islamic State group.

The Iraqi Civil Defense said in a statement that Tuesday’s blast occurred near Balad air base, one of the country’s largest. A Shiite militia group is stationed nearby.

The officials who confirmed the explosion spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. They said the blast occurred in a depot belonging to the PMF and that an investigation was underway.

The mysterious blasts have given rise to a host of theories, including that Israel may have conducted airstrikes.

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s blast or other recent explosions.

In July, an explosion took place at a PMF base in Amirli, in Iraq’s northern Salaheddin province, killing two Iranians and causing a huge fire.

Last week, a massive explosion was also reported at the al-Saqr military base.

Israel has struck Iranian bases in neighboring Syria on numerous occasions, and there has been speculation that it might be expanding its campaign to target Iranian bases in Iraq. However, neither the Iraqi government nor Israel has addressed the reports.

Israeli officials have identified Iraq as a likely growing base of operations for Iran-backed efforts against the Jewish state. But Israeli officials have so far neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the strikes.

Bahrain announced on Monday that it would join the US-led efforts to protect shipping in the Gulf after Iranian aggressive and violent behavior in the area, like reported by jns.org.

Bahrain King Hamad met with US Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie.

“The king confirmed the Kingdom of Bahrain’s participation in the joint effort to preserve the safety of international maritime navigation and secure international corridors for trade and energy in the region,” the Bahraini News Agency reported.

Some other Middle East nations are also said to be in talks with the United States to join the coalition in the Gulf with one source, telling The National that it’s seeking more details about the mission.

Britain has already joined the American effort and sent warships to protect its tankers after Iran had a British-flagged vessel.

The US Navy’s 5th Fleet is stationed in the Gulf state.

Statistics recently released by the US Air Force and reported in Air Force Magazine confirm that the activities of the Islamic State have been increasing in Iraq and Syria—just as other sources, including Kurdish officials and the Pentagon’s Lead Inspector General, have previously stated, like reported by kurdistan24.net.

According to the US Air Forces Central Command, Combined Air Operations Center, airstrikes by the US and other Coalition members going back to January 2015, reached their lowest number two months ago—in May. But after that, airstrikes more than doubled, rising from 54 in May to 135 in June and dipping somewhat to 105 in July.

Other statistics also suggest a resurgence of the terrorist group. They include the number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sorties conducted in support of combat operations against the Islamic State.

From January through July of 2019, there were 7,654 such sorties. They are, thus, on track to surpass, by a significant number, the 7,782 sorties conducted in all of 2018.

Similarly aircraft refuelings and tanker sorties, if continued at their current rate, will match last year’s totals, while airdropped supplies in the first seven months of 2019 have already surpassed 2018 levels.

A recently released report from the office of the Lead Inspector General helps explain these statistics. “Despite losing its territorial ‘caliphate,’ the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and was resurging in Syria this quarter,” the report, covering the three-month period from April to June, stated.

“ISIS’s reconstitution and transformation into an insurgency in Syria this quarter appears to follow a pattern established in Iraq, where USCENTCOM said ISIS has formed a capable insurgent operation based in several Iraqi provinces north and west of Baghdad,” it added.

Kurdish officials have long issued similar warnings about the reemergence of the terrorist organization. Last month, as Prime Minister Masrour Barzani met Brig. Gen. Gregory Kreuder, Chief of the US Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, he warned of the “rising activity from ISIS sleeper cells as the security gap in Iraq remains, particularly in the disputed territories.”

Similarly, Kamal Ibrahim, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) representative in the disputed town of Qara Tepe, west of Kirkuk, recently cautioned, “ISIS has reorganized its militants, increasing their attacks on Iraqi Security Forces and civilians as well.”

Yet, US President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 on a promise to end the post 9/11 wars, and he would like to believe that the Islamic State has been defeated and that, at least in Syria, US troops can come home.

Indeed, Trump is the second US president to try to end, or at least significantly reduce, the US military presence in this area. Barack Obama tried to do the same, ending Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2011 and withdrawing US forces from Iraq—only to return them three years later to fight the Islamic State.

In fact, Trump would like to go further than Obama and withdraw a significant number of US troops from Afghanistan as well.

Trump’s impatience with the ongoing wars is, perhaps, understandable in light of the George W. Bush administration’s failure to define and explain its objectives in the post 9/11 wars, even as Bush and his senior advisors anticipated they would finish those conflicts during their own term in office.

Indeed, it is hard now to recollect the Bush administration’s triumphalism, once it recovered from the shock of the 9/11 attacks. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), the war in Afghanistan, began on October 7, 2001. Already in December, Bush believed he had won there and began to prepare for war in Iraq.

OIF began on March 20, 2003. In May, Bush believed he had basically won in Iraq too. He then began to prepare for another conflict, recalling the top commanders from Iraq, so they could prepare for it, as Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger (US Army, retired), relates in his memoirs, Why We Lost.

Of course, no more wars followed. However, in November 2003, the Bush administration adopted a new diplomatic initiative with a far-reaching objective: transform the Middle East through democracy.

Following his re-election, in January 2005, Bush went even further, proclaiming, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world.”

Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter and Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan, and later a Wall Street Journal columnist, suggested that Bush had embraced an unattainable goal. “Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon,” she wrote. “This is not heaven, it’s earth.”

The Bush administration was slow to recognize the challenges in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld derided the insurgents as “dead-enders” and prohibited analysts from describing the violence as an “insurgency”—which implied that it was a serious challenge. Only after Rumsfeld left office in 2006, did the administration really begin to tackle the violence in Iraq. In 2007, Gen. David Petraeus assumed command there, and “the surge” followed.

But in the process, four years were lost, while a key question was never clearly addressed: who are we fighting and why?

Those questions lie behind Trump’s impatience with these long wars and his desire to declare enemies, like the Islamic State, defeated, when the statistics, as well as commanders in the field, say that is not so.

Since 9/11, the US has done one thing: fight “radical Islam” or some equally ill-defined version of that term. It does more of that or it does less of it. But what it does not do is rethink basic assumptions; ask why aren’t we doing a better job of combatting this; and explore the possibility of a fundamentally different approach.

Iraq’s anti-terrorism units killed 10 Islamic State militants and arrested five others during an operation on Tuesday in the Anbar desert, like reported by kurdistan24.net.

“According to accurate intelligence, and the continued tracking down of ISIS remnants, the first tactical unit, one of the forces of the Counter-Terrorism Service, carried out landing operations in the Anbar desert in Rutba and Wadi Horan,” a statement by Iraq’s security forces said.

Rutba is located in western Anbar close to the desert triangle region, which connects Iraq with its neighbors Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Iraqi forces have carried out previous operations there against the so-called Islamic State in the past.

“The operation resulted in the death of 10 terrorists – including two wearing explosive belts –and the arrest of five others,” the statement added, noting “multiple airstrikes” destroyed several of the terror group’s bases in the area.

Elsewhere, on Monday, Iraqi intelligence and security forces arrested three Islamic State terrorists who confessed to committing various crimes and carrying out executions for the extremist group.

Among them was a senior leader responsible for Islamic State-controlled mills in Hawija, located in western Kirkuk province.

In late 2017, Baghdad proclaimed a “final victory” over the Islamic State. Since then, however, the terror group has continued to wage an insurgency in areas the group once controlled and have even been able to reach cities and towns they never held.

On Friday, Iraqi security forces announced the conclusion to an operation that was part of the latest effort to engage members of the extremist group after the military claimed success in clearing areas north and west of Baghdad in two previous military operations.

According to Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, the campaign targeted areas located north of Miqdadiya district in Diyala province, as well as north of Jalawla and Khanaqin, most of which are disputed territories between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq.

HMS Kent will join HMS Montrose in the region as the two warships escort every British tanker sailing through the Strait.

HMS Kent’s captain Commander Andy Brown said: “Today’s departure on operations has been achieved through the hard work and support of the ship’s company, their families and the wider defence enterprise.

“Our focus in the Gulf remains firmly one of de-escalating the current tensions. But we are committed to upholding freedom of navigation and reassuring international shipping, which this deployment on operations aims to do.”

The frigate is one of the Duke class vessels, like HMS Montrose, and weighs 4,900 tons.

She is bristling with missiles and torpedoes, can carry a helicopter and also has a 4.5 inch naval gun.

HMS Kent and HMS Montrose will work together to make sure Iran can snatch anymore tankers.

They will be part of an international task force with the US and Israel to protecting shipping in the Strait.

Five tankers and a cargo ship were attacked earlier this year, and Iran claims to have seized three oil tankers – including Stena Impero.

Iran this week also claimed its gunboats chased HMS Duncan, but the video released appears to show the wrong warship.

The situation in Yemen continues to devolve into anarchy, with Emirati-trained forces battling troops from the Saudi-supported, internationally recognized government, headed by exiled President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, like reported by soufangroup.com.

The civil war has wreaked havoc in what was already one of the world’s poorest and most unstable countries. A military stalemate has taken hold, with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in control of the capital, Sana, and much of the country’s north. Saudi- and Emirati-trained forces, fighting to reinstall the Hadi government, previously held control of the southern port city of Aden.

That was until August 11, when the coalition split amid several days of fierce fighting and forces from the Southern Transitional Council (STC) seized military bases and government installations in Aden, overrunning pro-Hadi forces. The STC is directly supported by the U.A.E., while Saudi Arabia primarily supports the internationally-recognized pro-Hadi government.

The splintering of the coalition reflects a broader divergence of interests in Yemen between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, although Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) met on Monday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the situation in Aden and Yemen more broadly. In mid-July, the U.A.E. withdrew its troops from Yemen, leaving the bulk of managing this conflict to Saudi Arabia.

Even as erstwhile allies among the proxy groups engage in internecine warfare, Saudi warplanes continue to bomb civilian targets in the north using U.S.-provided weapons. Meanwhile, Iran has accelerated its support for the Houthi rebels who have attacked Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones; Tehran shows few signs of altering its regional posture. At every level, the war in Yemen is a catastrophe, especially given the devastation that it has brought to the Yemeni people.

Exiled Yemeni President Hadi remains in Riyadh, clinging to the hope that the proxies fighting in his name can prevail so that he might return to reclaim power. The Yemeni foreign ministry in exile acknowledged the STC victory, calling it a ‘coup.’ After several days of silence, Riyadh called for an immediate ceasefire; Saudi King Salman met with Hadi in the Saudi capital to discuss the worsening crisis, but a clear path forward seems more elusive than at any point since the conflict began. The STC is well-equipped and is focused on creating an independent southern Yemen, a nightmare scenario for Saudi Arabia.

The combined efforts of the STC and the Hadi forces had previously been successful in pushing the Houthi rebels out of key southern areas, but they have been unable to secure an advantage in other parts of the country. The breakdown of the coalition likely signals a further stalemate.The Houthis took note of their adversaries infighting, applauding the expulsion of ‘the government of the hotels,’ a reference to the fact the internationally-recognized government doesn’t control the capital and now no longer controls its offices and hotel suites in Aden.

The Saudi air campaign has done little to blunt the Houthis’ ability to strike Riyadh. With the coalition’s collapse and defeat in Aden, the war is poised to enter another devastating phase, with no side able to escalate to a meaningful advantage. For years, the international community has pushed for a negotiated settlement in Yemen without success.

MBZ has publicly backed a recent Saudi peace initiative in Aden, joining calls to ‘prioritize dialogue and reason in the interest of Yemen and its people,’ but it is important to note that Emirati-supported secessionists possess critical leverage, as they currently occupy key military bases and the presidential palace.

The Islamic State group vowed to intensify its fight against the U.S.-led coalition and Kurds in eastern Syria, in a video posted Sunday on its Telegram channel.

“The fire of the battle between us and them has been reignited and will intensify,” the jihadi group said, addressing what it called “soldiers of Islam” and residents of the caliphate.

IS took swaths of oil-rich land in Iraq and Syria in a lightning 2014 offensive.

The jihadis lost the last shred of their self-declared “caliphate” in late March, when Syria’s Kurds took the village of Baghhouz in Deir Ezzor province with support from coalition airstrikes.

But IS retains sleeper cells and has orchestrated a series of car bomb and arson attacks in eastern and northeastern Syria since its territorial defeat.

In Sunday’s video — the second since the fall of Baghouz — IS accused coalition countries of having entrapped its local adversaries, including the Kurds.

“They have been thrown into the flames of a fierce war that will leave them without tail or head,” IS warned.

The video includes decapitations and the shooting to death at close range of people presented as kidnapped Kurdish fighters.

IS released a video in late April — shortly after claiming deadly attacks in Sri Lanka — in which leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi purportedly appeared, pledging vengeance and a “long battle” ahead.

A U.S. Defense Department report said this month that IS was “resurging” in Syria, while it had “solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq.”

Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has nominated Abdullah Qardash as his successor, Anadolu Agency quoted Daesh’s Amaq News Agency as saying.

Amaq said, Tuesday, that Al-Baghdadi nominated the Turkmen Abdullah Qardash, from the district of Tal Afar west of Mosul, “to take care of the Muslims’ affairs.”

 ​​Iraqi Security Expert, Fadhil Abu Ragheef, tweeted that the successor Qardash was detained Bucca prison in Basra Governorate and had previously worked for Al-Qaeda. Qardash is a graduate of the College of Imam Al-Adham Abu Hanifa Al-Nu’manin Mosul. The security expert pointed out that Qardash was close to the leader Abu Alaa Al-Afri, the second-in-command of Daesh, who was killed in 2016.

“Qardash’s father was an articulate and rational orator,” Abu Ragheef said. He also noted that Qardash is cruel, authoritarian and extremist and was the first to welcome Al-Baghdadi following the fall of Mosul.

Abu Ali Al-Basri, the head of Iraqi Interior Ministry’s Falcons Intelligence Cell, said that Al-Baghdadi is in Syria.

Al-Basri also said that Al-Baghdadi suffers from paralysis of his limbs due to missile shrapnel injuries in the spinal column during an operation by the Falcons Intelligence Cell in coordination with the air force. This occurred during a meeting between Al-Baghdadi in Hajin, southeast of the Syrian governorate of Deir ez-Zor, before its liberation in 2018.

Al-Basri added that, most recently, Al-Baghdadi had given high priority to resist the intelligence threats and protect Daesh from penetration.

On July 30, 2019, the Syrian opposition website Ein Al-Porat published a report on its Facebook page detailing the locations of the Shi’ite militias supported by Iran in the Al-Mayadin and Deir Al-Zour region in eastern Syria.

The report indicates the locations of the bases and storehouses of these forces and provides details about the weapons in their possession, as well as aerial photographs.

According to the report, active in the area are Fatemiyoun militia forces, comprised of Shi’ites of Afghan origin, members of the Iraqi Al-Nujaba movement, and Hizbullah-Lebanon – all of which are U.S.-designated terror organizations.

Also stationed in the area are forces of the Baqir Brigade, a Syrian militia loyal to Iran, which in the past has declared its intention to confront the American forces in Syria.

The report also reveals that there are anti-aircraft missiles, shoulder-fired missiles, and guided missiles in the region as well. Some of the missiles are aimed at the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are stationed on the opposite bank of the Euphrates River.

On July 2, 2019, the site published a similar report, specifying the locations of Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’ite militias supported by Iran in the Al-Bukamal area on the Syria-Iraq border.

These areas are of strategic importance to Iran due to their proximity to the border with Iraq, and because control over them will help Iran to realize its goal to achieve territorial contiguity from its domain up to the Mediterranean Sea and because of the presence there of American forces, which support the Kurdish forces in the area

A powerful alliance of about 50 Shiite militias, who helped Iraq defeat the Islamic State, is resisting calls by the Iraqi government to surrender its weapons and join civilian life, according to observers on the ground, like reported by intelnews.org.

Much of the territory captured from the Islamic State (known also as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) in northern Iraq is currently controlled by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a collection of around 40 different Shiite militias consisting of over 150,000 armed fighters. The militias began to form in the summer of 2014, after Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shiite community, issued a fatwa (religious degree) that called or the destruction of ISIS. The Iranian-supported PMF proved instrumental in the territorial defeat of ISIS. However, the group’s leadership is ideologically aligned with Iran, and many of its members will not cooperate with the Iraqi Armed Forces, because of the latter’s proximity to the United States.

According to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, northern Iraqi cities like Mosul, Bashiqa and Nineveh are largely under the command of the PMF today, a full 18 months after they were recaptured from ISIS. All political and economic activity in the region is controlled by PMF fighters operating under the command of the 30th Brigade, which is one of the most hardline pro-Iranian militias in the PMF. It is alleged that the militias receive economic kickbacks from Shiite-owned Iraqi firms who are awarded multi-million dollar contracts to rebuild the city.

Meanwhile, as The Washington Post and other news media have reported, PMF militia members are beginning to exhibit “mafia-like” behavior, establishing protection rackets and kidnapping motorists at night in order to release them for a fee paid by their families. There are also allegations, made by Deutsche Welle and other Western media, that the PMF has conducted mass executions of Iraqi Sunnis as part of its goal to rid Iraq of Sunni Islam.

Last month, Iraqi Armed Forces tried to dismantle PMF-controlled checkpoints into Mosul, but was confronted by armed PMF forces who refused to cede contro. Following the failed attempt to recapture the checkpoints, Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi warned the PMF that it had until July 31 to disband. Its members were called to join a newly established gendarmerie under the command of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

Failure to do so would mean that the militias would be considered outlaws and would be treated as such by the Iraqi Armed Forces, the prime minister warned. But the PMF has requested more time to lay down its weapons, as some of its more moderate commanders are trying to convince the Iran-aligned militias to declare allegiance to a state army that they consider to be pro-American. The future will show how likely that is to happen.