Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen said Iran is continuing to develop nuclear weapons, warning the international community to either change or cancel the Iran deal.

In a meeting, Cohen said the Iran deal was “an awful mistake that allows the country to preserve completely crucial elements of its nuclear plan, and it will remove the various restrictions within a few years.”

“Iran will succeed in enriching enough uranium to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons,” Cohen warned.

He slammed the decision to remove sanctions, and emphasized that Iran has continued to develop its long-term ballistic missile program.

“As the head of the Mossad, I am 100% certain that Iran never abandoned its vision and plan of a nuclear-armed military for even one second. The failure to change or cancel the deal will create an existential threat for Israel,” he emphasized.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has revealed that he ordered the army to put together plans to fight Daesh in neighbouring Syria. Speaking during his weekly press conference, he stressed that eliminating terrorism from Iraq will take years, like reported by middleeastmonitor.com.

The situation in Syria remains a challenge, added Al-Abadi, because of Daesh’s presence in several areas, especially near the Iraqi border. There is a regional conflict over Iraq, he pointed out as he explained that he wants to establish serious relations with all regional countries and keep the conflict away from Iraqi territory.

The Prime Minister’s statements came in the wake of Daesh attacks near the Syrian city of Al-BuKamal near the Iraqi border. Baghdad announced last summer that the air force had targeted Daesh sites in Syria, while its allies in the Popular Mobilisation Forces had infiltrated briefly across the border into Syrian territory.

In a separate statement during his visit to the city of Tikrit in the province of Salahuddin, Abadi warned of attempts by some political parties and media to exaggerate what Daesh does in the country just as the parliamentary elections are approaching. He said that terrorism in Iraq had failed and expressed confidence in the country’s future, saying that it will witness radical changes in all fields in the next phase.

About 400 Islamic State (IS) militants managed to sneak from Syria into the Iraqi province of Anbar as they currently plan to resume their terrorist activities from there, a security source was quoted as saying according to iraqinews.com.

“Intelligence information confirmed that there are about 400 IS extremists, including foreign fighters, in Wadi Hauran and Wadi al-Qadhf in western Anbar, who managed to infiltrate into Iraq coming from Syria earlier,” the source said.

The source warned that the IS infiltrators are now “planning to resume their terrorist activities by targeting recently-liberated areas in western Anbar.” He further accused the U.S.-led international coalition of failing to target those extremists despite confirmed reports about their presence in Anbar desert.

The source warned that the IS militants are still posing a serious threat to security forces deployed in these areas, therefore he called on Iraqi Air Forces to bombard them as soon as possible.

Iraq declared victory over Islamic State in December with the help of a US-led alliance, having retaken all the territory captured by the extremists in 2014 and 2015.

The Islamic State group appeared on the international scene in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” from Mosul city.

Later on, the group has become notorious for its brutality, including mass killings, abductions and beheadings, prompting the U.S. to lead an international coalition to destroy it.

All indications suggest that for Turkey, the recent battles were only a phase in a larger process. So where might Turkey turn next? And what is the goal of the Turkish campaign?

Turkish forces this month entered Afrin City, bringing Operation “Olive Branch,” launched on January 20, to a successful conclusion. Latest reports suggest that the Turks are now set to seek to enter the neighboring Kurdish-controlled town of Tal Rifaat, after reaching an agreement with the Russians allowing them to contest its control, like reported by jpost.com.

According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 78 Turkish soldiers were killed in the Afrin fighting, along with 437 Turkey-aligned Syrian Sunni rebels. SOHR puts Kurdish casualties as 1,500 killed in the operation.

All indications suggest that for Turkey, the recent battles were only a phase in a larger process. So where might Turkey turn next? And what is the goal of the Turkish campaign?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, following the fall of Afrin, that “we marked a comma. God willing, a full stop will come next…. Now we will continue this process, until we entirely eliminate this corridor, including in Manbij, Ayn al-Arab [Kobani], Tel-Abyad, Ras al-Ayn (Sere Kaniyeh) and Qamishli.”

These are the main towns of the Kurdish-controlled area further east. A Turkish push toward them would mean a comprehensive attempt to destroy the Kurdish autonomous zone that has been in existence east of the Euphrates since the withdrawal of Assad’s forces from the area in July 2012.

It would also mean the near certain prospect of a collision between Turkish and US forces. Officially, there are 2,000 US military personnel in the area. The real number is probably considerably larger, perhaps twice this figure.

The US maintains a number of facilities east of the Euphrates. These are held in cooperation with the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the US partner in the war against Islamic State, but which would also form the main element resisting a Turkish push eastward.

The town of Manbij is currently the main issue of contention. West of the Euphrates and with a mixed Arab and Kurdish population, it is nevertheless currently controlled jointly by the SDF and the Americans.

Turkey has made clear that it intends to remove its Kurdish opponents from the town.

Given the extreme risks inherent in any such drive eastward, however, it appears more likely that Turkey will satisfy its immediate appetites for further strikes at its enemies elsewhere.

Despite Erdogan’s grammatical metaphors, the taking of Afrin did represent a kind of “full stop” for the Turks. It completed the acquisition by Ankara of a sizable, contiguous enclave in northwest Syria. The Afrin canton was a “missing piece” separating two areas of de facto Turkish control.

In Operation “Euphrates Shield” in late 2016, the Turks carved out an area of control between the towns of Azaz and Jarabulus along the Syrian-Turkish border.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces also entered northern Idlib province, which remains under the control of Sunni Islamist rebels.
The destruction of Afrin joins these two areas, giving Turkey a contiguous area of control, from Jarabulus to northern Idlib. The Turks have made clear they have no intention of handing these areas over to the Assad regime. So Ankara now has its own little bit of fragmented Syria, alongside the various enclaves of other powers.

This is of importance to Erdogan. He will be able to present himself as the champion of the Sunni Arab population of Syria, and the guarantor of the remnants of its rebellion against the Assad regime.

As the earliest and most consistent supporter of the Syrian Sunni rebellion, the Turkish leader stood to appear humiliated by the final eclipse of their cause. The Russians, by permitting the Turks and their rebel foot soldiers to enter Afrin, have allowed Erdogan to salvage some dignity from his situation. In affording him this concession (against the will of the Assad regime), Moscow has served its broader goal of drawing the Turks further away from their already severely eroded alliance with the West.

With their northwest Syrian enclave largely secured, and the area further east dangerous to approach, because of the American presence, there are indications that the Turks are looking further afield for further victories against the Kurds.

Turkish aircraft have in recent days been in action over the skies of northern Iraq, bombing what Ankara claims to be a presence of PKK guerrillas in the Qasr-e area of Erbil province. The Turkish military is presently engaged 15 km. across the border into the Kurdish Regional Government area, in the Sidakan area in northern Iraq.

Erdogan has threatened in recent days to carry out a military operation against PKK guerrillas located in the Sinjar Mountain area of northern Iraq. The fighters of this Kurdish organization have been in this area since the summer of 2014, when they opened a corridor to rescue Yazidi civilians trapped on the mountain by the advance of ISIS.

The PKK has announced its willingness to leave Sinjar and has begun to hand security facilities over to the local Yazidi YBS forces. Given the links between these forces and the PKK, however, it is not yet clear if this will be sufficient to prevent a Turkish incursion into the area.

There are those among the Iraqi Kurds who fear that these activities may presage a more general Turkish attempt to comprehensively root out and destroy Ankara’s PKK enemies in northern Iraq.

A larger-scale Turkish assault into Dohuk and Nineveh provinces to carve out an enclave between the Kurdish areas in Iraq and Syria is not an impossibility. But it would be carried out against the wishes of the US, Iran, and the government of Iraq, and may be too large a morsel for Turkey to attempt at the present time. Nevertheless, the lower-level attacks on Kurdish targets in Iraq look set to continue and intensify.

Meanwhile, inside the area of Kurdish control in eastern Syria, a mysterious organization called Harakat al-Qiyam has carried out a number of attacks on individuals linked to the Kurdish-led authorities in recent months. Many observers calculate that this group may be backed by the Turks, constituting an irregular accompaniment to overt military action further east and west.

In all three areas – the Afrin operation, the (alleged) links to Harakat al-Qiyam and the air activity and threatened incursion into Sinjar and northern Iraq – the contours and direction of Turkish activity are clear.

Ankara has set as a strategic goal to destroy the Kurdish gains that resulted from the fragmentation of Syria and Iraq over the last half decade. Turkey also wishes to present itself as the natural leader and patron of Sunni Arab communities in both countries.

In asserting these goals, Ankara will partner with or oppose other local powers (Iran, the government of Iraq, the Assad regime), according to immediate tactical needs. Similarly, Turkey is likely to tread carefully around the larger powers, whose will it cannot oppose (the US, Russia), seeking to draw neither too close nor too far away from either.

After the capture of Mosul from ISIS, speaking of Turkey’s activities in Iraq, Erdogan said, “We cannot draw boundaries to our heart, nor do we allow that.” The surrounding territories and populations in the nominal states of Syria and Iraq appear set to receive the full and heartfelt attention of Turkey, to the sound of revived Ottoman marching tunes – whether they like it or not.•

Iraqi security forces killed 65 Islamic State (IS) militants in a well-planned ambush in the province of Anbar, according to Iraqi sources.

IKH News quoted a military source who wished to remain anonymous, saying that the security forces were informed of a plot by the IS jihadists trying to penetrate into Iraq from Syria to conduct terrorists attacks.

“Immediately, a security force set up an ambush on a road in Ar-Rutbah town in western Anbar province, managing to kill all the 65 infiltrators, including foreign fighters,” the source told IKH News, adding that no Iraqi troops were killed or injured during the operation.

Even though, the Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi announced in December the defeat of the IS in Iraq, the extremist group has began their activities in most of the liberated areas.

The Pentagon said that a U.S. military strike in Yemen killed four al Qaeda militants, the seventh such strike in the country this month, Reuters reports.

In a statement, the Pentagon said the strike against Yemen’s al Qaeda branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was carried out near al-Bayda.

“No civilians were present and therefore none were injured or killed as a result of the strike,” the statement said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian asserted today that Iran is supplying Al-Houthi militia in Yemen with weapons.

“There is a problem in Yemen that the political process has not started and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is under constant attacks being carried out by Al-Houthi militias who are getting weapons from Iran,” he said in statement to RTL radio.

Top Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk has said in an interview to London’s Al-Hiwar television station that Hamas-Iran relations were the closest they had been since the Syrian civil war blew up in 2011.

His comments were reported on Wednesday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center after years of the Syrian war in which Hamas and Iran reduced their cooperation as Iran supported the Shi’ite-allied Assad regime and Hamas supported a range of Sunni rebel forces.

But with the Assad regime having mostly defeated the Sunni forces and with Hamas’ resources and allies limited to a historic low, Abu Marzouk said that no one had any right to criticize Hamas for accepting military or economic aid from Iran. Even with the civil war largely over, some Gazans criticize Hamas for cooperating with Iran, the heart of the Shi’ite enemies for Sunnis everywhere, including Palestinians.

This marks the first attack on the forces since they launched their campaign to purge Hadramawt province from Al Qaeda, like reported by thenational.ae

An Al Qaeda ambush killed 12 Yemeni elite forces in what has been the deadliest single attack on the military this year.

The soldiers were ambushed while deployed in Al Safra outpost located in the Hadramawt province, a strategic Al Qaeda stronghold that shares a 600-kilometre border with Saudi Arabia.

Soldiers looking to capture the province from Al Qaeda, also known as AQAP, sustained a series of hit-and-run attacks from the terrorists during a holdout on a key outpost.

The attack began on Wednesday with two Al Qaeda militants on a motorcycle gunning soldiers posted in Al Aqeek intersection.

The soldiers chased down the bikers only to find themselves caught in a crossfire down the road.

“Unexpectedly the soldiers found themselves in an ambush by dozens of Al Qaeda militants, who began firing on them until the soldiers ran out of ammunition. So many of them were killed,” a soldier posted in Hadramawt told The National.

Soldiers arrived after the battle to find “corpses with their heads cut off” in a scene they described as a slaughter.

The forces deployed in the outpost said they noticed militants on top of the hills surrounding the stronghold days before but chose to ignore the perceived threats.

This marks the first Al Qaeda attack in Hadramawt province since the elite forces, backed by the Arab Coalition, liberated the main stronghold of the terrorist organisation in Wadi Al Misaini during a military operation named ” Al-Faisal” launched in February.

Hamas has turned to its friends in Tehran to seek mediation with Baghdad in the case of a rocket fuel expert named Taha Mohamed al-Jabouri. The incident shows Hamas’s increasing desperation and its links to Iran, like reported by jpost.com.

The Philippine National Police detained an Iraqi citizen on January 21 in Pampanga, according to the website Rappler, which follows the Philippines and security issues. Taha Mohamed al-Jabouri was born in 1954 and studied at the University of Baghdad before working in military facilities under Saddam Hussein in which he was responsible for increasing the capabilities of Iraq’s missile systems

Al-Jabouri allegedly went to work for Hamas and conducted research and development for missile technology according to the Palestinian media website Amad.

He had overstayed his visa in the Philippines and was detained with other Arabic speaking men. Manila, which is fighting a war against Islamist groups in the south and has been targeted by Al-Qaeda in the past, investigated whether he might be in touch with other terrorist groups.

Under interrogation in the Philippines, al-Jabouri said he had consulted for Hamas and had lived in Damascus before moving to Istanbul in 2012. He claimed to be working as a consultant also for a Chinese business group and had arrived in the country in August, 2017. Apparently Iraq had alerted Manila to his presence. According to website Iraqi news, al-Jabouri was sent back to Turkey and then deported to Baghdad where Iraqi authorities arrested him. The Iraqi report claimed he is wanted by Israel.

Hamas was quoted by al-Akhbar media in Lebanon as saying it would mediate for his release. The report claimed he had become involved with Hamas eight years ago, but it implied he was not doing current work for the organization. In any case, Hamas sought Iran’s help: “To communicate with the Islamic Republic of Iran, because of the recent good relationship with Iraq, to mediate for his release.”

The report comes in the wake of a speech by the chief of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), Herzi Halevi at a Ynet conference on March 25. Halevi said Hamas is reaching a low point and facing a civil and structural crisis. It is “running into the arms of Iran,” he said according to a report of his speech published at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Hamas seeking to aid its former engineer al-Jabouri does not necessarily indicate al-Jabouri plays a key role in Hamas’ rocket program. His expertise dates back to the 1990s when he was helping Saddam fuel its SCUDs. Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, met al-Jabouri and describes him in a 2006 book. Even in the 1990s, Ritter wrote that Jabouri’s expertise for long range missiles was lacking. The significance that Hamas is seeking Iran’s help for an issue in Iraq is more symbolic of Hamas’ relations with Tehran and Iran’s influence in Iraq – this is of greater concern to Israel.