Islamic State’s toxic gases expert was killed along with three of his guards while manufacturing missiles loaded with toxic gases, southwest of Kirkuk, a security source said according to iraqinews.com.

“A blast occurred on Thursday at one of the IS sites in the military district in Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk, which killed the group’s toxic gases expert called abul Qa’qa’ al-Muhajir along with three of his guards,” the source told AlSumaria News. “The explosion took place after the so-called toxic gases brigade was working on missiles loaded with toxic gases.

The source, who preferred anonymity, said “al-Muhajir, who is close to the group’s supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is considered one of the group’s prominent toxic gases expert.”

Earlier this week, the group’s Islamic police chief was killed, while five others were injured as an airstrike targeted the group’s rest house in Hawija.

Hawija, located west of Kirkuk, have been held by IS since mid-2014, when the group emerged to proclaim an Islamic “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. The group executed dozens of civilians and security members there, forcing thousands to flee homes.

There has been pressure on Iraqi government to hasten with invading Hawija, given the humanitarian crisis people were experiencing under the group’s rule. Further offensives are expected to be launched across Iraq.

More than a hundred buses carrying thousands of Syrian militants and their families left Lebanon , completing a cease-fire deal between the Syrians and the Lebanese Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah, like reported by voanews.com .

Hezbollah-run media in Beirut said the Syrians headed for an area of Syria’s Idlib province controlled by rebels fighting against the Damascus government.

The cease-fire ended three years of sporadic fighting between the Syrian jihadists, linked to the al-Qaida terror network and its affiliates, and their Lebanese foes. Six days of intense fighting in Lebanon’s mountainous Jurud Arsal region led to an agreement between the two sides last week to exchange fighters’ bodies and swap prisoners.

The final step this week was the departure of about 9,000 jihadists and civilians, including residents of Syrian refugee camps around the Lebanese town of Arsal. Hezbollah’s media unit, which provided details of how many Syrians were on the move, said they included a top al-Qaida operative known in Syria as Abu Malek al-Talli.

“The Nusra Front was defeated in Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s al-Manar television announced in the Lebanese capital, using an old name for al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria. More than a year ago al-Nusra Front disbanded and founded a new jihadist-led alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now controls large swaths of Idlib in northern Syria.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a statement on Wednesday it was not involved in the deal between the Syrian and Lebanese militants. It added that refugee returns should “be individual decisions, based on objective information about the conditions in the place of intended return, and made free from undue pressure.”

Two attackers detonated a car bomb in southern Yemen on Wednesday, killing themselves and five soldiers and injuring several others, residents and a local security official said.

The bombing took place in the Redhoom district of Shabwa province near a security checkpoint, they said, adding that the attackers died in the assault.

The local official added, without elaborating, that he suspected the attackers were affiliated with al Qaeda. Shabwa is one of several provinces in Yemen in which al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is active.

Islamic State’s head of training camps in Tal Afar was killed in an airstrike that targeted his vehicle, a source was quoted saying according to iraqinews.com.

“An airstrike conducted on Wednesday targeted a convoy in the western suburbs of Tal Afar, in west of Mosul,” a local source from Nineveh has told AlSumaria News. “According to the available information, IS head of training camps in Tal Afar and another prominent leader were killed.”

“The militants have been on high alert in the town fearing further airstrikes against its main headquarters,” the source, who preferred anonymity, added.

On Tuesday, news reports said IS prominent vocalist abu Talha al-Shami was killed in an airstrike in the town. Strict measures were imposed by the group there after a prominent foreign female sniper was found slain in a narrow alleyway.

Tal Afar is one of the important strongholds still held by IS in Nineveh since August 2014. The town has been set as the next target of operations after victory was declared in Mosul on July 10.

Iraqi Defense Ministry said last week that a date has been set for the town invasion, however, it will not be declared to maintain the secrecy of the intended operations.

An exchange deal between Hizbullah and the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front was finalized overnight on Wednesday with the release of three Hizbullah fighters in return for three Syrian Nusra prisoners, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said the swap took place in the Wadi Hmayyed area in the outskirts of Lebanon’s border town of Arsal.

Three Nusra prisoners from Roumieh prison -four non-convicts and a fifth who has finished his jail term- were swapped for Hizbullah captives.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, who is playing a key role in the negotiations, assured that all three Hizbullah fighters were in good health.

Hizbullah captives were kidnapped when they lost their way during the ceasefire between Hizbullah and Nusra during the battles in Arsal’s outskirts last month.

They were identified as Mahmoud Harb, Hussam Fakih and Hafez Zakhim, NNA added.

The National News Agency later said that a convoy of buses, transporting around 7800 militants from al-Nusra and their families from Arsal’s outskirts, began their journey Wednesday morning into Syria’s Flita as part of a transfer deal.

It added that Nusra Front’s leader in the Syrian Qalamoun mountain region Abu Malek al-Talli was among the evacuees.

Lebanon’s General Security, the Lebanese army, the International Red Cross and international bodies supervised the transfer process, in accordance with the implementation of the second phase of negotiations after the completion of the exchange process which took place at one o’clock on Wednesday, said NNA.

Part of the deal also includes the release of another five Hizbullah captives -captured in Aleppo in 2015- as soon as the convoy of buses arrives at a crossing that had also witnessed a deal to liberate civilians from the Syrian towns of Kefraya and al-Fouaa.

On Tuesday, the evacuation ran into some hurdles and the process was postponed to Wednesday, media reports had said.

They said that conditions set by al-Nusra Front group related to the release of around 20 Nusra inmates from the Roumieh Prison have reportedly hampered the exchange deal.

The second round of the exchange was supposed to take place on Monday with the evacuation of Nusra’s militants and their families from Arsal’s outskirts to north Syria. It was reported that the process was suspended after al-Nusra “insisted on taking the three (Hizbullah) captives who are in its custody in Arsal’s outskirts to areas inside Syria in order to release them there.”

Hizbullah and Ibrahim “rejected this condition, with Maj. Gen. Ibrahim telling Nusra that it is prohibited for the convoys to head to Syria while Hizbullah’s captives are still in its custody,” MTV had said.

The exchange and evacuation deal comes in the wake of a military offensive by Hizbullah fighters and Syrian troops during which they captured border areas between the two countries and left hundreds of Nusra fighters besieged in a small rugged mountainous area.

The fighting ended with a ceasefire on Thursday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have started using a new route across the Gulf to funnel covert arms shipments to their Houthi allies in Yemen’s civil war, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

In March, regional and Western sources told Reuters that Iran was shipping weapons and military advisers to the Houthis either directly to Yemen or via Somalia. This route however risked contact with international naval vessels on patrol in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

For the last six months the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has begun using waters further up the Gulf between Kuwait and Iran as it looks for new ways to beat an embargo on arms shipments to fellow Shi’ites in the Houthi movement, Western and Iranian sources say.

Using this new route, Iranian ships transfer equipment to smaller vessels at the top of the Gulf, where they face less scrutiny. The transhipments take place in Kuwaiti waters and in nearby international shipping lanes, the sources said.

“Parts of missiles, launchers and drugs are smuggled into Yemen via Kuwaiti waters,” said a senior Iranian official. “The route sometimes is used for transferring cash as well.”

The official added that “what is especially smuggled recently, or to be precise in the past six months, are parts of missiles that cannot be produced in Yemen”.

Cash and drugs can be used to fund Houthi activities, the official said.

Yemen is more than two years into a civil war pitting the Houthis against the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition. More than 10,000 people have died in fighting and a cholera epidemic has infected more than 300,000 in a country on the brink of famine.

In backing the Houthis against a coalition led by its Sunni enemy Saudi Arabia, Iran is stepping up support for a Shi’ite ally in a war whose outcome could sway the balance of power in the Middle East.

Military Equipment

Efforts to intercept military equipment by the coalition have had limited success, with no reported maritime seizures of weapons or ammunition during 2017 so far and only a few seizures on the main land route from the east of Yemen.

Independent U.N. investigators, who monitor Yemen sanctions, told the Security Council in their latest confidential report, which Reuters has seen, that they continue to investigate potential arms trafficking routes.

They said the United Arab Emirates – which is part of the coalition – had reported 11 attacks since September 2016 against its ground forces by Houthis using drones, or UAVs, armed with explosives.

“Although Houthi-aligned media announced that the Sanaa-based Ministry of Defence could manufacture the UAV, in reality they are assembled from components supplied by an outside source and shipped into Yemen,” the report said.

The report added that the Houthis “will eventually deplete their limited stock of missiles.” This would force the Houthis to end a campaign of missile attacks against Saudi territory unless they are resupplied from external sources.

An earlier UN report in January said the Houthis needed to replenish stocks of anti-tank guided weapons.

The arms smuggling operation may not turn the tide of the conflict, but it will allow the Houthis receive stable supplies of equipment that is otherwise hard to obtain.

Safe Route

“The volume of the activity, I don’t call it a trade, is not very large. But it is a safe route,” a second senior Iranian official said.

“Smaller Iranian ports are being used for the activity as major ports might attract attention.”

Asked if the IRGC was involved, the second official said: “No activity goes ahead in the Gulf without the IRGC being involved. This activity involves a huge amount of money as well as transferring equipment to Iranian-backed groups in their fight against their enemies.”

A third senior Iranian official also confirmed the shipment activity and pointed to IRGC involvement.

The IRGC is Iran’s most powerful internal and external security force, with a sophisticated intelligence and surveillance network together with elite units which are playing a key role in the war in Syria in support of the government.

The IRGC declined to comment on the arms shipments and Iranian foreign ministry officials could not immediately be reached.

Houthi officials were also not immediately available for comment but in March a Houthi leader, who declined to be identified, said accusations that Iran was smuggling weapons into Yemen were an attempt to cover up Saudi Arabia’s failure to prevail in the war there.

Kuwaiti officials did not respond to questions. A U.S. Navy spokesman said he had no information on the matter.

“(The territorial waters of) Iran, Kuwait and Iraq in the northern Persian Gulf butt up against each other,” said Gerry Northwood, of maritime security firm MAST and a former British Royal Navy captain who has commanded warships in the region.

“There is still plenty of room for smugglers to operate. In fact the whole Persian Gulf is a hive of small boat activity. And this is in an area where one man’s illegitimate trade is another’s legitimate trade.”

Hundreds of ships sail through the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz every day – waterways which pass along the coasts of Yemen and Iran. Many are small dhows, which are hard to track.

Western shipping and security sources said that since March there had been an increase in suspicious activity involving Iranian-flagged ships in waters near Kuwait.

“Waters around Kuwait are being used by Iranians to funnel … equipment to Yemen,” said an international arms dealer based in the Mediterranean area with knowledge of the matter.

“Consignments are either transferred to other craft, such as small boats, or they are dropped near buoys to be picked up by passing ships.”

The arms dealer, who declined to be identified, said there were many coves and deserted bays in neighbouring Iraq that also provided opportunities for this type of covert activity.

The Western sources said consignments were transported from smaller Iranian ports across the sea lanes near Kuwait, which is 100 nautical miles from Iran.

To avoid detection, the mainly Iranian-flagged vessels switch off their identification transponders, sometimes for days. They rendezvous with other ships or drop supplies close to buoys, so the consignments can be recovered for onward transport, the sources said.

Three government forces and eight Houthi rebels were killed in clashes in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province on Tuesday, according to a government commander and like reported by aa.com.tr .

The casualties occurred when government forces attacked Houthi positions in Al-Houd, south of Taiz province, Army Col. Abdul Basset al-Bahr told Anadolu Agency.

He said the attack aimed to seize control of the Houthi-held area.

A Houthi spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Last month, pro-government forces overran Al-Salo district in Taiz from Houthi rebels, who later managed to recapture it.

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

The conflict escalated when Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign in 2015 aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

Over 3 million people have fled their homes since the onset of the conflict, and more than 20 million throughout the country are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Islamic State has imposed strict measures in Tal Afar town after a prominent female sniper was found slain, a local source was quoted saying, like reported by iraqinews.com.

“Um Azam, a woman from the Russian federation, is known as ‘the dove’ for her good eyesight and accurate shooting. The skilled sniper was found dead in a narrow alleyway in Tal Afar, west of Mosul. She was slain by unknown people,” the source told AlSumaria News.

“IS imposed strict measures and arrested many people,” the source, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “Many members and leaders of the group are killed in the town, which indicates an internal infighting among the group to take over positions in the regions.”

Earlier on Tuesday, news reports said IS prominent vocalist abu Talha al-Shami was killed in an airstrike in the town.

Tal Afar is one of the important strongholds still held by IS in Nineveh since August 2014. The town has been set as the next target of operations after victory was declared in Mosul on July 10.

Iraqi Defense Ministry said last week that a date has been set for the town invasion, however, it will not be declared to maintain the secrecy of the intended operations.

A powerful bipartisan sanctions bill, the Countering Adversarial Nations Through Sanctions Act, has been passed by the US Congress on Russia, North Korea and Iran. The bill is veto-proof because 419 voted in favor and only three against. Tehran and many leftist media outlets have tactically not drawn attention to the bill’s section on Iran. Instead, Russia has gained the media spotlight.

It is one of the most powerful US sanctions bills against Iran, and is a robust blow to it. The bill blacklists Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for its terrorist activities and destabilizing behavior, and for being a national security threat to the US and its allies, like reported by eurasiareview.com.

More importantly, any individual or entity directly or indirectly linked to the IRGC or its affiliates is also blacklisted. In addition, any American person or entity doing do is subject to penalties for violating the law.

Financial systems, US citizens and entities should be very cautious because the IRGC is not one institution. It has thousands of affiliates in Iran and abroad, it owns thousands of companies, and it has significant control over Iran’s economy and wealth.

Tehran did not draw attention to the sanctions bill mainly because it is not in its economic or geopolitical interests to publicize that the most important and powerful institution in Iran, the IRGC, has been blacklisted. The news will be detrimental to Tehran’s increasing trade profit with Western companies, as it will make other nations hesitant to do business with Iran due to repercussions from the US.

Iran has long warned that if the US imposes sanctions on the IRGC, its military will respond immediately. But such threats are mainly rhetoric aimed at projecting power and discouraging sanctions on the IRGC.

Iran cannot take direct military action against the US because it knows its army is far inferior, so any direct war with the US would be political suicide. As such, if Iran acknowledges and widely reports the bill, it will have to act on its threats, and since it cannot, it would be seen as weak. Nonetheless, Tehran continues to present a significant threat to the national security of the US and its allies.

The next step is to place the IRGC on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. To halt its support for terrorism, belligerence and destabilization of the region, other governments should impose similar sanctions. And Congress and US officials must impose sanctions on non-American individuals and entities that directly or indirectly deal with Tehran, the IRGC and its affiliates.

Before the nuclear deal, the US imposed such sanctions on European, Chinese and other entities dealing with Iran. Foreign individuals and entities must choose either to deal with the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism or with US companies.

They would choose the latter because the possibility of profits is higher. Such sanctions would be the most powerful blow to Iran’s regime, endangering its hold on power and pushing back on its terrorist activities and aggressive regional behavior.

The USS Nimitz officially joined the fight against the Islamic State Monday when it launched its first round of strikes against targets from the Arabian Gulf, like reported by stripes.com.

The strikes were conducted by aircraft assigned to the strike group’s Carrier Air Wing 11, a Navy statement said. An F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 147, known as the Argonauts, was the first aircraft launched for the operations.

The air wing will be at the “tip of the spear” during the anti-ISIS operations, said Rear Adm. Bill Byrne, the strike group’s commander.

“For the Nimitz Strike Group, today is game day,” he said in the statement. “When you hear the roar of the jets today it is for real; it’s game on. Our pilots and aircrew are demonstrating our continued commitment to this region and all of our partner nations.”

The USS Nimitz, one of four strike groups assigned to the Navy’s 3rd Fleet, is replacing the USS George H.W. Bush Strike Group, which conducted strikes against ISIS targets before the Nimitz’ arrival.

Naval forces in the 5th Fleet’s area of operations have been involved in a nearly three-year air campaign against ISIS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. Naval forces in the region began that campaign in August 2014, when the Bush launched airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq.

The Nimitz arrived in the area about a week and a half ago after participating in exercise Malabar 2017, a joint exercise with Indian and Japanese naval forces that focused on anti-submarine warfare.

Operation Inherent Resolve and Malabar 2017 are among a number of prominent exercises and operations the 3rd Fleet has participated in since the 3rd Fleet Forward initiative began last year. Spearheaded by Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift, the initiative gives the fleet more autonomy when operating outside it operations area.

In addition to anti-ISIS missions, the Nimitz carrier group will conduct “maritime security operations to preserve freedom of navigation,” the Navy statement said.

The group arrives in the region at time of heighted tensions with Iran, whose Revolutionary Guard said the Nimitz fired a warning shot Friday in an “unprofessional” confrontation with Iranian vessels, the official IRNA news agency reported. The Navy said flares were fired after Iranian vessels were spotted approaching the Nimitz and an accompanying ship at a high rate of speed.

Days earlier, the USS Thunderbolt fired warning shots at an Iranian military vessel that approached the U.S. patrol ship at a high rate of speed, a Navy statement said.

The Nimitz, homeported at Naval Station Everett in Washington state, has been deployed since early June.