Iraq and Iran signed several deals aimed at boosting their military cooperation during the visit of Iraqi Defense Minister Irfan al-Hayali to Tehran where he met with his Iranian counterpart minister Hossein Dehghan, like reported by aawsat.com.

“Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum,” IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in Tehran.

Also during his stay in Tehran, Al-Hiyali, who was leading a military delegation, met separately with parliament speaker Ali Larijani and Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, AFP reported on Sunday.

Larijani and Shamkhani both emphasized the importance of “unity” between the two countries, while Larijani informed al-Hayali about the importance of preserving Iraqi unity “because if it wasn’t for the emergence of political differences, ISIS would not have been able to penetrate there.”

For his part, Shamkhani warned that “secessionist approaches can become a platform… to prepare the ground for insecurity and instability,” in a reference to the decision of Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold an independence referendum next September.

Iran opposes that an Iraqi Kurdish region become an independent state.

And contrary to the echoes left by the visit of Iraqi Interior Minister Qassem al-Araji to Saudi Arabia lately, observers noticed that the Iraqi defense ministry has not issued an official statement on its website concerning the visit of its minister to Iran.

Hakem al-Zameli, head of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, said on Sunday that al-Hayali informed members of the Committee that his visit aims at improving relations between both countries considering that Iran is an axial state in the region.

Al-Zameli said he believes that the visit of the defense minister to Iran aims at providing logistic support for the Iraqi forces rather than being related to the war against ISIS.

Yemen’s Houthi group killed three soldiers inside Saudi Arabia, like reported by Al Masdar.

The Houthi fighters used sniper bullets to kill Saudi Arabian soldiers at Al-Talaa Base in Najran region. In a second incident, Houthi fighters killed Saudi soldiers in the Jazan region, inside Saudi Arabia. The number of Saudi casualties has not been reported by the Houthi group or by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence.

The killings were reported on Houthi social media, including Twitter and Telegram.

Saudi Arabia is frequently subject to attack by the Houthi group, including incursions on its southern border. Houthis have fired ballistic missiles into Saudi triggering security forces.

Moscow and Tehran have signed an agreement on Russian T-90 tank supplies to Iran, Izvestia reported.

According to Russian Presidential Adviser for Military and Technical Cooperation Vladimir Kozhin, it is a decent contract for a large batch: “I cannot mention a concrete amount, but the amount is large.”

At the same time, the Russian Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies noted that the cost of the contract may exceed $ 1 billion, and the number of tanks exceeds several hundreds.

The fighting that took place Tuesday between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, commonly referred to as Tahrir al-Sham, which includes factions like Fath al-Sham (former Nusra Front) from one hand and Ahrar al-Sham, on the other hand, has reached a new level in the long-standing tense relationship between the opposing factions, like reported by aawsat.com.

It was clear, according to experts and analysts who have been following the developments there, that it is a make or break battle between the two factions and might turn the eyes to Idlib in the coming period, especially if the Free Syrian Army (FSA) decided to join Ahrar al-Sham in an attempt to expel the Nusra Front from the governorate.

Field sources reported that Tahrir al-Sham took control of Ahrar al-Sham’s checkpoint along Hawarin-Kafr Nabal road, the town of Hazarin and another checkpoint at the Western entrance of the town of Kafruma in Southern Idlib.

The sources said that Ahrar al-Sham dispatched more forces and equipment to the town of Hazarin in Idlib’s countryside to attack the positions of Tahrir al-Sham.

Also, Tahrir al-Sham sent a large volume of military hardware to the villages of Jabal al-Zaweiyeh.

Based on the field reports Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham have engaged in heavy fighting in the villages of Jabal al-Zawiyeh up to the village of Haas.

The reports added that the two warring groups have gone on full alert in Bab al-Hawa passageway and Northern Idlib.

Sources close to the opposing groups disclosed that Tahrir al-Sham Commander Abu Mohammad al-Joulani was preparing for a vast war against Ahrar al-Sham, adding that al-Joulani intended to impose control over large territories that were under Ahrar al-Sham to lay siege on Saraqeb in the east, Dana and Sarmada in the northeast and Bab al-Hawa near the Turkish border.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighter from the two sides were engaged in clashes across the province in northwest Syria that killed 11 fighters and three civilians in the last 24 hours.

“These are the most violent and widespread clashes that have taken place between Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir al-Sham,” Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said.

“The clashes are ongoing across all of the provinces, with territory changing hands… It’s an existential battle,” he added.

The two groups have clashed before, despite having previously formed the backbone of the alliance that captured most of Idlib in early 2015.

The latest conflict arisen partly out of a dispute over Ahrar al-Sham’s desire to fly the flag of the Syrian uprising in Idlib city, the Observatory said.

Qatar tipped off Al Qaeda fighters about a UAE military operation in Yemen, enabling them to carry out a suicide bomb attack injuring Emirati soldiers, according to a senior UAE diplomat and like reported by thenational.ae.

Omar Ghobash, the UAE’s ambassador to Russia, told BBC’s Hardtalk programme that the discovery of the incident was among the factors behind the decision by the UAE and its allies last month to sever diplomatic, trade and transport links with Qatar over its support of extremist groups.

Mr Ghobash spoke of the attack in the programme broadcast on Thursday when he was pressed on what evidence the quartet had that Qatar had supported terrorism.

He told presenter Sarah Montague that UAE forces were hunting Al Qaeda in Yemen, alongside Qatari forces, when they were hit by four suicide bombers, resulting in Emirati casualties.

“We were in the process of engaging with Al Qaeda, the Qataris were alongside us,” Mr Ghobash said. “We as a government have information, that our Qatari allies informed Al Qaeda of our precise location and what we were planning to do and we then received four suicide bombers at our door. We had a number of soldiers that were injured.

“We have had Emirati soldiers dying as a result of Qatari activities.”

Mr Ghobash said evidence of Qatar’s support of terror groups included voice recordings and video evidence picked up in the field.

“Everybody knows Qatar has a close relationship over the past few years with Jabhat Al Nusra,” he said, referring to Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate

The evidence includes, “known individuals in Qatar giving instructions to known individuals whether it’s in Yemen, Libya or in Syria on carrying out certain acts.”

Before the quartet’s June 5 decision to boycott Doha, Qatar had troops deployed as part of a Saudi-led coalition, which is backing Yemen’s legitimate government against Iran-allied Houthi rebels.

Qatar’s involvement in Yemen was ended by the Arab coalition when the boycott started.

The UAE has played a leading role in both the campaign to defeat Houthi rebels fighting the government and operations against extremist groups in Yemen’s south.

On Thursday, a quartet statement clarified its position and what it expects from Qatar for any progress to be made in mediating the crisis.

The statement referred to a briefing on Tuesday in New York, in which Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, said time had run out for Qatar to change its ways and that action was needed urgently to “put out the fire that Qatar has been fuelling”.

Abdallah Al Mouallimi, ambassador and permanent representative of Saudi Arabia to the UN, said any lasting solution would have to come from the Gulf region but that Qatar had so far failed to provide any meaningful engagement over the list of specific demands made by the four Arab countries last month.

Mediation of the crisis would have to be within the framework of six principles laid out including a commitment to combat terrorism and extremism in all its forms, the statement said.

Lana Nusseibeh, ambassador and permanent representative of UAE to the UN, said that Qatar needed to understand that there was no going back to the “status quo” before the crisis.

“There is no room for Qatar in the GCC if they have a different standard for what ‘terrorism’ is,” she said.

Islamic State militants began reinventing themselves months before U.S.-backed Iraqi forces ended their three-year reign of terror in Mosul, putting aside the dream of a modern-day caliphate and preparing the ground for a different fight, like reported by reuters.com.

Intelligence and local officials said that, a few months ago, they noticed a growing stream of commanders and fighters flowing out of the city to the Hamrin mountains in northeast Iraq which offer hideouts and access to four Iraqi provinces.

Some were intercepted but many evaded security forces and began setting up bases for their new operations.

What comes next may be a more complex and daunting challenge for Iraqi security forces once they finish celebrating a hard-won victory in Mosul, the militants’ biggest stronghold.

Intelligence and security officials are bracing for the kind of devastating insurgency al Qaeda waged following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, pushing Iraq into a sectarian civil war which peaked in 2006-2007.

“They are digging in. They have easy access to the capital,” Lahur Talabany, a top Kurdish counter-terrorism official, told Reuters. As part of the U.S.-led coalition, he is at the forefront of efforts to eliminate Islamic State.

“I believe we have tougher days coming.”

Some Iraqi Islamic State fighters have roots dating back to al Qaeda’s campaign of car and suicide bombs that exploded by the dozens each day and succeeded in fueling a sectarian bloodbath in Iraq, a major oil producer and key U.S. ally.

When a U.S.-funded tribal initiative crushed al-Qaeda, the hardcore regrouped in the desert between Iraq and Syria. They reappeared with a new jihadist brand that took the world by surprise: Islamic State.

Shortly after its lighting sweep through Mosul, the group outdid al Qaeda’s brutality, carrying out mass beheadings and executions as it imposed its ultra-hardline ideology.

Unlike al-Qaeda, it seized a third of Iraqi territory, gaining knowledge of land that could come in handy as it hits back at Iraqi security forces.

Saddam’s Intelligence Agents

Former Iraq intelligence officers who served under Saddam Hussein joined forces with Islamic State in an alliance of convenience. These shrewd military strategists from his Baath Party are expected to be the new generation of Islamic State leaders, Talabany and other security officials said.

Instead of trying to create a caliphate, a concept which attracted recruits from disaffected fellow Sunni Muslims, Islamic State leaders will focus on far less predictable guerrilla warfare, Iraqi and Kurdish security officials said.

Iraqi forces have come a long way since they collapsed in the face of the Islamic State advance in 2014, throwing down their weapons and removing their military uniforms in panic.

They fought for nearly nine months to seize Mosul, with steady help from U.S.-led airstrikes that flattened entire neighbourhoods.

The key question is whether an army that is far more comfortable with conventional warfare can take on an insurgency with sleeper cells and small units of militants who pop out of deserts and mountains, carry out attacks and melt away.

“They’ll try to hide with the population. Their cells will get smaller – instead of companies and platoons, they’ll go to squads and cells, much smaller elements hiding in the population,” Lieutenant-General Steve Townsend, commander of the U.S.-led coalition, told reporters.

“Our Iraqi security force partners will have to engage in counter-insurgency style operations at some point and we’re already making efforts now to start shaping their training towards that next ISIS tactic.”

History suggests training may not be enough.

The United States spent $25 billion on the Iraqi military during the American occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and triggered an insurgency that included al Qaeda.

That did not prepare the army for the long-haired Islamic State militants who sped into Mosul in pickup trucks with weapons stolen from retreating Iraqi troops.

Iraqi forces can certainly point to successes in Mosul and the cities of Falluja and Ramadi in Anbar province, once held by Islamic State.

But local officials say the cities remain vulnerable to attacks from the vast desert nearby mastered by militants.

“Security operations will be useless unless security forces control the desert,” said Anbar official Emad Dulaimi, adding that the desert had become a safe haven for Islamic State.

“It is not present as an organization in cities but it carries out attacks by individuals. Car bombs. Suicide bombers. People fear Islamic State will come back. There are attacks every day.”

Tareq Youssef al-Asal, leader of a tribal force, shares those concerns and complains of what he says is a lack of a coordination among numerous local security forces.

“In the end these leaderships have no experience fighting in the desert,” he said.

Some ordinary citizens still do not feel safe despite the Iraqi army’s improved performance.

Anbar resident Ahmed al-Issawy does not plan on re-opening his restaurant anytime soon. He is afraid it will be destroyed the same way it was in clashes between security forces and Islamic State in 2014.

“I am afraid there could be an attack at any second,” he said.

Islamic State has not wasted any time in implementing its new strategy despite a major loss in Mosul.

About 30 militants armed with machine guns and mortars crossed the Tigris river in wooden boats, attacked the village of Imam Gharbi, some 70 km (44 miles) south of Mosul in early July and then pulled out, according to security officials.

“The notion of a caliphate is gone. The dream is gone. They will revert back to their old tactics of hit and run attacks,” said senior Kurdish official and former Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari. “The hardcore will keep fighting.”

The Bahraini authorities have arrested four people accused of “engaging in terrorist activities” and of being funded by the Lebanese Hizbollah group, like reported by thenational.ae .

Ahmed Al Hammadi, terror crime prosecution chief, said an investigation uncovered an organisation with the aim of undermining the law, hampering the work of government and harming national unity.

“It engaged in terrorist activities to carry out acts of terrorism [in] Bahrain … targeting police and civil servants, taking part in illegal rallies, sabotaging private property and disseminating fake news to undermine national security,” he said, according to the Bahrain News Agency.

One of the suspects established the Manama Observatory for Human Rights, which “the investigation revealed was a cover to support acts of terrorism”, said Mr Al Hammadi.

He added that each of the four members was designated to carry out a certain job, such as mobilising crowds for illegal rallies, under the guise it was being done to have human rights demands met.

The investigation also showed that the organisation was being funded by Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran, reported the Bahrain News Agency on Tuesday night.

A Bahraini national residing in Lebanon had been co-ordinating between the Lebanese Shiite militia and the Bahrain-based organisation, said the report.

It added that the investigation showed Hizbollah was funding and support a number of people belonging to “so-called” human rights organisations to send false reports on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Three of the leading international powers involved in Syria’s war—the U.S., Russia and Iran—are looking to expand and fortify their military presence in the country by building and upgrading foreign bases, with some already in the works, according to NewsWeek and novinite.com.

U.S. special operations forces have been involved in Syria for years, and the U.S. appears to be broadening the platforms from which it operates. Earlier this month, satellite imagery showed what appeared to be the construction of a new airstrip near Syria’s southern border with Jordan and Iraq, according to The Daily Beast. This base, along with other “temporary” installations, reportedly could be used to both battle the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and bolster forces of the rebel Free Syrian Army in areas where fighters supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are poised to take over. Meanwhile, Assadallies Russia and Iran have announced plans to develop their own military presence in the country.

The Pentagon, however, has been hesitant to comment on its intentions to build new bases in Syria. The U.S.’s Florida-based Central Command told The Daily Beast last week it generally does not discuss such matters “for safety purposes,” and its Kuwait-based, anti-ISIS operation called the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve gave Newsweek a similar response Tuesday.

“In order to ensure operational security and force protection, the Coalition will not announce or confirm information about the capabilities, force numbers, locations, or movement of forces in or out of Iraq and Syria,” Central Command told Newsweek in an email.

The U.S. has utilized temporary military installations to fight ISIS on two fronts. The primary theater supports the majority-Kurd Syrian Democratic Forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa in northern Syria. To support local fighters here, U.S. forces have used an air base located about 90 miles north, near the city of Kobane. Expansions took place here in April, according to Stars and Stripes. On the second U.S.-backed front in Syria, special operations forces are training and assisting insurgents opposed to both ISIS and the Syrian government in the country’s southeast, where satellites reportedly caught new installations near an already established U.S. outpost situated near the Syrian border town of al-Tanf.

Not far from the Russia-controlled Hmeymim airbase in Latakia, Assad may have also granted Iran its own naval military installation, according to a March report by the government-run Tass news agency. Iran announced last November it was considering establishing bases in Syria, Reuters reported.

Tehran is also believed to maintain a drone base not far from U.S. forces and their allies in al-Tanf, according to U.S. officials cited last month by NBC News. The alleged Iranian airstrip is reportedly the point of origin for unmanned aerial vehicles that the U.S. said breached its self-declared “deconfliction zone” surrounding its operations in al-Tanf, leading to airstrikes on pro-government forces.

Israel may need to intervene in Syria to destroy Iranian and Hezbollah forces if countries overseeing the ceasefire fail to block them from constructing permanent military bases in Syrian territory, former Israeli National Security Council head, Yaakov Amidror, said according to middleeastmonitor.com.

Amidror, a former major general in the Israeli army and also the head of the Research Department of Israeli military intelligence, made the remarks yesterday on the back of concerns raised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Paris over the Syrian ceasefire brokered recently by the US, Russia and Syria. According to Netanyahu the ceasefire deal perpetuates Iran’s military presence in the country.

Israeli officials say that a scenario where Iran and Hezbollah set up permanent bases in Syria will be intolerable to Tel Aviv. Commenting on the implications of the ceasefire deal which the Israelis feel does not take into account their interests, Amidor said it “might lead the IDF [Israeli occupation army] to intervene and destroy every attempt to build [permanent Iranian] infrastructure in Syria,” reported the Jerusalem Post.

Amidror, who the Post revealed remains in contact with Netanyahu, made his comments during a press conference with journalists organised by the Israel Project, which is a Washington- and Jerusalem-based pro-Israel lobby group.

According to Amidror the ceasefire plan fails to consider Israel’s need to defend itself.

At the end of the day it is our responsibility, not the responsibility of the Americans, or the Russians, to guarantee ourselves, and we will take all the measures that are needed for that.

He mentioned that Israel needs to “take care of its strategic goal,” and keep Iran out of Syria. He seemed to insinuate that Israeli security concerns were more important than ending the killing in Syria. The killing in Syria, he said, needs to end but “the price can’t be having Iran and Hezbollah on our borders.”

Iran “categorically” opposes a proposed plan to hold a referendum on the Kurdistan region’s independence from Iraq, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government, Mohammad Qadir Hawdeyani, announced according to middleeastmonitor.com.

Hawdeyani told the Anadolu Agency that the Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad, Irij Masjidi, visited the Kurdish capital, Erbil, on Sunday, where he had a series of “closed meetings” with officials of the Kurdish region, led by the region’s Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani,

During the meetings, he added, Masjidi “explicitly” expressed to the Kurdish officials his country’s opposition to the planned referendum, stressing that “the region will lose if they proceed with the plan”.

“It’s a natural right for Tehran to express its own views on the referendum,” the Kurdish official noted in response to the Iranian government’s stance on the move.

Early this month, the President of the Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, met with European officials in the Belgian capital, Brussels, to discuss the independence. Coinciding with the visit, the former Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, visited Tehran following an invitation from the Iranian authorities to discuss the issue.

On 7 June, Barzani announced that he will hold a referendum on the independence plan on 25 September.