War

ISIS have shelled a Kurdish-controlled village in Northern Iraq using “poisonous substances” according to a Kurdish official. Referring toan attack on the village of Taza, Kirkuk province governor Najmuddin Kareem told reporters: “There were poisonous substances in these shells. We don’t know what” A Syrian Kurdish group also reported that Islamist opposition fighters had used yellow phosphorous in a chemical attack on a mainly Kurdish residential district in the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday.

Russia has warned its ally North Korea to stop threatening “preventive nuclear strikes” against others as  it could leave the door open for an international military intervention based on the legal ground of the right to self defense. The Guardian reports: The Russian foreign ministry statement, which follows a North Korean threat to “annihilate” the US and South Korea, also criticises Washington and Seoul for launching the largest joint military drills yet to be held on the peninsula.

Syrian government forces have made rapid progress in liberating eastern parts of the Homs province and have forced ISIS militants and their families to evacuate from the ancient city of Palmyra . Alalam reports: “The Takfiri terrorists have launched an evacuation operation in Palmyra and are rapidly transferring their families from the city to al-Sakhanah East of Homs or to Raqqa province,” the sources said.

A U.S. army surveillance aircraft crash landed in fields outside the town of Kawrgosk in northern Iraq and was immediately surrounded by American troops who came to its rescue. The crash happened on March 5 in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan and involved the army’s newest work in progress, an aircraft which is capable of accurately tracking surface targets in most weather conditions with near perfect accuracy.

Israel’s opposition leader plans to separate Palestinian districts in the occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem) from the Jewish areas with higher walls and checkpoints. Under Isaac Herzog’s proposal, 28 Palestinian neighborhoods would be separated from Jewish districts and settlements in the city by miles of new concrete barriers and smart fences. Press TV reports: The plan, if implemented, would transform al-Quds into sectarian cantons linked with tunnels.