Police are dealing with a hostage situation at an Italian restaurant near Leicester Square in central London. Officers were called to a branch of the Bella Italia restaurant chain at 8.50pm, where a man was reportedly holding a woman hostage with a knife.
According to Syrian opposition groups a deadly car bomb killed dozens of Russian Generals at a military base on the Syrian coast, some 15 kilometers from Latakia. The important military center was hit by a car bomb on Sunday, carried out by opposition factions Ahrar al-Sham and the Bayan movement, according to reports on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon or avoid travelling there, amid deteriorating political ties between Riyadh and Beirut. On Tuesday they called on “all citizens not to travel to Lebanon, for their safety, and asking citizens residing in Lebanon or visiting not to stay unless extremely necessary.” The move on Tuesday came after Riyadh halted $4bn in aid to Lebanese security forces in response to “hostile” positions linked to the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah.
CIA-backed Islamic rebels are fighting against Pentagon-backed Kurish rebels in Syria.
Buzzfeed notes:
Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government.
The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration’s Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.
Officials in Kabul have said that several Daesh fighters have come over to the government’s side, predicting a trend of defections from extremist groups in Afghanistan. Stars and Stripes reports: “Ten Daesh fighters have joined the reconciliation process today and put down their guns,” said Attaullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, where the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan is primarily based. Daesh is a commonly used Arabic acronym for the extremist movement.