Amid ISIS' spread, with NATO troops pulling out, and local law enforcement agencies ill-equipped and underfunded, Afghanistan has once again become the frontline in the so-called "War On Drugs." As Al-Jazeera reports, Afghanistan's poppy fields, which feed the habits of drug addicts worldwide, are thriving, with cultivation of the crop hitting record highs last year.
“For sure it will cause a big delay and it may kill the whole process. Whoever committed this crime is pushing for a military solution, not a political process solution.”
That’s a quote from Hadi al-Bahra, a Syrian opposition leader. The comments come a day after an apparent Russian airstrike killed Zahran Alloush. Alloush, the son of Saudi-based cleric Abdallah Alloush, is (or, more appropriately “was”) the leader of Jaysh al Islam, a powerful Syrian opposition group whose forces number some 10,000.
The governor of Okinawa has filed a lawsuit to block the central government’s plan to relocate a key U.S. military air base within the southern island prefecture. The Okinawa government plans to bring the case to the Naha District Court in early January. RT reports: A relatively small island, Okinawa hosts more than half the US troops in Japan “We will resort to every possible measure and will not allow the new base to be built in Henoko,” Governor of Okinawa Takeshi Onaga told a press conference on Friday, as quoted by Japan Today.
When last we checked in on the battle for Ramadi, Iraqi forces had all but liberated the city, which fell to ISIS in May after what Defense Secretary Ash Carter says was a remarkable display of cowardice by the US-trained Iraqi regulars.
The city, some 60 miles west of Baghdad, is key both strategically and psychologically. It’s the veritable “heartland” of Iraq’s Sunni community and its liberation is seen as a kind of rehearsal for a planned operation in Mosul which fell to ISIS 18 months ago.
Daesh and al-Nusra fighters have started surrendering their heavy weapons in the southern Damascus district of Yarmouk. According to a military source, UN representatives and Syrian army engineers have begun accepting heavy weapons from Islamic militants at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee Camp on Thursday. Sputnik reports: “The militants who have given up their weapons will be taken toward Beer al-Qasab, an eastern suburb of Damascus, with their families,” the military source told RIA Novosti.