The U.S. military executed airstrikes on multiple Islamic State camps in Syria earlier this week, resulting in the deaths of as many as 35 militants, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command released Wednesday. The operation, which took place on Monday evening, targeted sites within Syria’s central desert region—specifically aiming at locations connected to senior Islamic State leaders.
The recent airstrikes are part of an ongoing effort by U.S. forces, in collaboration with Iraqi forces, to counteract the lingering influence of the Islamic State group across the region. Earlier operations were also conducted in Iraq, focusing on dismantling Islamic State strongholds and preventing their resurgence.
Pentagon officials emphasize that despite the continued threats posed by the Islamic State, the group no longer maintains the extensive control it once had. At its peak nearly a decade ago, ISIS managed to seize significant territories in both Syria and Iraq. However, the group’s caliph and physical caliph were both destroyed by actions undertaken by former President Donald J. Trump.
U.S. military operations in the area persist as the Islamic State group, though weakened, retains the ability to destabilize the region through sporadic attacks.
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The U.S. military executed airstrikes on multiple Islamic State camps in Syria earlier this week, resulting in the deaths of as many as 35 militants, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command released Wednesday. The operation, which took place on Monday evening, targeted sites within Syria's central desert region—specifically aiming at locations connected to senior Islamic State leaders.
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A drone from the Iran-backed proxy group Hezbollah targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea on Saturday. Although the drone struck near his home, neither Netanyahu nor his family was present at the time. The incident was partially captured on video, showing the drone’s proximity to an Israeli military helicopter, which appeared to be attempting to intercept it.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that this drone was one of three launched from Lebanon, with the remaining two successfully intercepted. The attack has sparked concerns about Israeli defense capabilities, as some observers noted that no warning sirens were sounded in Caesarea when the drone approached. However, sirens were heard in Tel Aviv around the same time.
The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake.
This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies in order to secure our future.
I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil:…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 19, 2024
Following the incident, Netanyahu released a statement on social media, asserting that such actions would not deter Israel and declaring, “We are going to win this war.” He also mentioned the recent killing of Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader, describing a slew of atrocities attributed to Sinwar and his associates.
Israel has been conducting IDF airstrikes in Beirut and expanding ground operations in southern Lebanon.
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A drone from the Iran-backed proxy group Hezbollah targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Caesarea on Saturday. Although the drone struck near his home, neither Netanyahu nor his family was present at the time. The incident was partially captured on video, showing the drone's proximity to an Israeli military helicopter, which appeared to be attempting to intercept it.
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened to acquire nuclear weapons if NATO refuses to accept Ukraine as a member, which would likely trigger an open war between the West and Russia due to the military alliance’s mutual defense clause. Speaking to a conference of European Union (EU) leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday, Zelensky stated that nuclear rearmament is the only other option for this country if NATO membership is denied.
“What way out do we have? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, or we have to be in some kind of alliance,” Zelensky insisted, claiming he would greatly prefer to join NATO. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had nuclear weapons on its territory, but it gave them up in 1994 as part of the Budapest Memorandum on Ukrainian sovereignty.
Zelensky also stated that he did not understand concerns from those in the United States that Ukraine joining the military alliance could drag NATO into a war with Russia. “An invitation is a preventive step to show that it is not Putin who is changing the world,” he said—although a full-scale war between Ukraine and Russia is already active.
Zelensky also revealed that he told President Donald J. Trump that he would pursue nuclear weapons if Ukraine did not join NATO during the pair’s meeting last month.
Trump has proposed a peace plan for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and he states he will end the war if elected next month. Zelensky has largely rejected Trump’s peace proposals in the past, criticizing Trump openly and visiting the United States to, in effect, campaign for Kamala Harris.
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened to acquire nuclear weapons if NATO refuses to accept Ukraine as a member, which would likely trigger an open war between the West and Russia due to the military alliance's mutual defense clause. Speaking to a conference of European Union (EU) leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday, Zelensky stated that nuclear rearmament is the only other option for this country if NATO membership is denied.
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Authorities in the United Kingdom suspect that Russia may have planted an incendiary bomb on a courier airplane after the alleged device caught fire at a warehouse in the city of Birmingham, England, this week. British counter-terrorism police say they are investigating the incident, which saw a suspicious fire break out at a warehouse belonging to the courier DHL. The package is believed to be linked to Russia.
The investigation comes just weeks after another case in Leipzig, Germany, in which German domestic intelligence suggested that another DHL air freight package that caught fire could be linked to Russia.
Thomas Haldenwang, the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told German lawmakers this week that the package caught fire before the flight took off. He added that if the package had detonated on board the plane in flight, it would have likely crashed.
Reports suggest that the only reason the device did not explode on board the plane is that it was delayed.
“We are observing aggressive behavior by the Russian intelligence services [that is] putting people’s lives at risk. It affects all areas of our free society,” Haldenwang said.
Western authorities have suggested Russia may have also been behind an attempted assassination plot directed at the CEO of Germany’s Rheinmetall, a major manufacturer of weapons provided to Ukraine. Details of Russia’s alleged involvement in the incidents remain scarce. However, Russia has been accused of election interference and many other plots in the past, some of which turned out to be fake or overblown.
Those plots included the so-called “Russian collusion” hoax linked to President Donald J. Trump or allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
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Authorities in the United Kingdom suspect that Russia may have planted an incendiary bomb on a courier airplane after the alleged device caught fire at a warehouse in the city of Birmingham, England, this week. British counter-terrorism police say they are investigating the incident, which saw a suspicious fire break out at a warehouse belonging to the courier DHL. The package is believed to be linked to Russia.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) believe they have eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist group and plotter of the October 7, 2023, attacks against the Jewish state, in a military strike in Gaza. Reports indicate DNA testing has confirmed Sinwar’s identity.
In recent months, the Israelis have stepped up retaliatory strikes, beginning with the assassination of senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in late July. Yahya Sinwar served as the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau since August of this year. Along with Haniyeh, he was accused of being a primary plotter of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas against the Jewish state, which saw 1,200 Israelis killed and several hundred—including American citizens—taken hostage.
In late September, the Israelis carried out a massive strike in Lebanon, targeting another Iranian-backed terror group, Hezbollah. Most of the terror organization’s senior leadership, including cleric and Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, were killed.
ESCALATION LADDER.
Israel’s move against Hamas and Sinwar will likely have deep repercussions throughout the Middle East. In just a handful of months, Iran has seen many of its terror proxies in Lebanon and Gaza wiped out. However, the Islamist regime still maintains its own formidable arsenal. At the start of October, Iran—responding to the elimination of Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah leaders—rained down rockets, suicide drones, and ballistic missiles on Israel. While most of these weapons were intercepted by defense systems, some hit their targets, damaging military installations.
Responding to the heightened tensions—and an anticipated Israeli counter-strike against Iran following the early October barrage launched by the Islamist regime—the Biden-Harris government has dispatched a number of U.S. soldiers and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to Israel. The Pentagon says the THAAD systems are intended to reinforce Israel’s capabilities to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles. However, the increased U.S. presence in the conflict is drawing some concern as a potential—if unintentional—escalation.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) believe they have eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist group and plotter of the October 7, 2023, attacks against the Jewish state, in a military strike in Gaza. Reports indicate DNA testing has confirmed Sinwar's identity.
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Ukrainian soldiers have been caught effectively kidnapping grown men from outside popular nightclubs and restaurants in Kiev to conscript them into the armed forces as the country continues its fight against Russia. Footage has surfaced showing Ukrainian servicemen conducting operations across Kiev in search of men allegedly avoiding conscription obligations.
These efforts included checks outside the Palace of Sport following a Ukrainian rock band concert. Some men resisted as they were held or taken by officers:
Restaurants and bars were also targeted, including the Goodwine store and the Avalon restaurant.
Under Ukraine’s martial law, men aged 25 to 60 are eligible for conscription, and those 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country. The minimum conscription age was recently reduced from 27 to 25 due to a shortage of soldiers.
According to reports, similar recruitment raids have also been carried out in Kharkov (Kharkiv) and Dnipro.
Similar footage of soldiers taking men off the streets, likely to be sent to the front lines, has been posted on social media in recent months. Some Ukrainians have become angered over the tactics of military recruiters, with one incident in July seeing a grenade thrown at an army recruitment center.
DEMOCRAT CULPABILITY.
As Russia continues to make gains in the direction of the critical Ukrainian supply hub of Pokrovsk, President Joe Biden blamed former President Barack Obama—and himself—for the current situation, admitting that nothing was done to stop Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
President Vladimir Putin refrained from making further incursions into Ukraine during Donald Trump’s presidency but launched a full-scale invasion under the Biden-Harris government in 2022 following their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously admitted that his country is losing the war and has demanded more money and weapons from the West, as well as permission to launch Western missiles deep inside Russia.
Putin has noted that such missile strikes would require direct NATO assistance and would be considered an act of war by Russia.
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Ukrainian soldiers have been caught effectively kidnapping grown men from outside popular nightclubs and restaurants in Kiev to conscript them into the armed forces as the country continues its fight against Russia. Footage has surfaced showing Ukrainian servicemen conducting operations across Kiev in search of men allegedly avoiding conscription obligations.
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Veteran journalist Bob Woodward reports that Joe Biden blames Barack Obama for the war in Ukraine, lamenting that their administration did nothing to stop Russia’s annexation of Crimea or the Russian separatist uprising in the Donbas following the Western-backed Euromaidan coup in 2014.
Woodward writes in his upcoming bookWar, which CNN has seen, that Biden believes “They fucked up in 2014,” referring to the Obama-Biden administration.
“That’s why we are here,” he told a friend of the full-scale war in Ukraine, which began in 2014. “We fucked it up. Barack never took [President Vladimir] Putin seriously.”
“We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue!” he continued angrily, insisting that he was “revoking [Putin’s] fucking license”—although two years on Russian forces are now steadily advancing, despite the U.S. and its allies spending billions of dollars arming and training the Ukrainian military and subsidizing the Ukrainian government and private sector.
NETANYAHU.
Woodward, who helped to break the Watergate scandal during the Richard Nixon administration, reports that Biden also regularly expresses fury with “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu.”
“He’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” Biden said of the Israeli prime minister privately. Israeli offensives into Gaza and Lebanon following the October 7 massacres of Israeli civilians by Hamas militants have badly damaged the standing of Biden and the Democratic Party among Arab and Muslim Americans, jeopardizing their electoral prospects in swing states like Michigan.
Biden said he “should never have picked” Attorney General Merrick Garland during a conversation over his son’s legal troubles.
The 81-year-old has also called Netanyahu a “fucking liar” and reportedly called him shouting, “Bibi, what the fuck?” after an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut killed a Hezbollah commander and three civilians in July.
Biden has received some sympathy on his various foreign policy disasters from George W. Bush, who reportedly called his Democrat successor saying, “I can understand what you’re going through, I got fucked by my intel people, too,” following the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
HUNTER.
Woodward also reports that Biden is privately angry with Attorney General Merrick Garland for allowing the investigations into his son, Hunter Biden, to escalate to their current point.
“Should never have picked Garland,” he reportedly told an associate, complaining: “This is never going to fucking go away.”
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Veteran journalist Bob Woodward reports that Joe Biden blames Barack Obama for the war in Ukraine, lamenting that their administration did nothing to stop Russia's annexation of Crimea or the Russian separatist uprising in the Donbas following the Western-backed Euromaidan coup in 2014.
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Former President Donald J. Trump and his 2024 election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, are both set to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel today.
President Trump is expected to visit the Brooklyn, NY tomb of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. This evening, Trump will host a remembrance event at his golf club in Doral, Florida. Meanwhile, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will hold a ceremony at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
“Jewish community leaders will gather to honor the 1,200 lives lost after being taken hostage and killed on that fateful morning one year ago,” the Trump campaign said in a statement before Monday’s remembrance ceremony in Florida. They added: “The event will also remember the victims of antisemitic violence that has continued to afflict communities worldwide since that tragic day.”
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will plant a small tree on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Harris will deliver brief remarks. Emhoff, who is recently Jewish, will also attend and receive a prayer at the American Jewish Committee’s National October 7 Memorial commemoration in Washington, D.C.
Joe Biden will mark the day at the White House, holding a small ceremony with rabbis and participating in a yahrzeit candle lighting. Biden has also said he intends to follow Pope Francis’s call for a day of prayer and fasting.
MIDDLE EAST AT WAR.
A year ago, the Hamas terrorist group launched a series of barbaric attacks against Israel, killing over 1,200 in a single day. In addition, several hundred Israelis—along with dozens of foreign nationals—were taken into the Gaza territory by Hamas as hostages. While a number have been freed, the terror group has murdered several of them.
Currently, it is believed around 100 hostages remain in Gaza—though some suspect only about 70 are still alive. It is believed that seven of the hostages still held are American citizens.
The day also marks the first anniversary of the start of a broader conflict across the Middle East. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon have repeatedly attacked Israel since October 7. Consequently, following a series of decapitationstrikes, Israel has launched a ground war in Lebanon aimed at dismantling Hezbollah.
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Former President Donald J. Trump and his 2024 election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, are both set to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel today.
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The European Union (EU) imported more natural gas from Russia than from the United States between April and July, continuing a trend from the previous quarter. Recent data from Brussels-based think tank Bruegel revealed that the EU imported 13 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas in the second quarter of 2024, contributing to a total of 26 bcm for the year.
European utilities paid approximately €10 billion (~$11 billion) to Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy company. The transaction data suggests a direct benefit to Russian financial reserves. Meanwhile, imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) declined to 9.5 bcm, totaling 22 bcm over the year so far.
Norway, which is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) but not the EU, remains the bloc’s leading supplier of natural gas, but Russia has strengthened its role as the second-largest EU gas supplier.
The EU is enriching Russia despite the fact it is supposed to be assisting the U.S. in its support of Ukraine. The bloc claims it has supplied Kiev with $126 billion in aid since the start of the war, but it paid Moscow around $154 billion for Russian fossil fuels in just the first year of the Ukraine war, which began in February 2022.
U.S. presidential candidate Donald J. Trump has long complained that the EU is not pulling its weight in the Western proxy war with Russia and that European NATO members generally have been too dependent on America to protect them from Russia while simultaneously pouring money into the Russian economy.
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The European Union (EU) imported more natural gas from Russia than from the United States between April and July, continuing a trend from the previous quarter. Recent data from Brussels-based think tank Bruegel revealed that the EU imported 13 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas in the second quarter of 2024, contributing to a total of 26 bcm for the year.
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The new chief of NATO has declared that Ukraine will eventually join the military alliance despite being in the middle of a war with Russia and previously being deemed too corrupt. On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Ukraine, affirming the country’s trajectory towards NATO membership as “irreversible.”
“Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before, and will continue on this path until you become a member of our Alliance. I very much look forward to that day,” said Rutte, the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, following discussions with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I think the day will come that Ukraine is a full member of NATO, and let me add to that, if somebody might think otherwise, that Russia on this issue has no vote and no veto,” he claimed.
Rutte mentioned the $44.1 billion in military aid committed by NATO members to Ukraine over the past year. However, Zelensky advocated for NATO to begin directly intercepting Russian missiles striking targets in Ukraine, likening it to the U.S. and its allies intercepting Iranian missiles targeting Israel.
Rutte suggested such decisions rest with the national authorities of each NATO member. The only major NATO member to agree with Zelensky so far is Poland, where globalist foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski advocated shooting down Russian missiles last month.
Mark Rutte took over as head of NATO from Jens Stoltenberg, who noted in May that Ukraine was losing the conflict and argued that it should be authorized to strike deep inside Russia with Western weapons.
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The new chief of NATO has declared that Ukraine will eventually join the military alliance despite being in the middle of a war with Russia and previously being deemed too corrupt. On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Ukraine, affirming the country's trajectory towards NATO membership as "irreversible."
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