President Trump’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria have been disrupted by his national security adviser John Bolton. After consulting with senior Israeli officials, Bolton announced Sunday that 2,200 U.S. troops will remain in the war zone for longer than the president announced on December 19. “The timetable flows from the policy decisions that...
Category: Middle East
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The Six Worst Spies of 2018
It was a banner year for bad spies. The ideal covert operation, a CIA man once said, remains secret “from conception to eternity.” So too with the ideal spy. The true artists of espionage are those who are never detected or are detected too late to be harmed, humiliated, prosecuted or persecuted. The most famous...
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After Turkish Spy Chief’s ‘Very Unusual’ Visit, Two Flynn Associates Are Indicted
When Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan visited Washington earlier this month, reportedly to brief Congress on the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he came with another agenda: pressing the Trump administration to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish national whom Turkey accuses of masterminding an attempted coup in July 2016. Today, Istanbul got Washington’s answer. The Justice...
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How the U.S. Justice Department Could Prosecute Khashoggi’s Killers
The evidence against the perpetrators of Jamal Khashoggi’s killers is strong and getting stronger. “If the crown prince went in front of a jury he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” Sen. Bob Corker, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters after hearing CIA director Gina Haspel briefed a group of senators Tuesday...
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Slideshow: The Legacy of Mossad’s Targeted Assassinations
The New Arab, an independent London-based news site, has a vivid slideshow illustrated the targeted assassination policy of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. This is not a conspiracy theory but well-documented fact. Research by Ronen Bergman, an Israeli investigative journalist, reveals Israel is estimated to have carried out more than 2,700 assassination operations since the state’s founding in...