Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama promised yet again to fulfill his election pledge in closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. This time he means it. With less than a year ticking on the presidential time clock, Obama plans to release some of the 95 remaining […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Despite some recent military successes against the Islamic State (ISIL) forces, both the security and the humanitarian situation in Iraq remain fragile and precarious. That’s the assessment from Jan Kubis, the UN special representative in a sobering report to the Security Council on the road […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs U.S. voters and political parties were, by mid-February 2016, well down the path toward selecting the final candidates for the November 2016 Presidential election. This determines how the United States would face the most decisive challenges for more than a century to its […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Alexander Maistrovoy and Ted Belman Before Donald Trump’s blowout win in New Hampshire he shocked the world by saying he would allow the Russians to do the “dirty work” and would “let them beat the shit out of ISIS [ISIL] also.” Trump went further, “I have always felt that Russia and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) is likely to attempt “direct attacks on the U.S. homeland” this year, top intelligence officials told Congress on Feb. 9. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, said ISIL is hiding jihadists among the wave of refugees […]
Special to WorldTribune.com by Dr. Jack Caravelli, Geostrategy-Direct Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met in Paris on Jan. 22 with his French counterpart, Gen. Pierre de Villiers, chief of France’s defense staff to discuss planning for a joint operation against Islamic jihadists operating in Libya. The two military leaders […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty A U.S. judge is challenging the government’s move to drop charges against an Iranian man accused of sanctions violations as part of a U.S. prisoner swap agreement with Iran last month. U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel threatened in a court order last week to deny […]
Special to WorldTribune.com In a visit intended to reassure America’s ally Saudi Arabia over Iran’s continued “interference” in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry instead appeared uneasy and defensive, reports said. Kerry met in Riyadh on Jan. 23 with Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers. “Overall […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler NEW YORK — Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates slammed both the Obama Administration and the presidential primary candidates calling for long-term realism in America’s fight against the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) terrorism. “I think that the president has all along underestimated ISIS, has underestimated the degree […]
Special to WorldTribune.com The United States says it “ought to do better” to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Levant’s (ISIL’s) Internet propaganda machine. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, speaking at Ecole Militaire military college in Paris on Jan. 21, said the terror group uses the Internet “to give encouragement or even instruction to people […]