The article is about a Human Rights Watch reporting that Syrian officials used chemical weapons to attempt to take back areas outside of their control in Aleppo. Chlorine bombs were dropped in civilian residential areas, killing nine and injuring over 200. While Russia is helping Syria militarily, they found no link to Russian involvement with the chemical weapons.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-chemicalweapons-idUSKBN15S1W7
Russia and Syria have jointly led the use of bombings against ISIS operations in the Aleppo region for the past few years. In the bombing campaigns, multiple hospitals such as M10 in Aleppo’s al-Sakhour neighborhood and M2 in the al-Maadi district have been heavily damaged by Russian and Syrian munitions. In spite of the evidence of cell footage and satellite imagery, Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy denies that there is any change to the structure of the targets.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/middleeast/syria-russia-aleppo-civilian-areas/index.html
A number of government critics were released by the Mukhabarat, Jordan’s spy agency. most were former military, school teachers, and government workers, and felt that the agency was stepping past its boundaries. Many of those arrested and held had called for governmental transparency and boycotts to protest rising prices in a declining economy (due to influx of refugees from Iraq/Syria, whom they used to trade with), or had been part of a group ( like muslim brotherhood).
Around 450 people in 18 provinces in Turkey were rounded up on February 5, 2017 because they were suspected of being Islamic State operatives. However, independent television reports later said it was more like 690 suspects that were being held by the end of the day. The suspected Islamic State operatives were arrested in coordinated raids by the Turkish Police. This was one of Turkey’s larges operations against the jihadist group on the country’s soil.
This article is a follow up to the CNN article about Iran’s failed missile test and a recent attack on a Saudi warship by Iranian backed Houthi rebels. Micheal Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, stated the we have put “Iran on notice” after theses events.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/iran-trump-michael-flynn-on-notice
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/middleeast/iran-missile-test/index.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/palestinians-decry-israel-settlement-bill-170130153602119.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/muslim-majority-countries-anger-at-trump-travel-ban
