Paramilitary organizations

The United States supports Turkey's "legitimate interests" in Syria's last rebel bastion of Idlib, and its presence in the province, James Jeffrey, the U.S. special envoy for Syria engagement and fight against ISIL, has said.

In an interview with private broadcaster NTV, Jeffrey said that the U.S. supports Turkey's interests in Idlib.

"We support Turkey's presence," he added.

Turkish hosted a Russian delegation in the capital Ankara on Feb. 8 to discuss the escalating situation in Idlib, northwestern Syria.

According to diplomatic sources, the Turkish and Russia delegations held a three-hour meeting which stressed the need to ensure peace on the ground and discussed steps to boost political process.

Al-Qaeda leader in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in US operation in Yemen.

Qasim al-Rimi has led the group since 2015 and has been linked to a series of attacks over the last two decades.

In a statement, US President Donald Trump did not specify how he was killed, but according to recent rumors, it happened in a drone airstrike.

President Donald Trump said on Feb. 6 that the U.S. at his direction has conducted a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaeda leader who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

The U.S. has killed Qasim al-Rimi, the top al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, the White House said on Feb. 7.

ISIL extremists are mounting increasingly bold attacks in Syria and Iraq following their loss of territory in both countries and are planning for the breakout of their fighters in detention facilities, U.N. experts said in a new report.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Russia that Turkey was running out of patience regarding the continued offensive by the Syrian army in Idlib and will take unilateral actions to stop it if Moscow fails to persuade Bashar al-Assad's regime to cease the military operations in the last rebel-held enclave.

Turkey remembered with respect its late distinguished diplomat Kemal Arıkan, who was the victim of an assassination on Jan. 28, 1982.

Arıkan, Turkey's consul general in Los Angeles, was killed by Armenian terrorists affiliated with JCAG, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

A Frenchman has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for seeking to recruit dozens of youths to fight as jihadists in Syria and for leading a brigade of French-speaking Islamists in the war-torn country.
Mourad Fares, 35, fled Syria in 2014, and was arrested in Turkey and handed over to French authorities the same year.

At least 12 protesters were injured on Jan. 22 in Lebanon's capital Beirut after a clash with security forces near the parliament building.

The protesters were demonstrating against the new Hassan Diab's government that was formed with the support of Hezbollah and its political allies.