If they let me, I will stay in Van until the war ends. If the war doesn't end, maybe I'll go back and die. Pourkaz is one of the 3.2 million people in Iran who the U.N. refugee agency estimates have been displaced since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran started. While some are seeking shelter in safer parts of Iran or one of its neighboring countries, others are returning from abroad, heading toward the fighting to protect their families and homes.
We at the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq condemn in the strongest terms this cowardly terrorist crime, which we consider a direct attack on the feminist struggle and the values of freedom and equality.
Reza abasi notes that there is a new forum called the "Kurd Hacker Forum" that focuses on databreaches in Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The domain was registered January 28, 2026. The forum, which is on the clear net, looks like it has the same format as the classic BreachForums, with the same types of sections and subsections. The threads in the forum are either in English or Kurdish languages.
Tony Burke says authorities know the state of mind of each of the 34 Australian women and children stuck in a Syrian detention camp, but says his options to prevent them returning to Australia are limited. The home affairs minister, who represents a south-western Sydney electorate with a high Muslim population, also warned Pauline Hanson's recent derogatory comments against Muslims in Australia could incite violence.
Of these, 3,678 of them have already gone back to their home country. For German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, this is proof of the migration policy that he has been promoting: "Those who have no prospect of staying receive targeted support for their voluntary repatriation." This "targeted support" includes the cost of the flights and 1,000 (ca. $1200) per adult and 500 for minors.
Upon reaching Cologne, however, it quickly became apparent to the directors that the most fraught and complicated portion of Israa's exodus was just beginning. The journey from Aleppo had almost been as dangerous as it would have been for her family to stay there, but neither artillery shells, overcrowded boats, nor the constant threat of being sent back were as difficult for the girl to survive as the twin pains of exile and assimilation.
Albanese said that while it is unfortunate that children have been affected, Australia is not providing any support. As my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it, he said. We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life, he added.
President Trump's tactic of "flooding of the zone" has focused much of the public sphere on issues and events generated by the president's interests and whims, driving the suffering of millions of people into oblivion. Deserved attention is paid to Trump's threats to annex Greenland, his intervention into Venezuela, the imposition of arbitrary and punitive tariffs on European allies, and the assault of ICE on Minneapolis.
In 2025, the administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the US Agency for International Development to be closed; this year, it withdrew the country from 66 international organizations. Other Western nations that are plagued with high levels of debt and pressure to prioritize domestic challenges have slashed their foreign aid, too. According to projections, official development assistance dropped by 9-17% in 2025, amounting to some US$55 billion.
I arrived in Aleppo early on Wednesday morning after receiving reports of serious clashes between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What I encountered was far worse than I expected. Heavy artillery shelling was constant, extreme. My team came under attack four times; one bullet hit our equipment. list of 3 itemsend of list This round of clashes, we quickly understood, would not be easily contained like earlier bouts over the past year.
Some 182,000 Kurds living in Iraqi Kurdistan were killed in 1988 by chemical weapons launched by Saddam Hussein's regime in a series of attacks known as the Anfal campaign. That campaign included chemical attacks on Halabja, a village on the Iraq-Iran border, and other communities. Five thousand people are estimated to have died in Halabja. They were the victims of sarin and VX nerve agents, and mustard gas.
Syrian transitional government troops and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had been fighting for weeks in northern Syria. On Tuesday evening, the announcement of a four-day ceasefire restored a measure of calm. SDF fighters were close allies of the international coalition battling the extremist "Islamic State,", or IS, group in Syria and managed to take control of strategically important areas in Syria during 14 years of civil war. Recent clashes with Syrian government troops has pushed them out of these areas.
The SDF appeared to have largely retreated after initial clashes on a tense frontline area in eastern Aleppo province. Hours after the government announced the deal, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi confirmed it in a video statement, saying the group had accepted the agreement, which stipulates their withdrawal from Raqqa and Deir el-Zour provinces to stop the bloodshed. We will explain the terms of the agreement to our people in the coming days, he said.
Government troops have seized large swaths of northern and eastern territory in recent weeks from the SDF in a rapid turn of events that has consolidated President Ahmed al-Sharaa's rule, as Syria seeks internal stability and secures the external lifeline of reintegration into the international fold and the economic revival that comes with it. The eruption of fighting has rocked a nation trying to recover from nearly 14 years of ruinous civil war.
More than 5,000 ISIL-linked (ISIS) detainees have been transferred from Syrian jails to a prison in neighbouring Iraq so far, according to Iraq's Ministry of Justice. In comments to the Iraqi News Agency on Friday, ministry spokesperson Ahmed Laibi said the transfers and ongoing detention of the prisoners had been carried out at the request of an international coalition led by the United States to combat ISIL, of which Iraq is a key member.