US raids kill top Qaeda operative in Syria
Beirut: US strikes have killed a senior operative from Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch in the war-torn country’s northern province of Aleppo, activists said on Wednesday. Abu Yusef al-Turki, a 47-year-old Turkish fighter, was among 50 militants killed in strikes on Tuesday against what the United States called an Al Qaeda cell that had been planning attacks on Western interests. “Al-Nusra Front members are very sad because of this death,” Ibrahim al-Idlibi, an activist in Idlib province in northwestern Syria, told AFP.
US strikes hit IS group staging area in Syria
Beirut: The US bombed a suspected Islamic State staging area in eastern Syria on Wednesday, as US warplanes also hit the militants’ positions across the border in neighbouring Iraq, US officials said. The airstrikes come a day after the US and five Arab allies opened their military operation against the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria with more than 200 strikes on some two dozen targets.
Seize historic opportunity of N-deal: Obama to Iran
United Nations: President Barack Obama asked Iran to seize the “historic opportunity” of reaching a deal with the world powers on its contested nuclear programme. “America is pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue, as part of our commitment to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue the peace and security of a world without them. This can only happen if Iran takes this historic opportunity,” Obama said in his annual address at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly.