ISIS

Russians leverage occupied Cyprus to evade sanctions imposed by the EU and other Western entities in response to the conflict in Ukraine, according to an article in Dutch newspaper Het Parool.

This strategy underscores the ongoing complexities of the geopolitical landscape and the challenges faced by Western nations in enforcing their sanctions.

German investigators have unearthed a suspected Hamas weapons stockpile in Bulgaria, as reported by Die Zeit. The discovery, confirmed by Deutsche Welle, Spiegel, and ARD, came after the arrest of Hamas-affiliated individuals in mid-December. A mobile phone seized during the arrest contained images of firearms and related equipment, leading authorities to the hidden cache.

In the years following the devastating terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. intelligence redirected its attention away from monitoring Hamas and other Palestinian militants. Instead, it channeled its resources into pursuing the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Kosovo-born New Yorker Mirsad Kandic, 40, faces up to life imprisonment for becoming an ISIS fighter, recruiting other ISIS fighters, and providing weapons, equipment, and battlefield intelligence to ISIS, the US Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Feb. 17 condemned the recent killing of 13 Turkish nationals by PKK terrorists in northern Iraq.

"I would like to express my condolences to Turkey for the killing of Turkish citizens in Northern Iraq," Stoltenberg said at a news conference following the virtual meeting of NATO defense ministers.

A 27-year-old Syrian national arrested at a migrant camp in Athens last week has reportedly recanted an earlier confession in which he allegedly admitted to being a member of the ISIS terrorist organization and appearing in a 2014 video of the group.

The 27-year-old from Syria who allegedly confessed to police that he was a member of ISIS will appear before an investigative magistrate after asking for a deferral on Monday.

While Serbian officials continue to downplay the role of the Interior Minister's father in the arms trade, documents obtained by BIRN reveal his high-level activities in this field.

They show that Branko Stefanovic, father of Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, traveled in May to the "Bereta" arms factory in Italy as part of a Serbian Interior Ministry delegation, for example.

Members of Bosnia's State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, arrested suspected former ISIS fighters in Syria after they landed at Sarajevo airport on Thursday night.

Boris Grubesic, from the State Prosecutor's Office, said the men are suspected of the crime of organising or joining terrorist groups,

Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, a professor of international relations at Ankara's TOBB University, said that, like the issue of Syrian refugees and their flow through Turkey to the European Union, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would use the ISIS fighters as leverage for Western acquiescence to his policy on neighbouring Syria.