Three US troops killed, dozens injured in attack on base in Jordan
At least three US servicemembers have been killed and over two dozen have been injured in a drone attack at an outpost in Jordan, according to multiple sources. The incident took place near the Syrian border at an observation post dubbed “Tower 22,” located in Northeastern Jordan. The weapon... Read more
Florida’s governor passes executive order to combat foreign espionage, influence in the Sunshine State
The governor of Florida has announced new proposals to combat Chinese espionage near American military installations in the Sunshine State, as well as measures taken to resist social engineering by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated apps such as TikTok. Governor Ron DeSantis signed Executive Order 22-216, a wide-sweeping EO that attacks... Read more
I Went on the World’s Deadliest Road Trip
This story originally appeared in October 2013. This reprint is David Axe’s final story for War Is Boring. Sprinting through a gap in the barbed wired at the border between Turkey and Syria as a Turkish armored vehicle pursued us and soldiers fired warning shots in the air. Waiting... Read more
America Never Was Serious About Syria
Pres. Donald Trump announced on Dec. 19, 2018 that U.S. military forces would withdraw from Syria. The decision was justified, according to the president, by the defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is down to only a couple thousand combatants at most and possesses only a... Read more
The United States Quitting Syria Could Mean a Little Less War in the World
It’s rare when you can get hawkish Republican senators, media liberals, Islamic extremists, neoconservative pseudointellectuals, internet anarchists and retired military talking heads all on the same side, but U.S. president Donald Trump accomplished just that in late December 2018 in announcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. There... Read more
In 1998, Turkey and Syria Narrowly Avoided War
Sick and tired of Syria sheltering its arch-enemy the Kurdistan Workers Party, more commonly known by its acronym PKK, in 1998 Turkey threatened to invade. In the end, diplomacy prevented a potentially bloody war. On Oct. 4, 1998, a top Turkish commander declared that the two countries were in... Read more
Turkey Threatens U.S. Allies in Syria
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again threatened to launch further cross-border military operations targeting the United States’ Syrian Kurdish-led allies in the country’s northeast. “God willing, very soon … we will leave the terror nests east of the Euphrates in disarray,” Erdogan declared on Oct. 12, 2018,... Read more
Will the Syrian Kurds Team Up with Bashar Al Assad Against Turkey?
The Syrian Kurds have announced they are willing to work with the Syrian regime against their remaining opponent – the jihadist Haya’t Tahrir Al Sham group, which currently controls the country’s northwestern province of Idlib – in return for Damascus’s help against the Turkish occupiers of the nearby Syrian... Read more
For Iraq, Bombing ISIS in Syria Was the Easy Part
The Iraqi air force sortied high-tech F-16 fighter jets armed with laser-guided bombs to strike suspected Islamic State forces near the town of Al Shaddi in eastern Syria on April 19,  signalling a major escalation of Baghdad’s war on ISIS. The cross-border raid, at least the second of its... Read more
Donald Trump Would Be Right to Strike Syria
In apparently launching a chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma in western Syria on April 7, 2018, Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad seems to be deliberately testing, even daring, U.S. president Donald Trump to strike back. In April 2017, Trump retaliated against a previous regime gas attack... Read more