ISTANBUL: Flights from Istanbul airport to Tehran were cancelled on Friday night amid a mounting US military buildup around Iran.&nbsp;Istanbul airport said flights by Turkish Airlines and two Iranian companies to the Iranian capital had been cancelled.&nbsp;Four flights to Tehran scheduled for Saturday were also cancelled, though six others remained on the schedule. A Turkish Airlines flight to the northern Iranian city of Tabriz, due to leave early Saturday, was called off.&nbsp;Turkish authorities made no comment on events in Iran on Friday, declining to join the litany of nations advising their citizens against travel to the Islamic republic.&nbsp;Turkey has a 550 kilometer (340 mile) frontier with Iran that has three crossing points.

Asia

Flights from Istanbul Airport to Tehran were cancelled Friday night amid rising US military tensions around Iran. Turkish Airlines and Iranian carriers halted services, affecting several Saturday flights, while Turkey issued no travel warning despite the situation.

Istanbul flights to Tehran cancelled Friday night: airport

DAMASCUS: The US military said Saturday that its forces had struck more than 30 Islamic State group targets in Syria this month, maintaining pressure on the jihadists after a deadly attack on US troops last year. The strikes also came as the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) in recent weeks transferred thousands of IS detainees from Syria to Iraq, after they had been held in prisons run for years by Kurdish-led forces. US forces &quot;conducted 10 strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria... to sustain relentless military pressure on remnants from the terrorist network,&quot; a CENTCOM statement said, using another acronym for IS. The air strikes, carried out between February 3 and February 12, hit IS &quot;infrastructure and weapons storage targets,&quot; it said. The forces additionally conducted &quot;five strikes against an ISIS communication site, critical logistics node, and weapons storage facilities&quot; between January 27 and February 2, the statement said. Washington has blamed an IS fighter for ambushing and killing two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter in Palmyra on December 13. Syria&#39;s interior ministry has said the IS gunman was a member of the security forces who had been set to be fired for extremism. The US launched Operation Hawkeye Strike in response to the attack. &quot;More than 50 ISIS terrorists have been killed or captured, and over 100 ISIS infrastructure targets have been struck with hundreds of precision munitions during two months of targeted operations,&quot; the CENTCOM statement added. On Friday, CENTCOM said it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 detained IS suspects, from 61 countries, from Syria to Iraq. The operation began last month as Damascus&#39;s capture of territory surrounding the prisons from Kurdish-led forces sparked questions over the fate of the IS prisoners, prompting Washington to step in. Alongside the US-led anti-IS coalition, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces spearheaded the battle that led to the jihadist group&#39;s territorial defeat in Syria in 2019. Washington has, however, drawn close to Syria&#39;s new authorities, recently saying the purpose of its alliance with the Kurdish forces was largely over. As Damascus seeks to extend its control over all of Syria, US forces confirmed on Thursday their withdrawal from the Al-Tanf base near Syria&#39;s border with Jordan and Iraq.

Americas

The US military said Saturday that its forces had struck more than 30 Islamic State group targets in Syria this month, maintaining pressure on the jihadists after a deadly attack on US troops last year

Articles tagged with "US military"

Istanbul flights to Tehran cancelled Friday night: airport

US military says struck more than 30 IS targets in Syria