Q: are we not MENA? A: we are the rolling middle east, north africa and other geopolitical hot spots thread 2016!

President Abbas asks Putin to stop Trump from moving US embassy to Jerusalem.
https://twitter.com/KhaledAbuToameh/status/819945148595499008

so many wtfs

It bothers me so much that we know very little about whatever it is Bannon actually thinks

Bannon is like the nasty tick whose head is burrowed in Trump's hide, spilling its diseased guts straight into his bloodstream.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/18/iraq-has-retaken-east-mosul-from-isis-says-army-general

2 days old news. Not yet on the internet is that ISIS is giving up because Trump said "radical Islamic terrorism" and said he would "eradicate them from the face of the earth"

bc 2017 deserves its own terribly named MENA thread before the end of Jan:
I Never MENA Hurt You; I Never MENA Make You Cry 2017 (Middle East, North Africa, and Other Geopolitical Hotspots)

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-houthi-weapon-emerges-a-drone-boat

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The Houthi boat that attacked and hit a Saudi frigate Jan. 30 in the Red Sea, reported earlier as a suicide boat, was instead carried out by an unmanned, remote-controlled craft filled with explosives, the US Navy’s top officer in the Mideast said.

“Our assessment is that it was an unmanned, remote-controlled boat of some kind,” Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, commander of the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet and head of US Naval Forces Central Command, told Defense News in an interview here Saturday.

The attack on the frigate Al Madinah appears to be the first confirmed use of the weapon which, Donegan said, represents a wider threat than that posed by suicide boats and shows foreign interests are aiding the Houthis.

is there a 2017 mena thread? sorry if so

there is, FYI:

I Never MENA Hurt You; I Never MENA Make You Cry 2017 (Middle East, North Africa, and Other Geopolitical Hotspots)

(miss u, search function)

ok thx