As the United States continues to bombard Islamic State militants from the air, US Central Command announced that the military bombed an unmanned drone being operated by the extremist group in Iraq.

CENTCOM made the announcement Wednesday, marking the first time the US-led coalition has taken aim at a drone that was being used by the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL). Eleven airstrikes in total were conducted between March 17 and 18.

Details about the drone and the strike are slim, with CENTCOM saying only that the military destroyed a "remotely piloted aircraft and an ISIL vehicle." The strike occurred near Fallujah, which remains controlled by militants.

The drone was a "small, unarmed hand-held type of the sort that can be purchased commercially," CENTCOM spokesman Maj. Kim Michelsen told the Associated Press. He added that ISIS was using the drone for surveillance purposes and that's why the US focused its sight on the aircraft.

UK military personnel have arrived in Ukraine and are beginning their training mission there, Britain's Ministry of Defence has announced. Meanwhile the US will send nearly 300 paratroopers to start training the country's national guard next month.

The deployment of foreign troops has started amid a barely holding cease-fire in the country's east.

With the aim of helping Kiev's army to fight anti-government forces, according to the UK MoD, its training mission is now operating in Ukraine, with the numbers of involved personnel "depending on the schedule."

"The first elements of the training package began in March...we have got troops out there training," a ministry spokeswoman told AP. According to the BBC, 35 personnel are now in the country's south, deployed as part of a two-month mission.

Last month, British ministers announced that up to 75 troops at a time would be involved in a six-month-long mission, training Kiev's military "to strengthen the defensive capability of the Ukrainian armed forces and build the resilience that they need."

"In order to survive and preserve its leading role on the international stage, the US desperately needs to plunge Eurasia into chaos, (and) to cut economic ties between Europe and Asia-Pacific Region ... Russia is the only (country) within this potential zone of instability that is capable of resistance. It is the only state that is ready to confront the Americans. Undermining Russia's political will for resistance... is a vitally important task for America."

-Nikolai Starikov, Western Financial System Is Driving It to War, Russia Insider

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."

-The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the original version of the Defense Planning Guidance, authored by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992

The United States does not want a war with Russia, it simply feels that it has no choice. If the State Department hadn't initiated a coup in Ukraine to topple the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, then the US could not have inserted itself between Russia and the EU, thus, disrupting vital trade routes which were strengthening nations on both continents. The economic integration of Asia and Europe - including plans for high-speed rail from China ("The New Silk Road") to the EU - poses a clear and present danger for the US whose share of global GDP continues to shrink and whose significance in the world economy continues to decline. For the United States to ignore this new rival (EU-Russia) would be the equivalent of throwing in the towel and accepting a future in which the US would face a gradual but persistent erosion of its power and influence in world affairs. No one in Washington is prepared to let that happen, which is why the US launched its proxy-war in Ukraine.

From Afghanistan to Yemen, a short history of American arms ending up in the wrong hands.

The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon can't say what happened to more than $500 million worth of gear—including "small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies"—it had given to the Yemeni government. The news comes as Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed groups vie to control the country following the collapse of the country's US-backed regime in January. The Post noted that the Pentagon has stopped further shipments of aid, but the damage has been done. "We have to assume it's completely compromised and gone," an anonymous legislative aide said.


This isn't the first time US military aid to allies has gone AWOL or wound up in the wrong hands. A few notable examples:

Libya: In late 2012, the New York Times reported that weapons from a US-approved deal had eventually gone to Islamic militants in Libya. The deal, which involved European weapons sent to Qatar as well as US weapons originally supplied to the United Arab Emirates, had been managed from the sidelines by the Obama administration.

So he won and I have to say I am relieved. There will be no more endless cycles of pointless 'negotiations' with Israel pretending that some day it will agree to a two-state solution while continually escalating both settlement (colony) building and the maltreament of the Palestinians. Now everyone will see that the Palestinians were right all along and that Israel has never been a partner for negotiations.

There is no real political Left in Israel and if the other side got to form a government, all we would have seen is more of the same. Now we'll see if the EU has the decency and conviction to enact proper sanctions. Then of course there is the US. The US Administration might stall for a while, but we'll see if they have what it takes to do the right thing. Israel is no friend to the US and the sooner they realise it the better.

Israel is on a slippery slope of its own making. Get your popcorn, sit and watch. Israel is becoming more radicalised than ever before. Certainly much more than when I was growing up there. Of course I could be wrong — and I hope I am — but I think Israel's pathological siege mentality will now become more pronounced and more evident to outsiders. Israel has for a long time been readying itself for when the time comes, to bunker down, live with austerity and give up the fancy lifestyle the country has become increasingly accustomed to in the last 20-25 years. They can do this.

Israel has always prepared itself psychologically and economically to being isolated. All that openness to the rest of the world that Israel has enjoyed increasingly in the last generation or so, and Israel's acceptance by others, have always been seen as temporary in the eyes of most Israeli Jews. They had always expected it to end and had the mentality of 'let's enjoy it while it lasts and make the most of it while we can'. Fundamentally Israeli Jews believe that the world hates them because they are Jewish (in their mind it has nothing to do with colonialism or the Palestinians). So although Israel has brought its own situation upon itself, that is not how Israeli Jews see it. They believe things are 'happening to them' for no fault of their own. They expect isolation and have dropped all pretences to pander to the West and are behaving more in line now with their true nature. Even less radical people will become radicalised now in Israel. There will be even more propaganda and more brainwashing than ever before.

Netanyahu really does represent most Israeli Jews even though some of them do not like him. But the reasons they do not like him are not what you expect. Most Israeli Jews identify with Netanyahu's perception and understanding of what the rest of the world is like and of the world's relationship with Israel. After all Netanyahu is a product of Israeli society just like I was, and believe me, when you have that kind of psychology and that incredibly effective, powerful propaganda machine all around you, it is easy to believe that what you see is really how it is... Israeli Jews have always lived in a psychological ghetto and it's that ghetto that I got out of back in 1991.

The head of the CSTO military bloc says the organization is ready to send peacekeepers to Donbass once such a move is sanctioned by the United Nations.

"The Collective Security Treaty Organization has peacekeeping potential, our forces are constantly undergoing the necessary training. If the United Nations makes this decision we would be ready to provide such units," CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha told reporters on Thursday.

"But this will happen only after the use of peacekeepers is recognized as reasonable," he said.

At the same time, the official emphasized the military potential of such blocs as CSTO or NATO should never go beyond peacekeeping operations. "We consider this counterproductive. What is happening in Ukraine is an internal conflict. It must be settled by Ukrainian authorities and the Donbass people, they must find common language, consensus and start agreeing on joint activities. I repeat it again - neither the CSTO collective forces nor NATO can be used in these events," Bordyuzha was quoted as saying by Belarusian news agency BelTA.

Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the deadly museum attack on Wednesday in Tunisia that claimed over 20 lives, according to an online audio recording cited by Reuters.

The three-hour attack took place at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital on Wednesday. As a result 23 people died, including 18 foreign tourists, five Tunisians and two gunmen, Health Minister Said Aidi said on Thursday. Fifty more were injured.Among the foreigners killed were one British national, three Japanese, four Italians, two Colombians, two Spaniards, an Australian, a Pole and a French citizen, according to the Tunisian PM Habib Essid's statement.

The recording distributed online praised the two gunmen calling them "knights of the Islamic State."

Security forces arrested nine people connected to the attack, according to a statement issued by the president's office on Thursday. Five of the arrested were directly connected, while four others were from a supporting terrorist cell, it added.

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has condemned a news report of witnesses' statements, in which people said they had seen a rocket fired at the time of Malaysian Boeing crash in Ukraine in July 2014. "Looks like a stovepiping," Lavrov said.

"Attempts at distorting facts, enforcing versions on what could have happened continue to exist, with some based on openly dirty intentions," Lavrov told journalists on Thursday. Commenting on last week's Reuters report on "new evidence on the downing of the Malaysian plane over Ukraine," the minister said that it looked like the "respected agency" had published "a so-called stovepiping."

"[There are] some witnesses, who contradict one another, and express things amusing for any specialist. For instance, some wiggling rocket, separating rocket stages, blue clouds of smoke," the minister said, adding such information has been provided by alleged eyewitnesses, who managed to see the crash despite being 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from it, in cloudy weather.

Moscow expects its European partners from the 'Normandy Four' to give their appraisals of the freshly-approved Ukrainian laws on self-rule in the southeastern regions.

"We have not yet heard any judgments on the part of our colleagues and partners. We still hope that such judgments will appear," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

He added that if the Minsk peace accords are undermined as a result of Kiev actions the situation would demand urgent involvement of all guarantors of the ceasefire.

"We support any dialogue," Peskov stated. However, he said that at the moment the Normandy Four had not yet agreed on a new meeting.

He also said that if the presence of US and British military advisers in Ukraine, if true, did not contribute to the security in this country.

On March 17, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the law on special status for the Donbass regions, granting the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk special self-rule status, but postponing its introduction until the regions hold new elections under Ukrainian laws.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated on Thursday leaving several military dead. Different figures were produced by each side, ranging from at least three, up to 20 people in the disputed enclave in the South Caucasus.

The defense ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which is an unrecognized state populated mostly by ethnic Armenians and completely surrounded by Azeri territories, reported that three of its servicemen were killed and several others injured in an attack from the Azerbaijan side on Thursday.

"On Thursday morning a reinforced group of [Azerbaijan's] special operation forces attacked the Karabakh positions," the ministry said in its statement, adding that the Armenian soldiers serving in that region repelled the attack and "totally defeated" the military group.

Three Armenian servicemen died in the fight, and four more were injured, the ministry's press-service said.

The Azerbaijani side called these reports intentional "disinformation," and said that its troops killed and wounded up to 20 Armenian military.

"As a result of military clashes on March 19 on the front line, Azerbaijan's armed forces conducted a heavy attack up-front on the Armenian side, and eliminated and wounded up to 20 Armenian servicemen," the Azerbaijani defense ministry said in its statement.

Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of trying to reignite a conflict that broke out in 1988 when the Nagorno-Karabakh region announced its plans to seek independence from Azerbaijan and become part of Armenia.