They could be found on the outskirts of Sirte, Libya, supporting local militia fighters, and in Mukalla, Yemen, backing troops from the United Arab Emirates. At Saakow, a remote outpost in southern Somalia, they assisted local commandos in killing several members of the terror group al-Shabab. Around the cities of Jarabulus and Al-Rai in northern Syria, they partnered with both Turkish soldiers and Syrian militias, while also embedding with Kurdish YPG fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces. Across the border in Iraq, still others joined the fight to liberate the city of Mosul. And in Afghanistan, they assisted indigenous forces in various missions, just as they have every year since 2001.

For America, 2016 may have been the year of the commando. In one conflict zone after another across the northern tier of Africa and the Greater Middle East, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) waged their particular brand of low-profile warfare. "Winning the current fight, including against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other areas where SOF is engaged in conflict and instability, is an immediate challenge," the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), General Raymond Thomas, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.

SOCOM's shadow wars against terror groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIL) may, ironically, be its most visible operations. Shrouded in even more secrecy are its activities - from counterinsurgency and counterdrug efforts to seemingly endless training and advising missions - outside acknowledged conflict zones across the globe. These are conducted with little fanfare, press coverage, or oversight in scores of nations every single day. From Albania to Uruguay, Algeria to Uzbekistan, America's most elite forces - Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets among them - were deployed to 138 countries in 2016, according to figures supplied to TomDispatch by U.S. Special Operations Command. This total, one of the highest of Barack Obama's presidency, typifies what has become the golden age of, in SOF-speak, the "gray zone" - a phrase used to describe the murky twilight between war and peace. The coming year is likely to signal whether this era ends with Obama or continues under President-elect Donald Trump's administration.

Hundreds of American tanks, trucks and other military equipment have arrived at the German port of Bremerhaven to be transferred to Eastern Europe as part of NATO's buildup near Russia's borders.

The Resolve cargo ship arrived on Wednesday, while two more vessels - Freedom and Endurance - are expected in Germany on Sunday, Deutsche Welle reported. The unloading of the ships began on Friday, with the heavy equipment to be transported to Poland via rail and road.

The US plans to deliver a total of 87 Abrams M1A1 tanks, 20 Paladin artillery vehicles and 136 Bradley fighting vehicles to Eastern Europe, according to Reuters. Four thousand American troops will reportedly be spread across Poland, the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania where they'll remain on rotation basis.

Michael Moore says that '100 days of resistance' to Trump presidency starts with inauguration.

Michael Moore, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, took to Hillary Clinton media outlet MSNBC to discuss his plan to oust trump from the US Presidency with a "100 days of resistance" movement.

Multi-millionaire, elitist Moore can't possibly conceive that Donald Trump will enter the White House in January, and clean up the corrupt establishment that has pampered SJW, politically correct elitists like Moore for nearly a decade.

Yesterday the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, the NSA and the FBI released a report about alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Council and on Russian influence operation on the U.S. presidential election. The report failed to convince anyone. It is indeed a public relation disaster for the Intelligence Community.

John Harwood covers "the economy and national politics for CNBC and the New York Times." More then 100,000 people follow him on Twitter. He is known as Hillary Clinton supporter and chummy with John Podesta who ran Clinton's election campaign.

Harwood set up a simple poll. It is not statistically representative but gives a picture of a general sentiment.

'Clinton email leak done by insider, not Russia' - former UK diplomat tells RT

Craig Murray, a former UK diplomat and whistleblower speaks to RT to discuss the US Intelligence Community report that Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, meddled in last year's US presidential election, through hacking and propaganda.

Skip ahead to the 6:50 mark to listen to Craig Murray (when pressed by RT's Kevin Owen), give a bit more information as to the identity of the person behind the Clinton email leak...

US president-elect Donald Trump said he was "very much" looking forward to meeting British Prime Minister Theresa May and described the UK as a "very special" ally in his latest tweet.

Trump and May are due to meet in Washington in the spring after the prime minister's closest advisers were sent to the US in an attempt to improve relations with the president-elect's team.

Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, the highest figure in the western fabricated opposition in Syria, the chief of Baggara Tribe in northeast Syria, returned to Damascus and declared his loyalty to the Syrian people, the Syrian leadership and praised the Syrian Arab Army and put himself under the command of the Syrian president Dr. Bashar Al-Assad.

With 1.2 million tribesmen and women in his Der Ezzor base, he left them behind and joined the ranks of makeshift opposition individuals convinced by Qatari officials that the days of the 'regime' are numbered and if they defect now they'll reserve a place for them in the future Syria. Some were bribed with tens of millions of dollars, others were seduced with leading post-Assad posts, and the vast majority who couldn't be bought or deceived were intimidated, only few fell for any of those.

A parliament member 1990 - 1994, the 63 years old who heads his large tribe since he was 28 after his late father, had a very controversial political career, served as an ambassador to Iraq and yet was a member of the first 'Arab Springing' of the Syrians the so-called 'Damascus Declaration'.

A Republican senator who challenged Donald Trump for the White House nomination says the president-elect "fully supports" repealing President Barack Obama's health law only when there's a viable alternative to replace it.

Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Congress are moving toward a vote on repeal legislation in coming weeks, but they anticipate a transition period of months or years to a replacement. Some Republican lawmakers are expressing reservations about scrapping the law, which now covers 20 million people, without a near-term replacement.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who clashed with Trump during the GOP primary, said in a tweet late Friday that the two had a conversation and that Trump agreed with Paul's approach. "I just spoke to @realDonaldTrump and he fully supports my plan to replace Obamacare the same day we repeal it," Paul tweeted. "The time to act is now." Trump aides did not immediately respond questions about the conversation and how it had come about.

Nothing about revamping the nation's $3 trillion-a-year health care system will come easy, but GOP leaders want congressional committees to have legislation dismantling much of Obama's overhaul ready by late January. They're hoping Congress can quickly send a measure to the incoming president that would phase out the law, perhaps a couple of months later.

Crafting a GOP replacement probably will take more time, thanks to Republican divisions and solid Democratic opposition. It would be a political nightmare for Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and then fail to pass a new version of the law. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters Friday that Republicans might find themselves in a "box canyon" if they erase the law without a substitute in hand.

Israel is considering new "balanced" legislation which just about presents Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) with a license to kill without fear of being prosecuted.

Plans for the new legislation have been announced by Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan, and comes at a time of deep divisions in Israeli society over the manslaughter conviction of an IDF sergeant who shot and killed an already neutralized Palestinian attacker in March last year. While Azaria was not convicted of murder, the new law seeks to shield IDF members and prevent such a ruling from ever being handed down again.

"The new law sends a clear message to our soldiers: When you protect us, we protect you," the Deputy Defence Minister said. The proposed new law seeks to extend the immunity to security forces before and after an operation. Current immunity is only granted while the operation is in progress.

The bill, according to Israeli press, says that

"a member of the security forces will not bear criminal responsibility, nor be interrogated with a warning, and will be immune to every judicial action in connection with an operation he carried out or did not carry out, or an act he committed or did not commit, before, during and after an operation, depending on whether the operation was or was not carried out as part of his assignment, or in preparation to carry out his assignment, as member of the security forces."

Germany's domestic security chief warned Sunday that the country's radical Islamist scene is not only growing, but becoming more decentralised, posing greater challenges to surveillance operations.

In an interview with national news agency DPA, Hans-Georg Maassen also defended security officials under fire after it emerged that Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri had slipped through their net, saying they had done everything they could.

Overall, the number of Salafists -- or fundamentalist Sunni Muslims -- in Germany has risen to more than 9,700, sharply up from 3,800 people in 2011, said Maassen. "It's of great concern to us that this scene is not only growing, but it is also very diversified. There is not just one, two, three or four people who have a say," he warned. Rather, there are many people who dominate this Salafist scene. And all these people have to be watched." While in the past, there were a few people who wielded influence, today, there are many small clusters formed by individuals. So you can no longer talk about a Salafist scene as a whole, but you have to deal with many hotspots. That makes things more difficult for us, because we can no longer just watch a few people. We have to monitor many groups," he said.

In a defence of security officials under pressure for failing to stop Amri, Maassen said that although officers had watched the Tunisian over a long period of time, they found no evidence to arrest him. "I believe that the security forces, in particular the police, have done everything in their power to assess the danger posed by Amri. But it is also clear that we live under the rule of law, and the legal framework must be respected," he said.