ISIS dominated Anbar province a year ago

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says Iraqi forces have retaken most of Fallujah from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as clearing operations are under way to flush out the armed group's remaining fighters in the city.
The government lost control of Fallujah in 2014, months before ISIL, also known as ISIS, took Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and swept across large parts of the country.
Earlier on Friday, Iraqi forces said they had entered the centre of Fallujah, nearly four weeks after the start of a US-backed offensive to retake the Sunni city 50km west of the capital, Baghdad.

State Department throws in with CIA

Ongoing fighting between the CIA and the Pentagon over who the US is actually at war with in Syria appears to have dragged the US State Department in as well, with reports emerging that “dozens” of top State officials have signed a document “protesting” US policy in Syria for being focused on fighting ISIS.
Described as the “dissent channel cable,” the document appears to mirror the CIA’s own narrative, which is that in attacking ISIS the US is fighting the wrong war in Syria, and instead demands that the US shift focus entirely to militarily imposing regime change on the Syrian government.
Though the State Department document is still secret, it appears to simply echo the CIA’s supposition that ISIS can’t be defeated while Syria has a “weak” government, and that therefore destroying what’s left of Syria’s government might conceivably help.
Among the many problems with this strategy is that it is directly in contradiction to the strategy the US has publicly endorsed in recent months, and the one that they got through the UN Security Council, which is that the strategy to defeat ISIS is to unite the Syrian government and the secular rebels.

CIA says war on ISIS not working (actually it is)

Though the official US narrative remains that the US is inflicting massive losses on ISIS in its airstrikes, and its involvement in ground wars in both Iraq and Syria, CIA Chief John Brennan today warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that they remain as capable of launching attacks abroad as ever, and their ability to expand into new territories is still intact.
Brennan described ISIS as a “formidable, resilient, and largely cohesive army,” and predicted that they would continue to adjust tactics to work around the US attacks against them, despite once again talking up the idea that the US had “squeezed” its operations.

Saudi war in Yemen is failing

The Saudi-led bombing campaign of Yemen appears to be crumbling following the publishing of a U.N. report holding the oil-rich kingdom culpable for the killing of civilians — the latest development being a possible withdrawal of Emirati troops from Saudi Arabia’s coalition.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, quoted Anwar Gargash, UAE’s junior minister for foreign affairs, in a tweet on Wednesday that said the UAE’s involvement in the war was finished....
Rights groups also attacked the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia over the last year due to the use of cluster munitions in Yemen. Human Rights Watch said using cluster munitions to kill and maim civilians is potentially a war crime.

Kurdish revolt in Iran

Iranian news agencies report that fighting between Kurdish rebels and elite Revolutionary Guards forces near the Iraqi border has left at least 15 dead, including 12 Kurds and three guards.
Rebels slipped across the border to carry out acts of "sabotage" in Oshnavieh in Iran's northwest, where they encountered the guards, the Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported on June 16.
Oshnavieh is around 20 kilometers from the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Iran's top police officer, General Hossein Ashtari, said the fighters killed were members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdish group with close links to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.

Swiss drop application for EU

Politicians in Switzerland have voted to withdraw the country's long-standing European Union application, a week before Britain decides on its own EU membership.
Thomas Minder, counsellor for Schaffhausen state and an active promoter of the concept of 'Swissness,' told Neue Zürcher Zeitung he was eager to 'close the topic fast and painlessly' as only 'a few lunatics' may want to join the EU now....
Hannes Germann, also representing Schaffhausen, compared the symbolic importance to Iceland’s decision to drop its membership bid in 2015.