Lindsey Graham says there’s ‘strong consensus’ to protect Kurds as Syrian forces advance on territory

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both issued dire warnings about the pressing need to protect the endangered Syrian Kurdish population under attack by government forces in the war-torn nation.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who earlier this month ordered his army, which reportedly has a large jihadist element, to conquer territory controlled for more than a decade by the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF.)

Writing on the social media platform X, Graham declared, “There is strong and growing bipartisan interest in the U.S. Senate regarding the deteriorating situation in Syria. There is strong consensus that we must protect the Kurds who were there for us in destroying the ISIS caliphate, as well as many other groups.”

Pompeo responded to Graham’s post, stating, “Turning our backs on our Kurdish allies would be a moral and strategic disaster.”

CHAOS IN SYRIA SPARKS FEARS OF ISIS PRISON BREAKS AS US RUSHES DETAINEES TO IRAQ

The Trump administration is facing criticism from its long-standing ally, the Syrian Kurds, who played a crucial role in the defeat of the Islamic State in the heartland of the Middle East after a U.S. government announcement on social media that seemed to hint that the partnership had ended this past week with the Kurdish-run SDF in northern Syria.

The SDF formed as a bulwark against the rapid spread of the Islamic State’s terrorist movement in 2013. ISIS created a caliphate covering significant territory in Syria and Iraq. Al-Sharaa was a former member of the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department regarding U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also serves as the special envoy for Syria, for a response to his recent statement on X that indicated the U.S. partnership with the SDF was over.

Barrack wrote, “The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by Kurds, proved the most effective ground partner in defeating ISIS’s territorial caliphate by 2019, detaining thousands of ISIS fighters and family members in prisons and camps like al-Hol and al-Shaddadi. At that time, there was no functioning central Syrian state to partner with — the Assad regime was weakened, contested, and not a viable partner against ISIS due to its alliances with Iran and Russia.

“Today, the situation has fundamentally changed. Syria now has an acknowledged central government that has joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (as its 90th member in late 2025), signaling a westward pivot and cooperation with the U.S. on counterterrorism.”

TURKEY SAYS SYRIA USING FORCE IS AN OPTION AGAINST US-BACKED FIGHTERS WHO HELPED DEFEAT ISIS

Iham Ahmed, a prominent Syrian Kurdish politician, told Fox News Digital, “We really wished to see a firm position from the U.S. The Kurdish people are at the risk of extermination. The U.S. does not give any solid or tangible guarantees.”

Ahmed cast doubt on statements like Barrack’s, warning the “Syrian army is still consisting of radical factions that no one can trust. Alawites, Christians, Sunnis and Druze cannot trust these factions. We could face massacres, which happened in other Syrian cities.”

When asked by Fox News Digital if the SDF wants Israel to intervene to aid the Kurds as it did to help the Syrian Druze and other minorities last year, Ahmed said, “Whoever wants to help us should do so. Today is the day.” She said “the Islamic State is showing itself in the image of an official army. Everyone is threatened now.”

She urged a “special status for the Kurdish region” in northeastern Syria.

Ahmed accused the Erdoğan government of nefarious involvement. 

“Turkey stands behind the attacks on our region. Turkish intelligence and small groups are leading attacks. Statements from Turkey are encouraging the extermination of our people,” she claimed.

Fox News Digital sent a press query to the Turkish embassy spokesman in Washington D.C.

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The influential president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, wrote on X, “Sen. Graham is right. I’ve been discussing the situation in NE Syria with Republican House leaders.  It is not in America’s interest for Islamist forces to seize territory once governed by trusted U.S. allies who protected minorities and advanced religious freedom. 

“Yet this is happening as Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s forces move into northeast Syria, displacing the Syrian Democratic Forces — our partners in the fight against ISIS, who lost thousands of fighters, guarded U.S. bases, and detained ISIS prisoners.

“Before we place trust in al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda insurgent who fought U.S. forces in Iraq and was held at Abu Ghraib, he has to show he is trustworthy.  So far, he is failing the test.”

Sinam Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council to the U.S., had harsh words for the administration, telling Fox News Digital, “American officials continue to describe the SDF as a reliable partner in that narrow mission. Washington avoids framing the relationship as a political alliance. The U.S. never intended a long-term political commitment to the Syrian Kurds. It was a military partnership without political guarantees. From Washington’s view, that’s consistency. From the Kurdish view, that’s betrayal.”

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She added there has been an announcement of a 15-day extension of a ceasefire.

“But both the SDF and outside observers noted continued [Syrian] government troop buildups near Kurdish-held areas, signaling that conflict could resume. The Kurds want to have peace and stability through negotiations.”

Iran Revolutionary Guard commander says regime has ‘finger on the trigger’ as US warships head to Middle East

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned the U.S. Saturday that the paramilitary force is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger” as American warships head toward the Middle East. 

The warning comes after weeks of pressure from President Donald Trump amid widespread anti-regime protests and a violent government crackdown in which the IRGC played a key role.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard and dear Iran stand more ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the orders and directives of the Commander-in-Chief,” IRGC Gen. Mohammad Pakpour said, The Associated Press reported. It cited Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

IRAN WILL RETALIATE ‘WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE’ IF US ATTACKS, SENIOR DIPLOMAT WARNS

Pakpour also reportedly warned the U.S. and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation,” according to the AP. This warning comes after another last week from an Iranian ambassador who said the U.S. and Israel were responsible for “political destabilization, internal unrest and chaos.”

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have expressed their support for the Iranian protesters. Netanyahu said his country was “closely monitoring” the situation. He also vowed that once Iran was “liberated from the yoke of tyranny,” Israel would be prepared to be a partner in peace.

On Tuesday, Iran warned Trump not to take action against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Trump knows that if any hand of aggression is extended toward our leader, we not only cut that hand, but also we will set fire to their world,” Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, said, according to the AP.

On Thursday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he was moving warships toward Iran “just in case” he wants to take action.

“We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” Trump said, according to the AP.

A U.S. Navy official told the AP the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships traveling with it were in the Indian Ocean.

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Anti-regime protests started Dec. 28 as Iranians took to the streets to voice their displeasure with the economic woes facing the country, which has become more isolated internationally. Since then, despite an internet blackout, reports of violence against protesters have emerged.

When the protests began, Trump warned the regime the U.S. was “locked and loaded” and ready to act if it used violence against protesters.

Trump put out a Truth Social post Jan. 16 in which he claimed the Iranian regime had canceled over 800 scheduled hangings. 

However, Iran’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi, said Friday, “This claim is completely false; no such number exists, nor has the judiciary made any such decision,” the AP reported.

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The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported Friday that the confirmed death toll had reached 5,137, while 7,402 people were seriously injured. HRANA also said the total number of arrests had risen to nearly 28,000.

On Wednesday, the Iranian government offered its first death toll, saying that 3,117 people had been killed. It said 2,427 were civilians and security forces and labeled the rest as “terrorists,” according to the AP.

Another Christian community at risk in Africa as extremists and war take their toll

Christians in Sudan are facing daily hunger, misery and terror. The new Open Doors World Watch List for 2026, which ranks the worst countries in the world for the persecution of Christians, placed the country at No. 4, up one place from last year’s report. 

There are an estimated 2 million Christians in the conflict-ridden northeastern African country. Sudan’s civil war has raged past the 1,000-day milestone with 150,000 people reportedly killed and more than 13 million displaced. Christians have lived in Sudan since the late first century.

Many of Sudan’s Christians live in the Nuba Mountains, part of the Kordofan region. 

Rafat Samir, general secretary of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, told Fox News Digital that the “Nuba Mountains now, where the majority of our church members are coming from, is under siege and  bombing every day for the last six months or seven months. Last week, after Christmas, they bombed our church, hospital and school.”

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Adding to the misery, a report by MEMRI citing Christian Daily international, said 11 Sudanese Christians were killed as they took part in a procession to their church for a religious celebration on Christmas Day by a drone operated by the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces. Eighteen others were injured in the attack. MEMRI reported the SAF are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “Since the April 2023 outbreak of conflict in Sudan, we have witnessed significant backsliding in Sudan’s overall respect for fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom. This backsliding especially impacts Sudan’s oppressed ethnic and religious populations, including Christians.” 

In a Fox News Digital report last year, Christians were said to be eating grass to survive. Samir says the situation is even more bleak in 2026.

“Even the grass is gone now,” he said.

“The conflict is accelerating the erasure of ancient Christian communities and sacred heritage,” Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Fox News Digital. “These losses will be far harder to reverse than the rebuilding of roads or ministries once the guns fall silent.”

CHRISTIANS TARGETED IN SYSTEMATIC KIDNAPPING CAMPAIGN IN NIGERIA BY JIHADI HERDSMEN, EXPERTS SAY

Ideologically, Sudan’s Christians face a hostile future, Samir said. 

“Both sides in the civil conflict are daughters of the Islamist movement in Sudan, and the Islamic ideology of both of them is to not have tolerance for others,” Samir said. “They consider everyone different from them is against them. The Christian is considered their enemy as part of their religious ideology, and opposing them is their religious duty.

“So, whoever does something to harm Christians is considered favorable to the law or to Allah. The country is getting back to the dark ages.”

Repeated and continuing attempts at getting the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the opposing militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to reach a ceasefire have failed. Both sides admit they are still fighting and clearly killing civilians with sustained energy, particularly in the central Sudanese region of Kordofan, home to many Christians.

“The United States is committed to ending the horrific conflict in Sudan,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working with our allies and others to facilitate a humanitarian truce and bring an end to external military support to the parties which is fueling the violence. President Trump wants peace in Sudan.

“The suffering of civilians has reached catastrophic levels, with millions lacking food, water and medical care. Every day of continued fighting costs more innocent lives. The war in Sudan is an enduring threat to regional stability.”

The U.N. says fighting is escalating in Kordofan, with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk telling reporters in Port Sudan Jan. 18, “I am very worried that the atrocity crimes committed during and after the takeover of El Fasher are at grave risk of repeating themselves in the Kordofan region, where the conflict has been rapidly escalating since late October.

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“The Kordofan states are extremely volatile,” he continued, “with relentless military engagements, heavy shelling, drone bombardments and airstrikes causing widespread destruction and collapse of essential services.”

Wahba said that “while the United States remains kinetically active across neighboring theaters, it is unlikely to wade directly into Sudan’s civil war.”

“President Trump”, Wahba added, “has signaled a clear desire to see the conflict resolved —  an objective echoed by both Egypt and Saudi Arabia — but translating that consensus into outcomes on the ground has proven far more difficult than the rhetoric suggests.”

“For now,” Wahba continued, “U.S. policy is centered on convening regional stakeholders and pressing for alignment among them, while prioritizing humanitarian corridors, aid delivery and coordination with partners willing to host talks. Washington is acting as a facilitator, not an enforcer.”

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“This posture reflects both constraint and caution. Sudan presents few reliable leverage points, no unified opposition partner, and (there’s) little appetite in Congress or the White House for another open-ended entanglement in a fragmented civil war. The result is a policy that remains fluid and reactive, and is shaped less by strategy than by crisis management,” she said.

Despite everything, the Sudan Evangelical Alliance’s Samir has hope.

“The Holy Spirit is moving and God’s hand is working in our country,” Samir said. ” I can tell you through this evil, this darkness, the light of love of our God is lighting in many hearts. The devil is stealing people to death every day. We pray that (they) let us Christians live for one day more, for one day more to proclaim Jesus’s message.”

DAVID MARCUS: From borders to bombs, 5 times Trump defied experts in Year 1

Donald Trump’s second first year in the presidency will go down in history as one of the most eventful in our nation’s first 250 years, largely because time and again he made experts who doubted his methods look like fools.

For decades, at least since the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have seen presidents as caretakers of our democracy, not as drivers of it, but Trump, seeing the caustic caution of a Congress which couldn’t pass a bill to decide where to have lunch, has acted.

These actions have paid dividends, loath though the legacy media is to admit it, and they are reasons to be excited about what his next three years may hold.

ONE YEAR BACK IN THE OVAL OFFICE, TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SAYS EVERY MAJOR CAMPAIGN PROMISE DELIVERED

I’ll give you five examples where the experts said Trump was out of his mind, but, in reality, it all worked out fine.

1. Closing the Border

Prior to Trump taking office, Democrats had assured the American people that the border could not be closed without congressional action, and the experts gravely agreed.

DAVID MARCUS: TRUMP UNDERSTANDS THAT SAFETY IS FOR EVERY CITIZEN, NOT JUST THE LUCKY FEW

“A president doesn’t have the unilateral authority to shut down the border,” insisted Alberto Benitez, director of the Immigration Clinic at George Washington University Law School, in 2024, for example.

That has simply, and objectively, turned out to be false. According to Customs and Border Protection, there have been seven straight months of zero illegal immigrants being released into the country, not 1,000, not 100, but zero.

The border is shut. It’s actually incredible, but too often when an incredible thing happens we just accept it as the norm, as if it’s always been. No. Trump made that happen.

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2. Tariffs

On “Liberation Day,” as Trump dubbed it, in the spring of last year, tariffs went through the roof on almost every nation, and the stock market tanked immediately, with pundits predicting the president’s approval ratings would tank just as quickly.

On every TV network and in every serious financial journal we were told that soon stock brokers would be selling apples on the street corner from carts in black-and-white photographs.

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“This is a disaster, and anyone who says otherwise is lying,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted on X, back then.

In fact, Trump’s “yuge” tariffs were an opening position, and about four gazillion trade deals have been accomplished as a result. Like those deals or not, the stock market today is at record highs, and everyone on Wall Street is still in color.

3. Bombing Iran

Critics of Trump, from both the left and the right, warned that if he were to attack Iran, it could unleash unrest in the Middle East and perhaps even World War III!

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Ryan Crocker, a distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at RAND, said prior to the strike, “… it is unlikely that air power alone will eliminate Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons,” adding, “Perhaps the U.S. force would persuade Iran to agree to such restrictions. If not, it will broaden the conflict and deepen Iranian determination to acquire nuclear weapons, whatever the cost.”

Once again, Trump was right, and the experts were wrong.

What actually happened was that the U.S. military, under the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, neutralized that very nuclear program that Barack Obama and his buddies wanted to contain through appeasement.

Now, Iran’s murderous regime is on the brink of destruction because Trump refused to listen to the experts.

4. Crime in Washington, D.C.

The murder rate in Washington, D.C., dropped 40% last year, second only to Denver at 41%. For almost half of that year, President Trump had the National Guard deployed to protect the city and its citizens.

But what did the experts say at the time about the use of the National Guard?

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David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, had this to say: “When communities don’t feel they’re being policed properly, they stop helping. It’s very common for what’s seen as illegitimate policing to result in spikes of violence. And I’m very concerned about that in this instance.”

The experts insisted that the Guard wasn’t even in the areas where most crime occurred, but Trump, who witnessed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s miraculous anti-crime transformation of Gotham in the 1990s, knew better.

According to The Trace, improvement was immediate, “From August 11 to October 11 — the first two months of Trump’s takeover — 41 people were shot in Washington, 10 of them fatally. That’s a 62 percent drop in the number of shootings over the same period last year.”

The Trump administration’s broken-windows policing is working. And everybody knows it.

DAVID MARCUS: HOW MANY AMERICAN LIVES HAS TRUMP’S BORDER MIRACLE ALREADY SAVED?

5. The Cabinet

Whether it was Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sean Duffy or Pam Bondi, almost all of Trump’s cabinet picks, save maybe Marco Rubio, because everyone likes Rubio, were viewed by critics on the left as sycophantic wannabes who had no business in their roles.

Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, said a year ago, “We’re in untested waters,” going on to say, “It’s true that people’s standards have shifted, but the question is, when does it really cross a line?”

REBECCA GRANT: TRUMP’S 8 BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY WINS OF 2025

In practice, Trump’s Cabinet has been one of the most effective and cohesive cabinets in modern history and has delivered on several successes for the president, as listed above. Not only that, but televised, hours-long, cabinet meetings have kept Americans quite informed about what they are actually doing.

The expert class demanded that those of their own fill these coveted slots and basically make sure that nothing changes very much, even if they use big words to pretend it will.

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That’s not how Trump rolls, at least not in his second term.

The American people must hope that the Trump administration continues to confound the expert class, and the Davos conglomerates of too-skinny billionaires.

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The experts are on tap for Trump, as they should be, but they are not on top. Instead, on top are the interests of America, and time and again, on that score, he always seems to prove the experts wrong.

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Pentagon plans to give South Korea primary role in deterring North Korea threats under new strategy

The Pentagon said in an unclassified national defense strategy document titled “Restoring peace through strength for a new golden age of America” on Friday that it plans to shift more of the responsibility of deterring North Korea to South Korea.

The U.S. would take a “more limited” role in keeping North Korea in line, the Pentagon said in the document obtained by Fox News Digital.

“With its powerful military, supported by high defense spending, a robust defense industry, and mandatory conscription, South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited U.S. support,” the document said.

It added, “South Korea also has the will to do so, given that it faces a direct and clear threat from North Korea. This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula. In this way, we can ensure a stronger and more mutually beneficial alliance relationship that is better aligned with America’s defense priorities, thereby setting conditions for lasting peace.”

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The new policy plan on North Korea followed similar strategies for other parts of the world, with the wide-ranging document adding that the department will “no longer be distracted by interventionism, endless wars, regime change, and nation building. Instead, we will put our people’s practical concrete interests first.”

The document clarified the policy doesn’t mean “isolationism,” but rather a “strategic approach to the threats our nation faces.”

Further down, it added, “We will insist our allies and partners do their part and lend them a helping hand when they step up.”

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The document said under a section titled “Increase Burden-Sharing with U.S. Allies and Partners” that it plans to deter China “through strength, not confrontation,” and as the “Department rightly prioritizes Homeland defense and deterring China, other threats will persist, and our allies will be essential to dealing with all of them. Our allies will do so not as a favor to us, but out of their own interests.”

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On Russia, it said the country “will remain a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future,” and on Iran, it stated that President Donald Trump has made it clear that Iran won’t be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon.

This year, South Korea raised its military budget by 7.5% while around 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed there in defense of North Korea.

Chaos in Syria sparks fears of ISIS prison breaks as US rushes detainees to Iraq

Chaos engulfing northeastern Syria has sparked fresh security fears after Syria’s new governing authorities moved against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, forcing the U.S. military to rush ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraq.

The U.S. military launched an operation Wednesday to relocate ISIS detainees amid fears that instability could trigger mass prison breaks. So far, about 150 detainees have been transferred from a detention center in Hasakah, Syria, with plans to move up to 7,000 of the roughly 9,000 to 10,000 ISIS detainees held in Syria, U.S. officials said.

The operation comes as Syria’s new government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, ordered the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — Washington’s longtime partner in the fight against ISIS — to disband following a rapid offensive over the weekend that severely weakened the group.

Syrian government forces have since assumed control of several detention facilities previously guarded by the SDF. At least 120 ISIS detainees escaped during a breakout at the al-Shaddadi prison in Hasakah this week, according to Syrian authorities, who say many have been recaptured. U.S. and regional officials caution that some escapees remain at large.

The deteriorating security situation also has raised alarms around al-Hol camp, a sprawling detention site housing the families of ISIS fighters and long viewed by Western officials as a breeding ground for radicalization.

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Kurdish forces announced they would withdraw from overseeing the camp, citing what they described as international indifference to the ISIS threat.

“Due to the international community’s indifference towards the ISIS issue and its failure to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter, our forces were compelled to withdraw from al-Hol camp and redeploy,” the SDF said in a statement.

The camp is currently home to about 24,000 people, mostly women and children linked to ISIS fighters from across the Middle East and Europe. Many residents have no formal charges, according to aid groups, and humanitarian organizations have long warned that extremist networks operate inside the camp.

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The SDF said guards were redeployed to confront the threat posed by Syrian government forces advancing into Kurdish-held territory. On Tuesday evening, Kurdish forces and Syrian government troops agreed to a four-day ceasefire, though officials warned the truce remains fragile.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. officials are weighing whether to withdraw the roughly 1,000 American troops still stationed in Syria, raising questions about Washington’s long-term ability to secure ISIS detainees as local alliances shift.

Two U.S. Army soldiers were killed in Syria in December 2025 by a lone ISIS gunman.

ISIS lost its last territorial stronghold in Syria in 2019, when U.S. forces and their SDF partners overran the group’s enclave in Baghouz. While the defeat ended the group’s self-declared caliphate, U.S. and allied officials say ISIS has since regrouped as a decentralized insurgency, repeatedly targeting prisons and detention camps in Syria and Iraq.

Western governments have cautiously backed al-Sharaa — a former militant once designated as a terrorist — since his forces overthrew longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, framing the support as a pragmatic security calculation rather than an endorsement of his past.

U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack urged Kurdish leaders to reach a permanent deal with the new Syrian government, emphasizing Washington’s focus on preventing an ISIS resurgence rather than maintaining an indefinite military presence.

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“The United States has no interest in a long-term military presence,” Barrack said, adding that U.S. priorities include securing ISIS detention facilities and facilitating talks between the SDF and the Syrian government.