David Blair's Blog

N orth Korea���s fifth nuclear test appears to have been the most powerful of the lot . A female newsreader clad in pink, whose main job seems to be announcing nuclear detonations, was pressed into service to proclaim the joyous event on state television.

A rebel alliance released the first blueprint for Syria without Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday, promising to build a ���democratic��� country based on ���liberty, equality, citizenship and justice���.

A 13-year-old Syrian girl in Aleppo died from inhaling toxic gas on Wednesday after Bashar al-Assad���s forces poisoned 120 people in another chemical attack.

B ritain and Iran restored full diplomatic relations on Monday by appointing ambassadors in one another���s capitals - although four Britons are still being held prisoner in Iranian jails.

T he world awoke to the importance of a 39-year-old Syrian called Taha Falaha when he fell prey to a missile fired from an American drone . Better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, he was the deputy leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the...

C ommanders are eviscerated by air strikes; cities are recaptured one by one. Two years after its lightning advance along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the stench of decay hangs over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

W hen the siren sounded, the RAF pilots dashed for the cockpits of their Typhoons. Within minutes, two jet fighters were streaking across a summer sky, their wings laden with air-to-air missiles, searching for unidentified intruders they know as ���bandits���.

I srael sold weapons to Argentina at the height of the Falklands War in 1982, according to newly declassified Foreign Office files.

A capital city is paralysed by the failure of its electricity supply. A nuclear power station suffers meltdown. Banks go haywire and cash machines run dry. No one can have missed the nightmare scenarios associated with cyber-attacks and their potential to wreak havoc on a networked society.

A t the height of the Second World War, Russia allied with Britain to invade Iran and overthrow a pro-German Shah. For the first time since that operation in 1941, Russian forces are back in Iran, this time in the guise of strike aircraft hitting targets in Syria.