The State Department on Sunday updated its travel advisory for Iraq to include the ordered departure of all non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members.

Americans are warned ‘do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and Mission Iraq’s limited capacity to provide support to U.S. citizens.’

On Oct. 20, the State Department already ordered the departure of eligible family members and non-emergency U.S. government personnel from U.S. Embassy Baghdad and U.S. Consulate General Erbil ‘due to increased security threats against U.S. government personnel and interests.’ 

In recent days, Iran-backed militias attacked United States military bases in Iraq. Iran has warned that an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza could spark an escalation from allied armed groups and a possible regional war. Hundreds of Iraqi protesters gathered at the western Trebil border crossing near Jordan Friday in a demonstration organized by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-backed Shia political groups and militias in Iraq.

The pro-Iran coalition also called for a protest in Baghdad near the main gate of the highly fortified international zone, where the U.S. Embassy is located, to condemn its endorsement of Israel in the ongoing war with Hamas, according to The Associated Press.

‘U.S. citizens in Iraq face high risks to their safety and security, including the potential for violence and kidnapping. Terrorist and insurgent groups regularly attack Iraqi security forces and civilians. Anti-U.S. militias threaten U.S. citizens and international companies throughout Iraq,’ the State Department advisory for Iraq says. ‘Attacks using improvised explosive devices, indirect fire, and unmanned aerial vehicles occur in many areas of the country, including Baghdad and other major cities. In an emergency, consular services to U.S. citizens in Iraq are limited due to severe restrictions on the movements of U.S. government personnel.’

The State Department also warns that demonstrations, protests and strikes occur frequently throughout the country, often interrupting traffic, transportation and other services, and sometimes turning violent.

‘Do not travel near Iraq’s northern borders due to the continued threat of attacks by terrorist groups, armed conflict, aerial bombardment and civil unrest,’ the advisory continues. ‘U.S. citizens should especially avoid areas near armed groups in northern Iraq, which have been targeted with aerial strikes by neighboring countries’ militaries.’

Because of security concerns, U.S. government personnel in Baghdad are instructed not to use Baghdad International Airport, the advisory says. 

Due to risks to civil aviation operating in the Baghdad Flight Information Region, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has extended for an additional two years its Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) prohibiting certain flights at altitudes below 32,000 feet.

Americans who go against the State Department warning and do travel to Iraq are advised to draft a will and discuss assets with family members beforehand. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Israel’s version of the FBI has reportedly launched a new unit dedicated to tracking down and killing every Hamas terrorist who took part in the surprise Oct. 7 attacks from Gaza. 

The Israel Security Agency, known as Shin Bet, established a new unit known as NILI, an acronym in Hebrew for ‘The Eternity of Israel Will Not Lie,’ according to the Jerusalem Post.

The new unit, which will operate separately from other command and control units focused on taking out strike cells and high-ranking Hamas officials, is tasked with tracking down and eliminating every person who played a role in the atrocities, according to the report. 

It will specifically target members of a special Hamas commando unit within the terror organization’s Nukhba wing. which Israel believes carried out the attacks.

Those assigned to the unique mission reportedly include both field operatives and intelligence personnel.

Israeli forces have claimed to have killed several Hamas commanders in recent days as they continue their strikes on the Gaza Strip. Among them are Ali Qadhi, a commander within the Hamas Nukhba force considered a key player in the attack on the border region, as well as Billal Al Kedra, who Israeli forces say led Hamas’ deadly raid in Nirim.

More than 20 towns and villages in southern Israel were ambushed in the sweeping assault by Hamas militants launched from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, according to The Associated Press. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in Hamas’ initial assault, and roughly 200 others are said to have been taken to Gaza as hostages. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would rescind student visas of foreign nationals in the U.S. and send them back to their home countries if they expressed support for Hamas terrorists’ attack against Israel.

Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa on Friday, the White House hopeful discussed his plans to remove Hamas-supporting foreign nationals attending U.S. colleges and universities from the country as many pro-Palestinian student groups at various institutions across the nation release statements and organize demonstrations endorsing Hamas’ largest attack against Israel in decades.

‘You see students demonstrating in our country in favor of Hamas,’ DeSantis said. ‘Remember, some of them are foreigners.’

DeSantis said he will be ‘canceling your visa, and I’m sending you home’ if he wins the presidency in 2024.

Fellow Republican presidential candidate and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said at the same event in Iowa that, if elected president, he would withhold Pell Grants from universities that failed to eliminate antisemitism on their campuses.

Both presidential contenders voiced their support for Israel as the war between the Jewish State and Hamas continues after more than three weeks of violence.

More than 5,700 people have been killed in Gaza and Israel since Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, leading to retaliatory action from Israeli forces. Thousands more have been wounded, and many others have been taken hostage by Hamas and raped, tortured and murdered.

DeSantis has been vocal in condemning Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel and has taken action to help Floridians stranded in Israel find their way home.

Last week, the governor announced that nearly 300 Floridians arrived in the Sunshine State on flights from Israel following his executive order authorizing logistical, rescue and evacuation operations through Florida’s Division of Emergency Management. The flights were completed through a partnership with the search and rescue non-profit group Project DYNAMO, and efforts for further evacuation flights to Florida are expected.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management also sent cargo planes to Israel containing medical supplies, clothing items, hygiene products and children’s toys, according to the governor’s office.

DeSantis called students voicing support for Hamas a ‘total disgrace’ earlier this month after at least dozens of student groups at various U.S. academic institutions, including Harvard University, endorsed Hamas’ attacks on Israel through public statements and protests, even as many of the universities themselves condemned the acts of terrorism.

Shortly after the attack on October 7, Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups released a statement signed by about 30 student organizations that read, ‘We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.’

Students for Justice in Palestine chapters and other pro-Palestinian student groups at many other universities, including George Washington University, the University of Virginia and the University of California, Berkley, also released similar statements on the weekend of Hamas’ attack.

The statement by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups was later deleted after student organizations began removing their signatures amid bipartisan backlash and some CEOs demanding the names of the students who signed it.

Many other pro-Palestinian student groups at institutions across the U.S. still have their statements posted online and continue to participate in protests celebrating Hamas’ attack.

Other Republican lawmakers have also called for canceling the visas of foreign nationals who support Hamas and deporting them back to their home countries.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the Biden administration should rescind visas of foreign nationals who defend or support Hamas and Sen. Tom Cotton, R. Ark., urged the Department of Homeland Security to deport foreign nationals, including those on student visas, who have expressed support for Hamas in the wake of the terror attack on Israel.

DeSantis has also said he does not support accepting refugees from Gaza who wish to evacuate the violence in the region.

‘I don’t know what [President] Biden’s gonna do, but we cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,’ DeSantis said at a campaign event earlier this month.

‘I am not going to do that,’ he added. ‘If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.’

Scott and other Republicans have slammed the Biden administration’s response to Hamas attacks against Israel as well. The South Carolina senator said during a speech in Washington, D.C., earlier this month that the president has ‘blood on his hands.’

The race for the speaker’s gavel got even more complex Friday after Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, dropped out of the race and a number of Republicans jumped in.

One candidate with favorable backing is Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who announced his candidacy Friday.

Emmer has already scored a major endorsement from ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was ousted more than two weeks ago by eight Republicans voting with House Democrats.

It’s unclear whether Emmer will succeed where Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., failed — convincing the various factions within the GOP to unite around his leadership.

‘He is the right person for the job. He can unite the conference,’ McCarthy said. ‘He understands the dynamics of the conference. He also understands what it takes to win and keep a majority.’

‘Our Conference remains at a crossroads, and the deck is stacked against us. We have no choice but to fight like hell to hold on to our House majority and deliver on our conservative agenda,’ Emmer told Republican members of Congress in a letter Saturday about his bid for the speaker’s gavel.

Emmer said he would use teamwork, communication and respect to build on the success Republicans had taking back the House majority in 2022 and scoring legislative wins.

Allies of Emmer also pointed to his ability as a fundraiser. Emmer brought in $9.2 million for House races in the 2022 election cycle, including more than $3.1 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which he led at the time. Emmer has raised $7.6 million so far in 2023 for the 2024 election cycle.

Emmer faces a potential roadblock to his nomination from the hard-right side of the Republican caucus. Some reports have indicated former President Trump — who endorsed Jordan for speaker — is whipping members against voting for Emmer. It is unclear how this would affect the House speaker race.

Emmer is an attorney, former hockey player and coach, a father of seven and the No. 3 GOP lawmaker in the House this Congress.

He assumed the whip position from Steve Scalise, R-La., now the House majority leader — who also happened to be the GOP speaker nominee before Jordan.

Holding the position after leading the NRCC in the last election cycle, Emmer says he is a ‘team guy’ from a ‘big hockey factory.’

The House majority whip said he learned to negotiate through his work as an attorney, but starting a youth hockey team in Delano, Minnesota, in the 1990s is where he cut his teeth in the art of getting people to work together.

‘And we literally started because I recognized you’ve got all these competing entities, much like you have in Congress,’ Emmer said. ‘I had to become a member of the local Youth Hockey board. Then I had to become a member of the board that ran the ice arena, so we could control our own ice time.

‘Then I had to become a member of the District Hockey Board that was in charge of the region that our community was part of. Then I had to become part of … Minnesota Hockey, which is under the umbrella of USA Hockey. Why? Because we had to get them all talking to each other.’

Thirty years later, Emmer said, the program in the town that ‘was not recognized in the sport at all’ is consistently making state championships.

The House majority whip was first bitten by the political bug in the early 1990s when Emmer, an attorney at the time, and wife Jackie were living in an old converted country hotel with ‘200-year-old’ oak and maple trees in the front yard. The local public works team marked trees to be removed for a new road the next day.

The whip said his wife was ‘devastated’ by the development because you ‘just don’t get stuff like that in town,’ and Emmer called the mayor, a farmer, who drove to the congressman’s property at 10 p.m. ‘in his old, beat-up Cadillac Fleetwood’ and put his lights on the trees.

The mayor whipped out his cellphone and called the head of public works to save the trees by moving the road 80 feet into the farm field.

‘And after he did that, I was like, ‘Oh, well, this is the way it works,’ because the next thing that came was a sewer line that I didn’t need,’ Emmer said. ‘We had two acres, we had a young family and I was getting assessed tens of thousands of dollars for a sewer that I didn’t need and I didn’t want.

‘And that’s literally what got me involved running.’

Emmer’s candidacy comes after Jordan failed in his third bid for the speaker’s gavel.

House Republicans are starting from scratch to select a new candidate for speaker after Jordan was voted out of the race.

A deep roster of Republicans emerged as potential candidates to lead the House immediately after a closed-door House GOP vote on whether to keep Jordan as speaker designate.

Republicans are expected to meet behind closed doors Monday evening for a candidate forum before a conference-wide election via secret anonymous ballot on Tuesday.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.

The Pentagon said China adopted ‘more dangerous, coercive and provocative’ actions in the Indo-Pacific this year — as well as ‘risky’ intercepts against U.S. aircraft in the region.

The Department of Defense released its annual report on China’s military power this week, warning that the People’s Republic of China views its ‘no limits’ partnership with Russia as ‘integral’ to advancing its development and emergence as a ‘great power.’

China aims to become a ‘national power’ and achieve ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049, the Pentagon said.

Officials said the People’s Republic of China is ‘the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order.’

In order to achieve the ‘great rejuvenation,’ the report states China’s strategy is a ‘determined pursuit of political, social, and military modernity to expand the PRC’s national power, perfect its governance, and revise the international order in support of the PRC’s system of governance and national interests.’

‘The PRC views the United States as deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain the PRC’s rise, which presents obstacles to its national strategy,’ the report states.

The report also warns that the PRC has adopted ‘more dangerous, coercive and provocative actions in the Indo-Pacific region.’

‘For example, between the fall of 2021 and fall of 2023, the United States documented over 180 instances of PLA coercive and risky air intercepts against U.S. aircraft in the region,’ the report states. ‘Over the same period, the PLA also conducted around 100 instances of coercive and risky operational behavior in the air domain against U.S. allies and partners.’

China is also strengthening its ‘strategic deterrent,’ and is working to modernize, diversify and expand its nuclear forces, the report states. It is also working to develop its cyberspace, space and counter space capabilities.

As for China’s ambitions in Taiwan, the Pentagon said the PLA last year increased ‘provocative and destabilizing actions in and around the Taiwan Strait, including ballistic missile overflights of Taiwan, increased flights into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone, and large-scale simulated joint blockade and simulated joint firepower strike operations.’

The Pentagon also warned of China’s ‘no limits’ partnership with Russia, saying Beijing views that relationship as ‘integral to advancing the PRC’s development and emergence as a great power.’

‘Nevertheless, Beijing has attempted a discreet approach to providing material support to Russia for its war against Ukraine,’ the report states.

Meanwhile, the report states that China’s PLA has ‘largely denied, cancelled and ignored recurring bilateral U.S.-PRC military-to-military engagements and DOD requests for communication at multiple levels.’

‘DOD is committed to maintaining open lines of communication with the PRC to ensure competition does not veer into conflict,’ the report states.

The Pentagon said that while it continues to monitor China’s evolving military strategy, the United States, along with allies and partners, ‘will continue to urge the PRC to be more transparent about its military modernization program.’

‘The Department remains focused on the operational concepts, capabilities and resources necessary for meeting this pacing challenge,’ the report states.