Despite President Obama’s claim on Monday that he has not yet made a decision about supplying defensive weapons to the Ukrainian army, which is battling Russia-backed separatists who want an independent region within that country, the Russian media is full of predictions. They’re warning of the terrible impact further U.S. involvement in the conflict might have.

Quoting a member of the Russian Defense Ministry's public advisory board who requested anonymity, The Moscow Times reported Monday that if the U.S. supplied arms to Ukraine, it would be viewed as an act of war. That action would not only increase the tension in the region, it would also force the Kremlin to “respond asymmetrically against Washington or its allies on other fronts,” the publication reported.

Related: Obama – If Putin Really Wanted Ukraine, He Could Take It

Evgeny Buzhinsky, a former lieutenant general in the Russian Army who is now at the Moscow-based PIR Center, told the publication, “Russia would reasonably consider the U.S. to be a direct participant in the conflict.”

Also on Monday, the government-owned news agency ITAR-TASS reported that Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said, “We see major pressure on the issue in the United States, especially in Congress.”

“If the U.S., following a request from the Ukrainian government, starts supplying weapons to Kiev, it will violate a number of international documents,” Churkin said. “The U.S. has repeatedly chosen a graded approach to rules of international law.”

The government news agency also quoted Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, as calling the U.S. position a bluff. “It is just a kind of poker bidding up, it is a bluff, an attempt to press Putin to be more tractable,” Bortnik reportedly said.

Related: Putin Won’t Commit to Peace Talks on Ukraine

Will the U.S. supply arms to Ukraine? “Of course not,” Bortnik told TASS. “It might trigger an arms race bound to end up in Ukraine’s complete military defeat.”

Bortnik and his organization, it should be noted, are difficult to find in news archives, except in stories published by Russia’s government-friendly media.

The Obama administration’s position on arming Ukraine is actually still far from clear.

While Obama held open the possibility during Monday’s joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who arrived in Washington, D.C. Sunday evening, he was also dismissive of the Ukrainian army’s ability to effectively counter a “determined” Russian advance. U.S. aid, Obama suggested, would be aimed at raising the costs to Russia of further aggression, not actually preventing it entirely.

Related: Putin: 17 Things You Never Knew About the Russian President

“The prospect for a military solution to this problem has always been low,” he said. “Russia obviously has an extraordinarily powerful military and given the length of the Russian border with Ukraine, given the history between Russia and Ukraine, expecting that if Russia is determined that Ukraine can fully rebuff a Russian army has always been unlikely.”

Ukraine has been losing ground in its eastern regions to the pro-Russian separatists, who are apparently armed with advanced armor from Russia. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko over the weekend made an emotional appeal to western leaders for defensive weapons to help counter the separatists’ assaults. “We are an independent nation and we have a right to defend our people,” Poroshenko said Saturday at a high-level security conference in Munich. “Over the course of the offensive we have proved to be responsible and we will not use the defensive equipment for attack.”

The Russian official, who requested anonymity, said that Russia can also encourage or support Iran in a fight with Saudi Arabia, pushing the oil prices up. Russian economy is expected to contract more than 3% this year due to fall in oil prices. Evgeny Buzhinsky, a former lieutenant general in Russian Army, said that the Kremlin would consider the United States to be a “direct participant in the conflict.”

Russia shows military might ahead of peace talks

On Monday, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin told the state-run ITAR-TASS news agency that the U.S. was under “major pressure” to arm Ukraine. U.S. security experts have proposed sending at least $3 billion worth of lethal weapons to Ukraine to help the country defend itself against Russian-backed separatists.

Pro-Russia separatists said Tuesday that they had completely encircled Ukrainian troops in the strategic town of Debaltseve. The town holds strategic importance for both sides in the conflict as it connects the rebel-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) to Russia. Meanwhile, Russia has started a military exercise of 600 troops in Crimea a day before the four-way peace summit in Minsk. Another 2,000 Russian soldiers have started massive exercises near the Ukraine border in a show of military strength.

BY ISABEL COLES

NEAR ZUMAR, Iraq Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:29pm GMT

Displaced Iraqi people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar west of Mosul, walk at the Qadia camp on the outskirts of Dohuk province December 7, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/ARI JALAL

(Reuters) - Some members of Iraq's Yazidi minority are turning on their Arab neighbours, staging deadly reprisals against Sunni villagers they believe collaborated in atrocities inflicted by Islamic State on their community.

Yazidis returning to their northern home area of Sinjar are uncovering one mass grave after another, evidence of Islamic State's rule from last August until its fighters were driven back there late last year.

Now some are striking back. More than a dozen Sunni Arab residents told Reuters that armed groups of Yazidis raided four of their villages in Sinjar two weeks ago, killing at least 21 people. A further 17 went missing.

"It was an act of revenge by the Yazidis," said 41-year-old Dhafer Ali Hussein from Sibaya, one of the affected villages. "The aim is to expel Arabs from the area so that only Yazidis remain: they want to change the map."

Yazidis, whose ancient religion has elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam, suffered grievously after Islamic State's rapid offensive last year. Hundreds were killed and thousands captured, enslaved and raped by the Sunni Muslim militants, who consider Yazidis devil worshippers.

Those who could, fled in the summer heat in an exodus that helped to prompt a U.S.-led airstrike campaign against the jihadist group in both Iraq and Syria.

The identity of the Yazidi assailants is unclear because there are several competing forces fighting Islamic State in Sinjar and blaming each other.

But the reprisals are exposing how Islamic State's incursion has created divisions between communities that had coexisted for decades, turning one village against another and making enemies of former friends. They also show the risk of similar violence when other groups displaced by Islamic State, such as Shi'ite Turkmen and Shabak, Christians and Kakais, are able to return home.

In the past week, the remains of more than 40 Yazidis were discovered in two bloodstained pits in northwest Iraq.

Residents of Sibaya, now staying in another village about 45 km (28 miles) away, say they helped Yazidis escape in August and stashed away their belongings for safekeeping, even though the jihadists punished those found doing so.

But Yazidis from the nearby Gohbal settlement say Arabs in the surrounding villages sided with Islamic State, looting their possessions and actively participating in what they call attempted genocide.

Sunni residents admitted several men from Sibaya had joined the militants but said they were killed or fled to Syria when Kurdish peshmerga forces drove Islamic State from the area in December.

After regaining control, the peshmerga confiscated weapons from Arab villagers, who began to receive threats from Yazidis, culminating in the attack on Sibaya and Chiri on Jan. 25.

The following day, Yazidi gunmen plundered and torched the nearby Arab villages of Khazuga and Sayer, whose residents had already fled. Peshmerga intervened to prevent attacks on two other villages.

"JUDGEMENT DAY"

Most of Sibaya's 1,000 residents were sleeping when gunshots signalled the arrival of a military convoy flying the Kurdish flag. At first, they thought peshmerga or Kurdish secret police known as Asayish, both of which recruit local Yazidis, were conducting a routine inspection.

Two Yazidis, one in military uniform, came to 31-year old Nawaf Ahmed's house and ordered him to hand over his car keys and identification.

"Who does that belong to?" asked the one in uniform, pointing at an electricity generator, which Ahmed explained had been entrusted to him by a Yazidi friend. "You are all Islamic State," said the other, loading the generator into Ahmed's car and driving off with it.

Dozens of civilian cars began to arrive from the direction of Gohbal and men, whom the Arab villagers identified as local Yazidis helped themselves to household appliances, vehicles and livestock.

Women said the assailants, dressed in military and civilian clothing, pulled rings off their fingers and stole valuables from their pockets. Many people fled, some hiding in a nearby valley. Those who stayed said they saw the men spread out through Sibaya and pour petrol from jerry cans before setting fire to the village, incinerating several elderly people in their homes.

Kheder Ahmed, a 35-year-old shepherd with mental disabilities, was tending his flock on the outskirts of Sibaya when a car sped up to him. His elder brother, Idrees, watched from a distance as a man got out of the vehicle and shot Kheder before making off with his sheep.

Idrees later took Kheder to hospital in the Kurdish city of Duhok, where he lay last week with a bullet wound to his right side.

On the same ward were six other villagers wounded in the attack, including 11-year-old Raddad, who had been shot twice. "It was like Judgement Day had arrived," Raddad's father said.

As Sibaya burned, the gunmen moved on to Chiri, 2 km to the south, where 60-year-old Abdullah Muhammed watched smoke rising from the neighbouring village. One of the militants thrust a machine gun barrel in Muhammed's chest and ordered him out.

"Where should I go?" Muhammad recalled asking. "Go to hell!" was the reply. "We are the Yazidi state!" Muhammad said he had been spared because one of the assailants knew him personally and allowed him to escape.

Jomaa Marii was less fortunate: he was shot dead in front of his wife. "I saw it with my own eyes," she said.

Once night fell and the gunmen withdrew, residents of both villages returned to retrieve the dead, protected by peshmerga.

Of the 10 corpses recovered from Sibaya, three were old women, residents told Reuters. Four bodies had been burned, one belonging to a community elder bound to a chair. Eleven corpses were found in Chiri.

AFTERMATH

The villagers Reuters spoke to accused prominent Yazidi fighter Qassem Shesho of involvement in the attacks. Shesho, who is close to the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), confirmed he had been in Sibaya and Chiri that day, but denied his men were responsible.

"Our traditions do not allow for that kind of behaviour," he told Reuters by phone, instead blaming "extremists" serving a foreign agenda - a reference to the rival Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliate, which are fighting in Sinjar and have formed a Yazidi militia there.

The PKK says it had nothing to do with it.

Yazidi civilians took up arms alongside them during a months-long siege of Mount Sinjar by Islamic State last year. Kurdish peshmerga and Asayish officers are also present in the area.

Arabs and Yazidis agree Sinjar will never be the same as it was before Islamic State came, when they were friends and farmed together. Many Yazidis no longer trust the peshmerga to defend them, while the newly displaced Arabs, all from the Juhaish tribe, said they would return to their villages only if Kurdish forces physically separated them.

"It's not possible for us to live with each other anymore," said a 60-year old Yazidi man from Gohbal, sitting inside a tent at a camp in the Kurdistan region. "Arabs cannot be trusted, especially the Juhaish: the Juhaish are our enemies."

He said Arab villages deserved to be attacked: "They destroyed our houses so we want theirs to be destroyed too."

Since the attack on Chiri and Sibaya, two Yazidis have been killed in Sinjar, in what some believe was an Arab reprisal. Others said it was an internal Yazidi feud. "For every action there is a reaction," said an Arab man from Sinjar. "This is not over".

(Editing by Stephen Kalin and David Stamp)

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday he has a "profound disagreement" with President Barack Obama over efforts by the US and world powers to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.

However, he said he is still trying to minimise the impact of the dispute on his country's relations with the United States.

"We do have today a profound disagreement with the United States administration and the rest of the P5+1 over the offer that has been made to Iran," Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying.

Iran and Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany have been seeking a comprehensive accord that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

In his statement, Netanyahu said what the P5+1 was offering in the negotiations "would enable Iran to threaten Israel's survival."

"This is a regime, Iran, that is openly committed to Israel's destruction," he said.

"It would be able, under this deal, to break out to a nuclear weapon in a short time, and within a few years, to have the industrial capability to produce many nuclear bombs for the goal of our destruction."

Obama has refused to meet Netanyahu during his trip to Washington next month, saying diplomatic protocol forbade him from doing so, as the Israeli leader is fighting for re-election on March 17.

"This is not a personal disagreement between President Obama and me. I deeply appreciate all that he has done for Israel in many fields," said Netanyahu.

"Equally, I know that the president appreciates my responsibility, my foremost responsibility, to protect and defend the security of Israel.

"I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the president, but because I must fulfil my obligation to speak up on a matter that affects the very survival of my country.

"I intend to speak about this issue before the March 24th deadline and I intend to speak in the US Congress because Congress might have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran."

Some lawmakers are threatening to seek new sanctions on Tehran.

Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb and says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes only.

President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that world powers must "seize the opportunity" of a nuclear deal, insisting Tehran had taken the "necessary steps" for an accord.

Two deadlines for a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear programme have already been missed, requiring the talks to be extended.

Negotiators are now working toward the political outline of a deal by March 31, with the cut-off point for the technical details of a comprehensive accord by June 30.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.

Intelligence agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some have succeeded in reaching in the Syrian war zone, officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number are still fighting with extremists.

The testimony and other data were obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any other point in the past 20 years.

U.S. officials fear that some of the foreign fighters, who come from 90 countries, will return undetected to their homes in Europe or the U.S. to mount terrorist attacks. At least one of the men responsible for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris had spent time with Islamic extremists in Yemen.

Meanwhile, the White House circulated a proposal Tuesday that would have Congress authorize the U.S. military to fight Islamic State terrorists over the next three years. A formal request for legislation is expected on Wednesday.

Also at the White House, President Barack Obama praised Kayla Jean Mueller, the young American whose death was confirmed Tuesday. Mueller died while in Islamic State hands, though the group blamed a Jordanian airstrike, and Obama said, "No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla's captivity and death."

As for foreign fighters, officials acknowledge it has been hard to track the Americans and Europeans who have made it to Syria, where the Islamic State group is the dominant force trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad. The U.S. Embassy in Syria is closed, and the CIA has no permanent presence on the ground.

"Once in Syria, it is very difficult to discern what happens there," according to Wednesday's prepared testimony of Michael Steinbach, the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism. "This lack of clarity remains troubling."

The 20,000-fighters estimate is up from 19,000, Rasmussen will tell the House committee, according to prepared testimony. The number of Americans or U.S. residents who have gone or tried to go is up to 150 from 50 a year ago and 100 in the fall.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee, said in his prepared remarks that the Syrian war had created "the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history." Sustained bombing by a U.S.-led coalition has not stopped the inflow, he noted.

McCaul's committee staff compiled from public sources a list of 18 U.S. citizens or residents who joined or attempted to join the Islamic State group, and 18 others who tried to or succeeded in joining other violent Islamic groups.

U.S. intelligence officials do not make public their estimate of how many Americans currently are fighting in Syria and Iraq. In September, FBI director James Comey said it was "about a dozen."