by Paul Szoldra The Kurdish Peshmerga has been battling the ISIS terror group since it swept through much of Iraq and Syria …

The American University in Beirut, which was ranked first in the Middle-East at  228th on the overall list. The American University in Cairo has been ranked as the second best university in the Middle East and North Africa region and 365th worldwide, according to an annual ranking released by QS World University Rankings. The annual QS rankings rate the world’s top universities using six different indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio and international student ratio.

AUC's rank directly followed the George Washington University, Northeastern University and Virginia Tech, three prestigious US universities.  It's the only private institution in Egypt included in the QS rankings. “There are a lot of universities in the world; to be in the 300 band is extraordinary,” said Ted Purinton, dean of the Graduate School of Education and an expert in international education, in an AUC press release. According to Purinton, AUC ranked higher than the University of Milan, the American University in Washington DC, Stellenbosch University, Brandeis, Wake Forest University, and Florida State.

"These are all top universities, all of which are widely known and very prestigious. Thus, I would say we should feel exceedingly proud of where we are now,” Purinton added. While AUC’s ranking has dipped down and back up again over the years, Purinton explained that there should be little concern over slight changes in a university’s rankings. “Universities float around within bands of rankings for very minor issues,” he said. He added that if a university had a slight change in the number of international students or faculty members, most of the university's community will not feel the impact, yet its ranking score will noticeably change.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is weighing a deployment of up to 1,000 American soldiers to Kuwait to serve as a reserve force in the fight against Islamic State as U.S.-backed fighters accelerate the offensive in Syria and Iraq, U.S. officials told Reuters. Proponents of the option, which has not been previously reported, said it would provide U.S. commanders on the ground greater flexibility to quickly respond to unforeseen opportunities and challenges on the battlefield. It would also represent a step away from standard practices under President Barack Obama's administration by leaving the ultimate decision on whether to deploy some of those Kuwait-based reserve forces in Syria or Iraq to local commanders.

"This is about providing options," said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials said the deployment would differ from the existing U.S. troop presence in Kuwait. It was unclear whether the proposal had the support of U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who could opt to use other tools to give commanders more agility. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis declined to comment on options being weighed by the Trump administration.