Jabhat al-Nusra

Dutch authorities arrested a Syrian man suspected of having been a security chief for the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra.

Contents: Russia’s ‘humanitarian pause’ in Syria turns into farce on first day; Report: North Korea is selling chemical weapons supplies to Syria; Areas of control in Syria and Iraq

Contents: Turkey gets bogged down with military ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in Afrin, Syria; Syria says it will send its ‘popular forces’ to support the YPG against Turkey in Afrin

Contents: Israel’s F-16 warplane shot down in aftermath of downing Iranian drone; Turkish helicopter shot down in Afrin, days after Russian warplane downed in Idlib; With defeat of ISIS, war escalates, and Syria becomes more fragmented and chaotic

Contents: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad targets civilians and hospitals in never-ending war of extermination; Russia’s ‘de-escalation zones’ turn into total farce

Contents: Turkey announces major military operation in Syria’s Idlib province; Turkey’s success in Idlib is far from certain

Contents: UN report confirms al-Assad’s massive Sarin gas attack on April 4; Israeli warplanes strike Syrian chemical weapons site in Masyaf

“We have intelligence information that Assad is behind ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. Assad deceives everyone on this issue, including the Russians. He’s the one who gives them orders. Israel must be very concerned that our assessment is that once Assad is cornered and feels distressed, he will order ISIS to attack Israel. That will be his last-ditch effort, to try to drag Israel into this war, as a desperate measure.”

Contents: Qatar crisis triggered by $1 billion ransom payment to Iran and al-Qaeda; How to stop lone wolf attacks in London and Manchester

Contents: Russia, Iran and Turkey announce farcical new Syria peace plan; Syria refuses to permit foreign monitors

Contents: Terrorist bombings in Damascus, airstrikes in Idlib, break Syria’s ceasefire; Russian troops join Americans, Kurds, Sunni rebels in Manbij, Syria; Syria’s Bashar al-Assad says that the Americans are invaders.

Contents: Al-Nusra descendant claims credit for massive terror attack in Damascus, Syria; Al-Nusra becomes Levant Liberation Committee (LLC) and gains at expense of ISIS

A 26-year-old American citizen from Long Island, NY, who twice allegedly attempted to travel to Syria join the Islamic State’s (ISIS/ISIL) and its rival al-Qaeda’s jihad, threatened to behead his mother, prosecutors have revealed.

Contents: Terrorist bombings in Homs Syria trigger retaliation by al-Assad regime; Once again, so-called Syria ‘peace talks’ are near collapse

Contents: Investigation reveals depraved new atrocities by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad; Epicenter of Syrian conflict moves from Aleppo to Idlib and al-Bab

Contents: Russia, Iran, Turkey sign farcical Syria peace agreement; Syria peace conference sees a return to ‘proximity talks’; The aftermath of the destruction of Aleppo

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities have arrested two German-Moroccan brothers suspected of being members of the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front extremist groups.

Contents: Syria says that Israel bombed al-Mazzeh military airport near Damascus; Israel’s motive was probably to prevent weapons from reaching Hezbollah

The battle for Aleppo has gripped the world, but it is hardly the only active front across war-torn Syria. One of the next targets for the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad will probably be the heartland of rebel territory, the neighboring province of Idlib.

Contents: Communal violence grows in Myanmar (Burma) between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims; Syria and Russia resume bombings of women and children in Aleppo

President Barack Obama has granted the U.S. military the authority to locate and execute leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored and allowed to become the largest affiliate of the jihadist group in its history, reports The Washington Post (WaPo), citing unnamed U.S. officials.

Rebel factions, backed by the former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, have reportedly launched a major offensive to break the siege east of Syria’s Aleppo city by forces loyal to the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Contents: UN envoy Staffan de Mistura ask al-Nusra fighters to leave Aleppo; Staffan de Mistura predicts total destruction of Aleppo by Christmas

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Negotiations between America and Russia over the future of the nearly six-year-old civil war in Syria are on “life support,” says a U.S. State Department spokesman, as the two nations continue to spar over the future of war-ravaged Aleppo, blaming one another for the ongoing chaos and carnage in the city.

A former Guantánamo prisoner released in 2006 after he was extradited to Spain has reportedly been sentenced to 11 1/2 years in prison by Spanish court for leading a recruiting cell for al-Qaeda out of the European country’s capital.

Contents: Syria’s al-Assad goes for the kill, turning Aleppo and civilians to bloody rubble; Responses to reader comments

The British government’s focus on “fire-fighting” the threat posed by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq risks allowing other jihadist groups to spring up in the region and beyond, MPs have warned.

A “ceasefire” brokered by the U.S. and Russia is supposedly in effect in Syria, but you’d never know it from all the bombs and artillery shells raining down. Some of those bombs were dropped by the U.S.-led coalition on Syrian government forces, killing 62 of them.

Contents: As Syria ceasefire begins, Bashar al-Assad quickly rejects it; Confusion grows over role of al-Nusra Front in US-Russia peace plan

Contents: Turkey presses to establish a ‘no-fly zone’ in northern Syria; Turkey’s forces and Kurdish forces set to clash in Manbij; US and Russia once again announced a peace deal in Syria

The U.S.-led air campaign’s primary focus on the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in the Middle East has helped a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria gain strength, U.S. military officials and other analysts have acknowledged.

Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al Qaeda leader, has urged young Saudis in a new audio message to train with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to “gain the necessary experience” to overthrow Saudi Arabia’s kingdom, a U.S. ally, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadi activity online.

Contents: Stephen K. Bannon is named chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign; Furious UN envoy Staffan de Mistura excoriates Syria’s Bashar al-Assad; Six years of UN envoys and Syrian peace talks

For the second day in a row, Russian warplanes launched from an airbase in Iran to attack rebel targets in Syria. The U.S. government called these operations “unfortunate,” and suggested they might be a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Nusra Front, formally known as Jabhat al-Nusra, has been al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria since late 2011. The Syrian group’s leader has announced it will now cut its ties with al-Qaeda and become independent, with al-Qaeda’s blessing.

Contents: Syria’s Al-Nusra splits with al-Qaeda, becoming Jabhat Fateh al-Sham; Al-Nusra may have learned lessons from failures of ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq