
World View: Bashar al-Assad’s Syria Army Showing Signs of Collapse
Bashar al-Assad’s Syria army showing signs of collapse; Why do Awakening era civil wars always fizzle?; US speeds up weapons deliveries to militias in Yemen

Bashar al-Assad’s Syria army showing signs of collapse; Why do Awakening era civil wars always fizzle?; US speeds up weapons deliveries to militias in Yemen

The New York Times profiled the small town of Lisleby in Norway. However, it is not just any old small town. At least seven young men left the cozy town for Syria to join terrorist groups. Seven does not appear to be a large number, but it is for Lisleby, considering the town consists of only 6,000 residents.

The Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front released the estimated 300 Kurds it reportedly kidnapped in northwestern Syria after Kurdish authorities freed three jihadists who had been arrested, according to a Kurdish official and a monitor group.

There is a major Palestinian refugee camp on the road to Damascus, which the Islamic State is still marching down, despite efforts to “degrade and ultimately destroy” their war machine by Bashar Assad’s de facto allies in the U.S. coalition.

The Assyrian International News Agency reports on the arrest of the latest Westerner to come home after volunteering for combat duty in Iraq and Syria. The twist in this case is that Matthew Gardiner was a politician of some prominence in Australia — he was the head of the Northern Territory Labor Party before departing for Syria — and he is in trouble for fighting against ISIS, as part of the Kurdish militia.

The Syrian government and opposition members converged on Moscow to discuss humanitarian issues in the war torn country. Syria entered the fourth year of the civil war in March.

As Assyrian Christians were celebrating Easter Sunday, militants from the Islamic State blew up the 80-year-old church of the Virgin Mary in Tal Nasri village in the western countryside of Hasaka province, in northeastern Syria.

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Turkish authorities arrested ten Westerners and four Russians who attempted to cross into Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Members of a Palestinian faction linked to the terror group Hamas, backed by Syrian rebels, were able to retake large parts of a refugee camp in Syria that had been seized by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists, according to a monitoring group.

Another Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) woman is using social media and the internet to entice women to join the sadistic jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

The number of foreign fighters who have traveled to join the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al Qaeda in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries has reached a historic level, exceeding 25,000 from over 100 countries, reveals a new U.N. report.

Sources in Jarablus, Syria, which is 77 miles northeast of Aleppo and near the Turkish border, told ARA News that Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) militants savagely tortured two 9-year-old boys for playing instead of praying.

The difficulty of life under the dominion of a psychopathic jihad state is highlighted by a Foreign Policy article cheekily entitled “Death to the Infidel Chicken!” ISIS has been busy burning boxes of chicken because the food is supposedly impure from their religious standards, while ten million hungry people watch. (For the record, the food was certified halal, i.e. compliant with Islamic dietary restrictions).

(Reuters) – Jordan said it had temporarily closed its border crossing with Syria on Wednesday because of violence on the other side of the frontier, a move it described as a precautionary measure.

ISIS captures Yarmouk refugee camp, closes in on Damascus; Hezbollah trapped by a sense of collapse in al-Assad’s army; Turkmenistan fears jihadist invasion from Afghanistan; Palestinian Authority joins International Criminal Court

Islamic State terrorists conquered large areas of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital Wednesday and are battling Palestinian faction Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis for control, media reports indicate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin received massive blacklash from countries at the Arab summit when he submitted a letter that stated he could not “express support for the Middle East.” The leaders at the summit accused Putin of hypocrisy since he is a known ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Islamic State jihadists have released photos on social media of their counterparts in Syria destroying a cemetery by hammering tombs to the ground. The group claims to object to tombs as wrongful worship of the dead, though much of the material was also taken away to use as construction materials.

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) released images of a couple being stoned to death in Iraq. The militants charged the man and woman with having sex before marriage.

ISIS released another beheading video through social media on Sunday. The new film is notable in two respects: the victims were captive Shiite Muslims in Syria who were described as “impure infidels” by their captors, and a group of teenage boys were employed as assistant executioners, continuing the Islamic State’s trend of working children into their murder videos.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad indicated that, contrary to assessments by U.S. officials, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria is actually getting stronger, recruiting an estimated 1,000 militants each month in those two countries alone.

In an extensive interview with the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw, a captured Islamic State jihadist tells reporters that he and his comrades took hallucinogenic drugs “just before” entering battle that distorted the look of the battlefield and made them feel more empowered to kill.

Syria’s al-Assad regime suffers major military setback in Idlib; Arab League positions harden against Houthis and Iran