Russian-led talks on Syria ended with agreement Tuesday to bolster a cease-fire even as apparent tensions with Iran, a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, threaten to hold up efforts to end the six-year civil war.
Contents: Trump may permit US military cooperation with Russia in Syria; Russia will build major naval base in Tartus Syria
The UN envoy for Syria said Tuesday that a final declaration was close to being achieved at indirect talks between Syrian rebels and their war-torn country’s regime in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.
The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is stepping up its oil and gas purchases from the Islamic State, which is currently occupying a number of Syrian cities. Assad’s military is nominally engaged in a war to eradicate the Islamic State.
After President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office and Hillary Clinton supporters finally accept it, an important question will confront a divided America: Can a once-great nation recover the greatness it has surrendered?
Emboldened by its success in Syria, Russia is turning its eyes to chaos-ridden Libya with support for a military strongman whose forces oppose the internationally backed government.
US President Barack Obama says he does not regret his speech drawing a “red line” over Syria’s use of chemical weapons, a phrase critics say symbolizes the US failure to act over the country’s conflict.
Russia plans to improve and expand its naval and air bases in Syria, Interfax news agency reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source, as Moscow cements its presence in the Middle Eastern country, its only overseas military deployment.
Contents: Syria says that Israel bombed al-Mazzeh military airport near Damascus; Israel’s motive was probably to prevent weapons from reaching Hezbollah
Forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian airstrikes and Iran-allied fighters, violated the ongoing truce in Syria 399 times in the first 11 days, according to the Turkey-based opposition group Syrian National Coalition.
Syria on Friday called on the international community to “punish” Israel for an apparent missile attack on a major military airport west of Damascus, and accused the US, Britain and France of supporting the assault.
The Syrian army said on Friday that Israeli missile strikes caused a series of explosions at an airbase outside Damascus before dawn.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has reportedly blamed the West, and specifically President Barack Obama, for the unprecedented crisis in Syria and the spread of terrorist groups to other countries in the Middle East.
The crowded Syrian skies are an accident waiting to happen between U.S. and Russian warplanes, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has learned from American pilots.
Russian military officials on Tuesday slammed US-led coalition action against Islamic State jihadists in Syria as having had “less than zero” impact, and claimed that a US air strike killed 20 Syrian civilians this month.
Speaking to French reporters this week, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad said he was “ready to negotiate everything” in an upcoming round of peace talks surrounding the six-year-old civil war in his country, including potentially stepping down as head of state.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to retake an area that supplies Damascus with water and rejected any negotiations on his departure at upcoming talks in Kazakhstan.
An Israeli-owned firm that builds all of the longtime U.S. ally’s spy satellites unveiled high-resolution images showing the deployment of Russian nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in Syria on Thursday. The images surfaced shortly before the Kremlin claimed it began reducing its military presence in Syria.
Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has appointed Aragua state governor Tareck El Aissami the nation’s new vice president. Multiple reports have linked El Aissami to both a major cocaine trafficking outlet and the jihadi terror organization Hezbollah.
Syrian pro-government forces clashed with rebels around the main water source for Damascus on Thursday, a monitor said, threatening a fragile ceasefire as it entered its seventh day.
The Islamic Republic will always back nations and groups that fight Israel, a top Iranian official vowed on Tuesday, the Tehran regime-aligned Tasnim news agency reported.
Contents: Video emerges from Burma (Myanmar) showing police beating Rohingya Muslims; Syrian opposition groups suspend negotiations of peace talks
Contents: Russia and Turkey announce a new ceasefire in Syria; Damascus Syria is without water after reservoirs were poisoned
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday that a ceasefire between the Syrian government and opposition forces, brokered and guaranteed by Russia and Turkey, would go into effect at midnight.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, formally announced the much-heralded Russian-Turkish-Iranian peace plan for Syria on Wednesday, with Russia claiming it has support from the United Nations. However, Turkey’s insistence that dictator Bashar Assad cannot be part of Syria’s long-term future may not sit well with Moscow.
At a press conference in Ankara Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed he has “confirmed evidence” that the U.S.-led coalition in the Middle East has given support to the Islamic State.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed on Monday that “mass graves of several dozens of Syrians who suffered atrocious torture and massacre” have been found near Aleppo.
Contents: UN Security Council fails to impose arms embargo on South Sudan; Leaders of South Sudan and Syria following parallel paths to genocide
Evacuations from rebel-held parts of Aleppo continued overnight with dozens of vehicles leaving the city and the operation likely to end on Thursday, aid workers said.
The United States denied Wednesday an Israeli claim that US-supplied armored vehicles seen being operated by Hezbollah in Syria had been given to the Islamist militia by Lebanon’s official army.
Contents: Man who shot Russia’s ambassador in Turkey was in security forces; Turkey and Russia blame Fethullah Gulen and the US for the assassination; Both Turkey and Russia stand to gain by blaming US for assassination
Israel has informed the United States that Lebanese Hezbollah fighters in Syria are using U.S. armored personnel carriers originally supplied to the Lebanese Army, a senior Israeli military officer said on Wednesday.
Russian investigators arrived in Turkey on Tuesday to probe the assassination of Moscow’s ambassador at an Ankara art show, as both sides pledged the murder would not damage improving relations.
Russia and Iran, allies of dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, met with pro-Syrian opposition Turkey in Moscow on Tuesday and agreed to work on drafting a peace deal and to serve as “guarantors” of any future resolution between the Syrian regime and rebel fighters, according to the Kremlin’s foreign minister (FM).
The foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey will discuss the future of Syria and the city of Aleppo at talks in Moscow on Tuesday, Turkish and Russian officials said.
An agreement was reached Saturday to allow “humanitarian cases” to leave two besieged government-held Shiite villages in northwestern Syria, a step that would allow the resumption of civilian and rebel evacuations from eastern Aleppo which were suspended a day earlier, Hezbollah’s media arm and a monitoring group said.
Contents: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad calls Aleppo’s ‘liberation’ a historic event; Syria and Russia suffer a big military setback in Palmyra; Syria’s civil war shows similarities to America’s Vietnam war
Hamas’ critical reaction to the bloodshed in Aleppo drew criticism from the pro-Hezbollah media in Lebanon.
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.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government of carrying out “nothing short of a massacre” in Aleppo, where thousands on Thursday were evacuated under a ceasefire deal from the last rebel enclave in a city besieged by fighting for years.
