Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday afternoon the beginning of a major military offensive, bizarrely dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” against America’s battlefield allies in Syria, the Kurdish YPG militia.
In a speech to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States would retain a military presence in Syria for the foreseeable future.
US intelligence agencies have given Israel the green light to assassinate the senior Iranian responsible for coordinating military activity on behalf of the Islamic Republic in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida.
Dozens of Syrian rebels and their families departed aboard buses from an area besieged by government forces bordering the Israeli Golan Heights early Saturday in part of a deal to clear yet another district of anti-regime insurgents.
There hasn’t been much love lost between Syria and Turkey since long before Syria’s civil war heated up in 2011, but the war of words escalated this week when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Syrian President Bashar Assad a “terrorist.” The Syrian regime responded by accusing Turkey of supporting terrorism and spilling Syrian blood.
Besieged Syrian rebels near the country’s three-way border with Israel and Lebanon near Mt. Hermon have been ordered by surrounding regime forces to surrender or face defeat, Reuters reported Tuesday night.
Israel reportedly attacked a military scientific research center in the Jamraya area on the outskirts of Damascus late Monday night, according to media affiliated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida revealed on Sunday that an Israeli source disclosed a promise from Jerusalem to destroy all Iranian facilities within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of Israel’s Golan Heights.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, back in Beirut after a mysterious odyssey that saw him announce his resignation in Saudi Arabia, told cheering supporters on Wednesday that he was staying.
TEL AVIV – Dramatic footage broadcast over the weekend shows Syrian women and their children crossing the border into Israel to receive medical treatment.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — At least 14 civilians including a young girl were killed by Syrian regime bombardment of the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus on Saturday, a monitor said.
Egypt faces high expectations from Saudi Arabia and its other Gulf Arab benefactors that it will have their back as tensions rise with their rival Iran, including throwing the weight of its military — the largest standing Arab army — into the crisis if needed.
Addressing an inter-Arab forum on Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar Assad denounced the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings as a triumph for “extremism” over “Arab identity,” described the Muslim Brotherhood as an English plot to undermine pan-Arab nationalism, and said there should be no conflict between Arabism and Islam.
The Russian government is putting together a meeting on November 18 between the Syrian government and opposition groups to talk about resolving the Syrian civil war. Opposition leaders quoted by the Associated Press denounced the Russian initiative as an effort to undermine United Nations talks scheduled for just ten days later in Geneva.
Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis offered a rosy outlook for his national economy on Tuesday that seems difficult to square with the reality of a nation devastated by six years of civil war.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called the Syrian government’s siege of suburban Damascus an “outrage” on Friday, and demanded access for aid workers so they could head off a “humanitarian emergency.”
BEIRUT — Over several nights in September, some 10,000 men, women and children fled areas under Islamic State control, hurrying through fields in northern Syria and risking fire from government troops to reach a province held by an al-Qaeda-linked group.
American intelligence reports suggesting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was cremating the bodies of hundreds of prisoners in a facility near Damascus prompted Israel to examine the possibility of bombing the area, but the plan was eventually shelved over the defense establishment’s concerns that the move would lead to a rapid security escalation on the northern border.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia alliance led by the Syrian Kurds, claims Russian warplanes bombed their positions in the Deir al-Zor province on Monday. Russia has denied the allegations, while U.S. commanders said they could not verify the source of the attack on the SDF.
Russia has urged Syrian President Bashar Assad not to retaliate against Israel after an airstrike on the country’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, which the Syrian regime attributes to Israel, a senior Russia official dealing with Middle East affairs told Yedioth Ahronoth in an conversation in Moscow over the weekend.
An Israeli satellite imaging company released photographs on Sunday showing the effects of last week’s airstrike on a Syrian weapons base that was attributed to the Israeli Air Force.
A senior Israeli official warned the Russian government that if Iran continues to extend its reach in Syria, Israel will bomb Syrian President Bashar Assad’s palace in Damascus, according to reports in Arab media.
TEL AVIV – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday thanked allies Iran, Hezbollah and Russia for helping him overcome Western attempts for his ouster and added that he would not be restoring diplomatic ties with countries that support “terrorist” opposition groups in Syria.
TEL AVIV – Israel is “gravely concerned” at the failure on the part of the U.S. to commit to securing an agreement to end the civil war in Syria that would see all Iranian military presence eliminated from the country, an Israeli security expert said on Monday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday refused any security cooperation with Western nations or the reopening of their embassies, until they cut ties with opposition and insurgent groups.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says the Israeli leader will travel to Russia on Wednesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
TEL AVIV – In recent weeks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have advanced in critical pockets of territory directly adjacent to ceasefire zones agreed upon in a number of areas, an Arab intelligence source told Breitbart Jerusalem.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement with the Syrian government on Wednesday to ensure a Russian presence at the Hmeymim airbase for another half century, with options to extend the lease in 25-year increments.
Jihadists on Sunday took Idlib in Syria, after rival rebels withdrew, strengthening their grip over the northwestern city and its province, one of the last beyond regime control.
Hezbollah vows to “surprise Israel” during any upcoming war, upping the war of words between the Lebanese Shi’ite terror group and Israel.
On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the ceasefire and “de-escalation” plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should include all of Syria, not just the southwestern region of the country.
On Friday, as President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. State Department confirmed the two sides had reached a ceasefire agreement in Syria. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called it, “the first indication of the U.S. and Russia being able to work together in Syria.”
On Thursday, Syria and Russia denied U.S. allegations that the Assad regime was planning another chemical weapons attack. The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Washington of seeking a “pretext” to launch new military strikes against Syria.
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton appeared on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about the Supreme Court’s opinion on President Trump’s immigration order, the White House warning to Syria on chemical weapons, North Korea’s claim that President Trump’s “American First” platform is “a version of Nazism,” and the collapse of Venezuela.
US President Donald Trump’s warning to the Syrian government not to carry out a chemical weapons attack appears to have worked, American Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Wednesday.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, en route to a NATO meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, told reporters that Syria appears to have backed away from conducting a chemical weapons attack after President Donald Trump’s warning.
MOSCOW — Meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Tuesday, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein acknowledged “tension” over Syria and Iran, as the two parliamentary leaders hailed increasingly friendly ties between Moscow and Jerusalem.
US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed during a telephone call Tuesday on the need for a “joint response” in the event of another chemical attack in Syria, the French presidency said.
Syria has denied White House allegations that it may be preparing a new chemical attack, insisting again that it has never used such arms.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President and former National Security editor for Breitbart News, discussed President Trump’s Cuba policy, America’s downing of a Syrian warplane, and the release of American hostage Otto Warmbier from North Korea on Monday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily.
