Idlib

SUWAGHIYA, Syria – Buses began evacuating fighters and civilians from two besieged pro-regime towns in Syria early on Thursday morning under a deal that will allow thousands to leave after three years of encirclement.

Contents: Stage is set for a new humanitarian catastrophe in Syria’s Idlib province; Turkey warns Syria’s Bashar al-Assad not to attack Idlib province

Contents: The Ghouta ‘ceasefire’ turns into a Syrian army scam to steal humanitarian aid; Syria says close to defeating Jaysh al-Islam in Eastern Ghouta

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

The State Department and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley condemned the Russian government this week following reports of a new Syrian government attack on civilians using chemical weapons. Russia guaranteed that Damascus has destroyed its entire chemical weapons arsenal in 2014.

Contents: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad steps up use of chemical weapons on his own people; UN Security Council is worthless as Syria uses chemical weapons with impunity

Contents: Russia’s Syria peace talks in Sochi dissolve into farce as Lavrov gets heckled; Russia sidelines the failed United Nations Syria peace process; War continues in full force, with Syria and Turkey killing ‘terrorists’

Contents: Turkey’s troops mass on border, preparing to invade northern Syria; Collapse of the Russian ‘peace process’; The growing conflagration in northwest Syria

Contents: Al-Assad’s continued chlorine attacks on civilians follow Putin’s ‘Grozny model’; Syria’s al-Assad threatens to drive hundreds of thousands more refugees into Turkey and Europe

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

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.

Contents: Mattis and Tillerson work to prevent Iraq vs Kurd military confrontation in Kirkuk; ISIS fighters permitted to leave Raqqa, Syria, with human shields; Syria demands ‘immediately’ pullout of Turkey’s forces from Idlib province

Contents: Iraqi troops and tanks seen massing near Kirkuk, poised to attack Kurds; Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas announce unity agreement; Turkey’s tanks and troops cross border into Syria’s Idlib in apparent truce with HTS

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

Contents: International Red Cross: Fighting in Syria worst since Aleppo; Analyst gives a chilling analysis of where the Syrian war is going

Contents: Turkey reshuffles top military leaders in preparation for action in Syria; Turkey announces plans for military action against Kurds in northern Syria

The Lebanese army captured a number of strategic hilltops bordering Syria from Islamic State militants on Sunday, amid mounting expectations for a campaign to decisively defeat them there, the army and state media said.

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.

Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary Boris Johnson’s credibility suffered a blow in the G7 after proposals to levy targeted sanctions on senior Russian and Syrian figures were rejected.

A key witness to the alleged gas attack on Idlib, Syria, was tried in the UK for kidnapping journalists with a jihadist group.

In a strong appeal, Pope Francis said he was “horrified” by Tuesday’s slaughter of men, women and children in a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria.

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called on world powers to intervene in the Syrian civil war and to remove chemical weapons from Syria according to its “obligation” from 2013.

A suspected chemical attack in a town in Syria’s northern Idlib province killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country’s six-year civil war.

Syrian opposition activists are saying there have been several people killed in a suspected chemical attack in a town in the northern Idlib province.

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.

Turkish officials said that an aircraft believed to belong to the Syrian military crashed near the Turkey-Syria border Saturday, with the Syrian opposition claiming to Turkish media they were responsible for shooting the plane down.

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

The headlines on Day One of the latest Syrian ceasefire, this time brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran without U.S. or U.N. involvement, is that it’s holding together despite “minor violations” — such as 20 air raids by the Syrian government against rebel positions near Idlib and ground action supported by attack helicopters in the suburbs of Damascus.

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

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.

The Russia and Iran-backed Syrian forces will continue their brutal onslaught after pushing rebels out of city of Aleppo, according to dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian regime and its Russian patron have attempted to patch up the quickly-shattered ceasefire in Aleppo and arrange for civilian evacuations, a point unclear in the previous arrangement.

Airstrikes on a village in the Syrian province of Idlib killed at least 21 civilians on Sunday, among them three children, a monitor said.