The U.S. State Department changed its usual description of the Golan Heights from ‘Israeli-occupied’ to ‘Israeli-controlled’ in an annual global human rights report released on Wednesday.
Turkey is discussing with Russia and the United States a potential military offensive in a region of northeast Syria controlled by Kurdish fighters, a Turkish defense official was cited as saying by state media on Tuesday.
About 3,000 Islamic State members in the group’s last holdout in Syria surrendered.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday vowed to push for U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in what would represent a new contentious political gift to Israel from the Trump administration.
Islamic State’s final enclave in eastern Syria was pounded with air strikes and artillery on Monday in a U.S.-backed assault aimed at wiping out the last shred of its territorial rule that once spanned a third of Syria and Iraq.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Israel fears another war with the Lebanese Shi’ite group, and that the United States has imposed sanctions against it because the US and Israel ‘failed in their military campaigns.’
A top Iranian military figure in the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, recently outlined the rogue nation’s long-term plans to ‘defeat world powers,’ saying that Tehran has been ‘chosen to wage jihad’ across the globe.
The United States should not sell its high-tech F-35 fighter jet to Turkey if Ankara moves ahead with plans to buy a Russian missile defense system, the top US military commander for Europe told Congress on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian forces fighting the Islamic State group says thousands of people, including militants, have left the last area held by the extremists in Syria.
Russia and Israel share the goal of removing all foreign troops from Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting.
The top U.S. and Russian generals are set to meet to discuss the situation in Syria, where the two countries, along with Iran and Turkey, have been militarily involved in the Middle East country’s eight-year civil war.
President Trump acknowledged Saturday a small contingent of U.S. troops will remain in Syria despite announcing last year his controversial decision to withdraw all American forces from the country.
Following their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ‘showed an understanding of Israel’s security needs’ regarding Iran’s presence in Syria.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel will continue to take action against Iran in Syria, in the first significant meeting between the two since a major spat developed over a downed spy plane last year.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad made his first public visit to his closest regional ally Iran since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday and championing their alliance, state media reported.
A senior Iranian defense official boasted Saturday that Iran has achieved the vast majority of its objectives in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war, and dismissed the efficacy of Israeli efforts to counter the Islamic Republic’s military presence there.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next Wednesday, his office said Thursday.
President Trump on Thursday spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about strategy in Syria ahead of a meeting between the top military leaders from each country.
Washington said on Thursday that it planned to leave some US forces behind in Syria, even after the bulk of American troops left the country.
Islamic State appeared closer to defeat in its last enclave in eastern Syria on Wednesday, as a civilian convoy left the besieged area where U.S.-backed forces estimate a few hundred jihadists are still holed up.