Russia has shut down a vital communication line with its U.S. counterparts in Syria, threatening to target any aircraft operating above Russian and Syrian regime-controlled territory in the country.
The convoluted war zone in Syria grew more complicated Sunday with the downing of a government warplane by an American jet defending U.S.-backed coalition forces battling the Islamic State and, for the first time, direct action against the insurgent terror group by Iran, which fired ballistic missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria.
U.S.-backed Syrian forces aiming to oust Islamic State from its Syrian stronghold Raqqa captured a ruined fortress on the edge of the city on Wednesday and a U.S. coalition official said the attack was set to accelerate.
U.S.-backed Syrian forces launched the long-awaited assault on the Islamic State’s self-styled capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, marking what the Pentagon says will be the beginning of the end of the terrorist group’s hopes for a caliphate in its last major stronghold in the country.
Donald Trump’s administration is pledging a Supreme Court showdown over his travel ban after a federal appeals ruled that the ban “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”
A coalition airstrike in Syria on Thursday targeted pro-regime forces who were threatening a coalition base where advisers train anti-Islamic State fighters, the U.S.-led coalition command said.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced new sanctions Monday against Syria for its chemical weapon attack, targeting 271 Syrian individuals involved in the Bashar Assad regime’s chemical weapons program.
President Trump vowed U.S. troops are “not going into Syria,” during an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo that is set to air Wednesday.
American warships stationed off the Syrian coastline fired a salvo of cruise missiles against a Syrian military base in the western part of the country, days after a regime chemical strike left nearly 100 civilians wounded or dead.
Reports that Iran is building workshops and facilities to make advanced rockets inside Lebanon is a “huge development” that constitutes a “whole new kind of threat,” Chagai Tzuriel, director- general of the Intelligence Ministry, said Monday.
Russia has sent a clear message to Israel that the rules of the game have changed in Syria and its freedom to act in Syrian skies is over, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday night.
Israel is said to have struck Syria overnight Sunday-Monday, the second strike in 24 hours and third in three days as tensions escalated between the two countries over the weekend.
Russia on Friday summoned Israeli Ambassador Gary Koren to justify Israel’s air strike in Syria at a target near the city of Palmyra.
Russia and the United States were headed for a clash at the UN Security Council on Tuesday as Moscow prepared to veto a draft resolution that would impose sanctions on Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
Iran, Russia and Turkey will establish a trilateral mechanism to observe and ensure full compliance with the ceasefire in Syria, prevent any provocations and determine exactly how the ceasefire will work, the three nations said in a joint statement.
Russia announced on Friday that it is withdrawing its aircraft carrier and some other Russian warships from the waters off Syria as the first step in a drawdown of its forces in the war-torn Mideast country.
The major players involved in the long-running Syrian conflict have agreed to a cease-fire set to begin at midnight on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier in the day.
Russia threatened Sunday to veto a U.N. resolution demanding immediate access to areas of Aleppo besieged by the Syrian government, while a shaky deal to evacuate thousands of trapped civilians was thrown into doubt again after militants burned buses involved in the rescue operation.
The rout of Syrian rebels by the Russian-backed forces of President Bashar Assad in the city of Aleppo likely marks the beginning of the end of the civil war that has ravaged the country for more than 5 years and led to the unprecedented slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting.