The United States and Russia struggled Monday to keep alive negotiations to end the bloodshed between US-backed rebels and Syria’s Russian-aligned regime. Even as top diplomats vowed to keep trying, President Barack Obama expressed skepticism that an unlikely alliance between rivals would yield the breakthrough needed to end the 5-year-old civil war.
The UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to people closely associated with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of an aid program that critics fear is increasingly at the whim of the government in Damascus, a Guardian investigation has found.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out at least two chemical attacks in Syria in the past two years and the Islamic State also used mustard gas as a weapon, the United Nations reported Wednesday.
The Israeli Defense Forces on Monday carried out a strike in the Syrian Golan Heights in retaliation to mortar fire that landed on the Israeli side of the border, the IDF said in a statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has outflanked Washington again in the Syrian civil war by launching bombers this week from a new base — Iran — giving him the power to strike more quickly with heavier bombardments against U.S.-backed rebels, analysts say.
Russia took a scornful swipe at the United States on Wednesday, defending its use of Iranian air bases to launch air strikes on Syria and suggesting State Department officials should “check their logic and knowledge” over the issue.
Russian warplanes took off on Tuesday from a base in Iran to target Islamic State fighters and other militants in Syria, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, marking a major development in the country’s civil war, now in its sixth year.
Russian warplanes reportedly bombed a secret military base in Syria used by elite American and British forces last month.
An air strike said to have been carried out by an Israeli jet hit a Syrian army post near the Syrian side of Golan Heights on Wednesday, two Syrian rebel sources told Reuters.
Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II and other senior leaders of the Syriac Orthodox Church survived an assassination attempt on June 19.
A brazen assault by three suicide bombers on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport has set the stage for a more violent conflict between Turkey and the Islamic State, a development that would deepen Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war.
The Obama administration has offered to help Russia improve its targeting of terrorist groups in Syria if Moscow will stop bombing civilians and opposition fighters who have signed on to a cease-fire and use its influence to force Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to do the same.
U.S. military officials conducted a video conference Saturday with their Russian counterparts, telling them about “strong concerns” about the bombing Thursday of American-trained Syrian rebels.
State Department officials shook up America’s generally obedient diplomatic establishment this week with an internal memo urging U.S. military action against Syria’s government with the goal of pressing President Bashar Assad to accept a cease-fire and gaining the upper hand on him in future talks on a political transition.
As losses continue to mount for Islamic State fighters along multiple fronts in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group is facing the most serious threat to its Middle East strongholds since the beginning of the U.S.-led coalition campaign.
The Syrian website ‘Zaman Al Wasl,’ which identifies with the opposition forces, quoted a military official from the Syrian regime who claimed that the Israel Air Force had carried out an airstrike against military targets close to a village 13 kilometers north of Homs.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Monday that Russia would provide “the most active” support to the Syrian army to keep the strategic city of Aleppo and the surrounding area from falling into the hands of “terrorists.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hope to meet by Thursday to find a way to boost the deteriorating ceasefire in Syria.
President Obama is expected to announce Monday that he is sending another 250 military personnel to Syria to assist local forces combat the Islamic State, according to multiple reports.
Syria’s army vowed Sunday to follow its victory against the Islamic State group in the city of Palmyra with an advance against the jihadists in their other strongholds.