There is ‘lots of evidence’ that chemical weapons are being prepared by Syrian government forces in Idlib in northwest Syria, the new U.S. adviser for Syria said on Thursday, as he warned of the risks of an offensive on the country’s last big rebel enclave.
Israel’s Defense Forces have carried out more than 200 airstrikes in Syria over the last year, many of which Israel claimed were targeting Iranian positions and weapons convoys, the IDF stated on Tuesday.
Israel carried out airstrikes against Iranian military targets in the Syrian provinces of Hama and Tartus on Tuesday, a monitoring group said.
Israel will combat any Iranian threat in Syria and beyond, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Monday, just one week after Iran was reported to have transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Shi’ite allies in Iraq in recent months.
Israel signaled on Monday that it could attack suspected Iranian military assets in Iraq, as it has done with scores of air strikes in war-torn Syria.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies Iran and Russia not to ‘recklessly attack’ Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, warning that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Sunday with a US envoy for Syria for talks on the war-ravaged country and Iran, his office said.
The United Nations called on Russia, Iran and Turkey on Thursday to forestall a battle in Syria’s Idlib province which would affect millions of civilians and could see both sides using chlorine as a chemical weapon.
Russia’s navy announced it will open ‘large-scale drills’ in the Mediterranean on Saturday in the latest sign that a major Syrian government offensive against one of the last rebel strongholds in the country is imminent — a development that the United Nations warns could trigger a fresh refugee crisis in the Middle East nation’s 7-year-old civil war.
Iran’s hardline government has sentenced four Christians to harsh prison terms for putting their faith in Jesus Christ.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday described militants in Syria’s last big rebel-held enclave of Idlib as a ‘festering abscess’ that needed to be liquidated.
NATO confirmed a large-scale Russian navy buildup in the Mediterranean Sea off Syria on Tuesday. ‘The Russian Navy has dispatched substantial naval forces to the Mediterranean, including several ships equipped with modern cruise missiles,’ NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu confirmed to Haaretz in a statement.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said on Monday it had noticed Washington was building up its military forces in the Middle East in preparation for what Moscow feared was a possible strike on Syrian government forces, Russian news agencies reported.
The Russian government is warning of a staged gas attack by Syrian rebels in Idlib. Experts doubt the validity of that information, however, and see the move as a telltale sign of desperation in Moscow.
Iran has signed a deal to rebuild Syria’s armed forces, which have been depleted by more than seven years civil war, Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said on Monday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will visit Iran on Sept 7, his office said on Monday, on a trip expected to include a three-way summit with Russian and Iranian leaders.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech marking the first anniversary of the liberation of the Syrian border from the ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra control, and claimed that it could not embark on another fight in Lebanon.
Iran and Syria signed a deal for military cooperation in a meeting between the defense ministers of the two countries in Damascus, the Tasnim news agency reported on Monday.
A senior Iranian cleric on Wednesday warned that Tehran would target Israel if the United States harmed the Islamic Republic, continuing an escalating war of words over sanctions reimposed by Washington.
US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday said the administration wasn’t discussing potential recognition of Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the Golan Heights, despite reported pressure from Jerusalem to make the move.