Tensions soar as Syrian fight nears Israeli border — with possible Iranian military presence
It was yet another sign that the Syrian civil war, with a possible Iranian military presence, has arrived on Israel’s doorstep.
It was yet another sign that the Syrian civil war, with a possible Iranian military presence, has arrived on Israel’s doorstep.
The Syrian Civil War, which has lasted more than seven years, has claimed the lives of at least 500,000 people, displaced more than 12 million from their homes and cost others, too many to count, their arms and legs, each victim lost in the fog of war.
Syria on Sunday accused Israel of targeting an air base in the central Homs province known to be operated by Iranian forces, claiming that its air defenses were activated in response to the attack and hit an Israeli jet.
Russia on Thursday blocked the UN Security Council from adopting a statement on the situation in southwestern Syria, where rebels are under intense bombardment, diplomats said after an urgent meeting requested by Sweden and Kuwait.
On Monday elements of the Iranian-backed Liwa Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas and the Syrian regime’s Republican Guard were reported to be leading the Syrian regime’s offensive near the Golan, attempting to cut the Syrian rebels territory in half.
Israel beefed up its tank and artillery deployment on the Golan Heights frontier with Syria on Sunday, cautioning Damascus’ forces to keep a distance as they sweep rebel-held areas over the border.
Talks between the Syrian opposition and Russian negotiators to reach a ceasefire in a rebel-held town in southwestern Syria have resumed after mediation by Jordan that has been seeking a ceasefire, an opposition spokesman said.
The Syrian army battled rebels in an important town in southwest Syria on Thursday, a media unit run by its ally Hezbollah and a war monitor said, as intensifying air strikes killed dozens of people in the area.
US President Donald Trump intends to demand from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a full Iranian pullout from Syria territory, making the subject a priority in talks between the two leaders planned for next month, the Arabic-language Al-Hayat newspaper reported Thursday.
French investigators are trying to establish the veracity of claims that ISIS plotted to send child recruits from Syria to Europe to carry out terrorist attacks, according to a report by the daily newspaper Le Monde, based on the interrogation of a suspect in French custody.
A new wave of civil unrest erupts in Iran as citizens demand improvements in the economy.
Forces loyal to the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad took control of an abandoned UN post in the no-man’s land between the Israeli and Syrian areas of the Golan Heights, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported on Sunday.
Russian jets struck an opposition held town in southwest Syria on Sunday, opposition sources said, in the first air cover provided by Moscow to an expanding Syrian army offensive to recapture the strategic area bordering Jordan and the Israeli Golan Heights.
Turkey will continue to ‘liberate Syrian lands’ so that refugees can return to Syria safely, President Tayyip Erdogan said in an election victory speech on Monday.
A spokesman says the U.N. is ‘deeply concerned’ about the safety of an estimated 750,000 people in southern Syria amid an unraveling cease-fire.
A Syrian army officer was killed in a US strike on a Syrian army outpost near a US base close to the Iraqi-Syrian border, a commander in the regional alliance supporting President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters.
As the Trump administration has promised to help Christians and other religious minorities who faced genocide at the hands of the Islamic State, the U.S. government has resettled only 10 Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria since the beginning of 2018.
U.S. and Turkish military patrols have begun operating in the highly strategic northern Syrian enclave of Manbij, heading off a feared clash between the two NATO allies but potentially leaving the Pentagon’s Kurdish allies in the region shortchanged once again.
Syrian state media reported Monday that an airstrike against pro-government forces in the far east of the country caused casualties, while Iraqi officials said 20 Shiite paramilitaries were killed just across the border.
Russian President Vladimir Putin can expect Israel to attack his Iranian partners anywhere they operate in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.