Escalating offensive in Syria: Strategic advances and geopolitical realignments
December 6th, 20240 On Israel’s timing: Turkey turns against the “de-escalation” agreement as armed groups overrun northern Syria and advance southward The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has described the recent sweeping offensive involving formerly rival factions as a meticulously coordinated and long-prepared operation. This multi-faceted...
Tehran vows revenge after U.N. Security Council fails to condemn Israel’s strike on its embassy in Syria
April 7th, 20241 On Wednesday, the United States, Britain and France opposed a Russian-drafted U.N. Security Council statement that would have condemned an attack on Iran's embassy compound in Syria, which Tehran has blamed on Washington's ally Israel. Press statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed to by consensus. Diplomats said the U.S.,...
U.S. forces under attack in the Middle East as America slides towards the brink
November 10th, 20230 WASHINGTON, D.C./BAGHDAD – On Thursday, U.S. forces were targeted in three attacks in Iraq but suffered no casualties, security sources have said, in the most geographically widespread series of strikes on U.S. assets in a single day since the Israel-Hamas conflict started. A defective drone in Iraq may have helped keep America from...
Biden to seek $14 billion in military aid for Israel as invasion of Gaza nears
October 20th, 20230 On Thursday, President Biden asked Americans to spend billions more dollars to help Israel fight Hamas while Israel's defense minister told his troops to be ready to go into the Gaza Strip to destroy the Palestinian militant group. In a televised White House speech late on Thursday that also addressed Ukraine's effort to repel Russia's...
At least 100 killed in drone attack on Syrian military academy
October 12th, 20230 At least 100 people were killed on Thursday in an attack on a military academy in Syria, a war monitor and an official said, with weaponized drones bombing the site minutes after Syria's defense minister left a graduation ceremony there. It was one of the bloodiest attacks ever against a Syrian army installation, and unprecedented in...
U.S. General Mark Milley: U.S. military forces in Syria depends on ISIS threat
August 29th, 20230 The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told Jordanian TV on August 24 that U.S. military forces would remain stationed in northeast Syria to “fight ISIS” for the foreseeable future. “The ideology is not dead yet, and there are some ISIS terrorists that are still roaming the deserts of Syria and...
Iran backs the Syrian government’s demands for withdrawal of foreign forces
August 25th, 20230 Amir Saeid Iravani, the Iranian permanent representative to the United Nations, says Iran supports the demands of the Syrian government for a complete withdrawal of “all illegal foreign military forces from Syria.” During a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday addressing the situation in the war-torn country, Iravani argued...
Syria’s U.N. representative claims U.S. is providing Syrian armed groups with chemical weapons
August 18th, 20231 Syria’s representative to the United Nations said that the U.S. has provided armed groups in western Syria with chemical weapons, training the groups to use the weapons to launch a possible false flag attack during a U.N. Security Council session on Wednesday, August 9. “U.S. occupation forces provided terrorists in Al-Tanf with...
U.S. forces making moves at the Iraqi-Syrian border
August 18th, 20231 According to local reports, U.S. military forces stationed at an airbase in the Anbar province in western Iraq plan to seal off the border running hundreds of kilometers between Iraq and Syria. The pro-Syrian government al-Watan daily newspaper cited an unnamed Syrian security source, reporting that U.S. troops are planning to close...
Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani visits Damascus, discusses border security with Assad
July 21st, 20230 DAMASCUS — Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani traveled to Damascus on Sunday to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The trip marks the first time an Iraqi premier has visited Syria since 2011. The discussion covered various topics, including mitigating the drought’s impact on both countries, enhancing...
Syria’s Assad boosted by return to Arab fold
May 19th, 20230 President Bashar al-Assad has always seen time as an ally in the Syrian civil war, along with the Iranian and Russian firepower that helped him defeat his enemies, according to sources familiar with his thinking. After more than 12 years of civil conflict that made him a reviled figure to much of the world, his strategy appears have...
Syria, Saudi Arabia move toward restoring embassies, flights
April 14th, 20230 Syria and Saudi Arabia said Thursday they were moving toward reopening embassies and resuming flights between the two countries for the first time in more than a decade. The joint statement followed a visit by Syria’s top diplomat to the kingdom, the first since Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Syria in 2012. Syria was...
Syrian air defenses shoot down Israeli missiles over Damascus
March 31st, 20230 DAMASCUS — At least three huge explosions were heard in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Friday, according to a Reuters' report. The Syrian air defenses confronted an "Israeli aggression" over Damascus, Syrian state media reported, without providing details if there were any casualties or damages. Israel conducted air strikes...
Middle East flashpoints that could be affected by Saudi-Iran deal
March 17th, 20230 Here is a summary of the situation in parts of the Middle East where Iran and Saudi Arabia have been involved in proxy conflicts and which could be affected by a Beijing-brokered deal to re-establish relations between the two regional powers. Yemen In 2015, Riyadh intervened in Yemen at the head of a Western-backed coalition...
Syria condemns U.S. top general’s “illegal” visit to American army base
March 10th, 20230 Syria’s foreign ministry has condemned a surprise visit by the United States’ top military officer to an army base in the Kurdish-held northeast, dubbing it “illegal,” state media reported. In his snap visit last Saturday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley met U.S. troops stationed in areas of war-torn Syria......
True champions of humanity in Türkiye and Syria: We thank you
February 22nd, 20230 On February 7, a funeral was held in the northern Syrian town of Jinderis. It was one of numerous such funerals to be held on that day across Syria and Türkiye, following a devastating earthquake that killed and injured thousands. Each one of these funerals represented two seemingly opposite notions: Collective grief and collective...
Local communities rush to provide relief to the victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake
February 17th, 20230 International efforts to provide relief to the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria are accompanied by many local initiatives and donation campaigns in the Detroit region to help the victims of the disaster that claimed the lives of tens of thousands and wounded and displaced hundreds of thousands of families in the eastern......
In Syria a child is saved, but loses his family
February 11th, 20231 Rescuers working by torchlight pulled 3-year-old Tariq Haidar from the rubble some 42 hours after a devastating earthquake destroyed his family home in the Syrian town of Jandaris. His family couldn't be saved. Orphaned by the earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in the dead of night on Monday, Haidar was brought to a hospital where...
Hope fades for survivors as Turkey-Syria earthquake toll passes 20,000
February 10th, 20230 Cold, hunger and despair gripped hundreds of thousands of people left homeless after the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria three days ago as the death toll passed 20,000 on Thursday. The rescue of a 2-year-old boy after 79 hours trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, Turkey, and several other people raised...
Syria stands alone in healing its wounds from devastating earthquake
February 10th, 20230 The dawn of February 6, 2023 will be recorded as a typical tragedy that befell the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, or to be precise, part of their peoples. The fear and panic, despite their magnitude, can’t be compared to the horror and devastation of being buried under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings. It is an...
In Syria’s quake-hit Aleppo, survivors try to reach the missing
February 10th, 20230 ALEPPO, Syria – After Monday's earthquake brought down his family's building in Syria's battle-scarred second city of Aleppo, Youssef managed to reach one of his trapped relatives by phone, hearing voices despite a bad line. Since then the 25-year-old has been standing in near-freezing weather by the rubble, unable to get through......
China offers emergency aid of $4.4 mln to earthquake-hit Syria
February 8th, 20230 BEIJING - China will offer emergency humanitarian aid of 30 million yuan ($4.4 million) to earthquake-hit Syria, its foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, told a regular news briefing on Wednesday. The death toll of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has jumped to more than 8,700. read more Mao said $2 million of the...
New York woman charged with financing terrorist groups in Syria through cryptocurrency
February 4th, 20230 A New York City woman has been charged with using cryptocurrency to provide financial support to terrorist groups in Syria, a rare prosecution involving virtual currency to fund terrorism. The 11-count indictment charged Victoria Jacobs, 43, who was known as Bakhrom Talipov, with providing support for an act of terrorism, money......
