November 4th, 20170RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Lebanon's prime minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Saturday, citing an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.
His resignation thrusts Lebanon back into the frontline of Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry and seems likely to exacerbate...
November 1st, 20170BEIRUT - An Israeli airstrike targeted a factory south of the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday and the Syrian army responded by firing a surface-to-air missile at the aircraft, a commander in a military alliance fighting in support of Damascus said.
The commander told Reuters the airstrike had hit a copper factory in the industrial...
October 24th, 20170NEW YORK - Russia cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday preventing the renewal of the mandate for a mission that investigates the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Russia wanted to discuss the report by the Joint Investigative Mechanism before voting on the extension of the mandate
The investigation by the...
October 17th, 20170RAQQA, Syria ― U.S.-backed militias in Syria have declared victory over ISIS in its capital Raqqa, a milestone in the fight to roll back the theocratic “caliphate” declared in 2014.
The city
Sunni militant group ISIS overran Raqqa in January 2014, seizing control from rebel factions opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar...
October 16th, 20170BEIRUT ― Lebanon can no longer handle vast numbers of Syrian refugees, its president said on Monday, urging world powers to help them return to the calmer parts of their war-torn homeland.
More than six years into the Syrian war, 1.5 million refugees who fled the violence now account for a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
Lebanese...
October 5th, 20170MIZIARA, Lebanon ― Abu Khaled had lived in the Lebanese town of Miziara for almost 20 years until a woman’s suspected murder by a Syrian refugee led to his expulsion alongside several hundred other Syrians.
“They gave us notice to evict at 2 a.m.,” said Abu Khaled, standing outside a bare building in a nearby village with some...
September 29th, 20170RAQQA ― U.S.-backed militias expect to push all ISIS fighters out of their former Syrian headquarters of Raqqa in less than a month, a Kurdish commander told Reuters on Monday.
Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militias have hemmed the jihadists into a few districts in the north of the city.
The Kurdish...
September 22nd, 20172By Zarefah Baroud
Most women will agree that female representation in the media is incredibly important for a plethora of reasons— not only in media but also politics and other platforms lacking opportunity for female participants.
Providing women of all ages a strong and positive role model could break a toxic habit and pattern...
September 13th, 20170BEIRUT/MOSCOW — The Lebanese group Hezbollah has declared victory in the Syrian war while Russia said government forces had driven militants from much of the country where President Bashar al-Assad’s rule seemed in danger two years ago.
The comments from two Syrian government allies mark the most confident assessments yet of...
September 8th, 20170BEIRUT — The Syrian army and its allies reached Deir al-Zor on Tuesday in a sudden advance following months of steady progress east across the desert. On Thursday, the army advanced against militants in a pocket they still hold further west, pro-Damascus media reported.
Syrian state media reported an aid convoy arrived at Deir...
September 3rd, 20170BEIRUT —A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families left the Lebanon-Syria border region on Monday under Syrian military escort, surrendering their enclave and traveling to eastern Syria after a week-long battle.
A line of ambulances and buses were shown on Syrian state television driving slowly through the arid countryside, the...
September 3rd, 20170BEIRUT - The governor of Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, Mohammed Ibrahim Samra, said the Syrian army would reach Deir al-Zor city, which has been besieged by ISIS for years, within 48 hours.
“The heroes of the army will arrive at Deir al-Zor in 24-48 hours at the most,” he told Reuters by phone, adding that the army was now...
September 3rd, 20170HONG KONG - Against all odds, Syria’s footballers have overcome more than six years of civil war and internal political rifts to raise hopes of qualifying for their first ever World Cup.
Forced to play their home games away due to security concerns, Ayman Hakeem’s Syria have embarrassed a succession of better-resourced opponents...
August 29th, 20170BEIRUT - A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families left the Lebanon-Syria border region on Monday under Syrian military escort, surrendering their enclave and traveling to eastern Syria after a week-long battle.
A line of ambulances and buses were shown on Syrian state television driving slowly through the arid countryside, the...
August 20th, 20170AIN ISSA, SYRIA — Washington's main Syrian ally in the fight against ISIS says the U.S. military will remain in northern Syria long after the jihadists are defeated, predicting enduring ties with the Kurdish-dominated region.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of militias dominated by the Kurdish YPG,...
August 20th, 20170BEIRUT — Lebanese and Syrian ministers pledged to boost economic ties on Wednesday, part of a visit that has challenged the Lebanese state's policy of neutrality toward Syria's war.
Government ministers from Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Amal party arrived in Syria for a trade fair, a trip that has ignited a political row in...
August 10th, 20170Young men who leave their homes to fight for terrorist groups in Syria mainly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have low levels of education and “lack any basic understanding of the true meaning of jihad or even the Islamic faith”, according to a study for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.
The report, which was...
August 2nd, 20170BEIRUT- George and Amal Clooney said on Monday they would help 3,000 Syrian refugee children go to school this year in Lebanon, where the United Nations says 200,000 children are not receiving an education after fleeing the war in neighboring Syria.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice said it has teamed up with Google and HP Inc to help...
July 28th, 20170Israel, which has played a precarious role in the Syrian war since 2011, is furious to learn that the future of the conflict is not to its liking.
The six-year-old Syria war is moving to a new stage, perhaps its final. The Syrian regime is consolidating its control over most of the populated centers, while ISIS is losing ground fast...
July 27th, 20170WASHINGTON - Questions have once again been raised over President Donald Trump’s grasp on foreign policy after he appeared to misunderstand the political and militery role played by the pwerful Lebanese party of Hezbollah in the Middle East’s complex geopolitics.
During a news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad...
July 24th, 20170BEIRUT – Hezbollah said on Monday its battle with Nusra Front jihadists at the Syria-Lebanon border was almost over and urged remaining insurgents in the area to give up, pressing its campaign to take their last foothold at the frontier.
With the Nusra Front almost beaten in the mountainous area on the outskirts of the Lebanese town...
July 5th, 20170BEIRUT ― Human Rights Watch on Wednesday demanded an independent inquiry into the deaths of four Syrians who died while in Lebanese army custody and said anyone responsible for wrongdoing should be held to account.
The Lebanese army said on Tuesday that the four Syrian men arrested during a raid on a refugee camp on Friday had died...
June 12th, 20170RAQQA —At Raqqa's eastern edge, a handful of Syrian fighters cross a river by foot and car, all the while relaying their coordinates to the U.S.-led coalition so they don't fall victim to friendly fire.
This is their only way into al-Mishlab, the first district the Kurdish and Arab militias have swept into, in what the coalition...
May 24th, 20170SYRIA- A car bomb exploded in Homs on Tuesday morning, Syrian state television said, two days after the city went back under full government control for the first time since 2011.
Authorities destroyed another vehicle rigged with explosives near a Shi'ite Muslim shrine south of Damascus, the broadcaster and other state media...
May 19th, 20171DAMASCUS — The Syrian government on Tuesday denied U.S. accusations that a crematorium had been built at one of its prisons that could be used to dispose of detainees' remains.
A foreign ministry statement published by state news agency SANA said the U.S. administration had come out with "a new Hollywood story detached from reality"...
May 16th, 20170
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The United States has evidence Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has built a crematorium at a large military prison outside the capital Damascus, a State Department official said on Monday.
Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said U.S. officials believe the...
May 10th, 20170VILNIUS ― Despite fierce opposition from NATO ally Turkey, President Trump has approved supplying arms to Kurdish YPG fighters to support an operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from ISIS, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Ankara views the Kurdish YPG militia, fighting within a larger U.S.-backed coalition, as the Syrian...
May 5th, 20170SOCHI, RUSSIA — On Wednesday, the leaders of Russia and Turkey publicly re-affirmed their commitment to working together to end the conflict in Syria, despite a gas attack on a Syrian city that tested their fragile alliance
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, have formed a pact on Syria...
