Tag: Syria

The United States condemned an “agreement between Lebanese Hezbollah and ISIS” allowing hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families to be bused through Syrian territory controlled by President Assad to an area on the Iraq border.  Later, US-led coalition aircraft bombed a road and vehicles in Syria on Wednesday in an effort to prevent those […]

As the debate rages on within the United States about female service members joining the fight in direct combat roles, in nations like Syria, women are embroiled not only in a fight against perception, but against an ideology that would see them enslaved. The People’s Protection Units, commonly referred to as YPG, are primarily Kurdish […]

The new Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yehiyeh Sinwar, told the media on Monday that the group has repaired its five-year old rift with Iran and now the Iranians are Hamas’ largest backer both militarily and financially. Hamas is now preparing for new hostilities toward Israel. This announcement is hardly news to the Israelis. […]

For three decades, Hezbollah maintained a singular focus as a Lebanese military group fighting Israel. It built a network of bunkers and tunnels near Lebanon’s southern border, trained thousands of committed fighters to battle Israel’s army and built up an arsenal of rockets capable of striking far across the Jewish state. But as the Middle […]

The Lebanese Army has announced a pause in fighting with Islamic State militants to help facilitate hostage negotiations for security personnel IS took prisoner in 2014. The armed forces launched their campaign against IS militants entrenched in the mountainous Jurud Ras Baalbek and Jurud al-Qaa areas on Lebanon’s eastern border in mid-August. “The army command […]

Iraq’s armed forces announced that they’ve captured two areas on the edge of the town of Tal Afar. Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, the commander of the Iraqi troops, said that Iraqi Special Forces drove the Islamic State militants from one area on the southwestern edge of town and police and paramilitary units from […]

A report filed by a panel of independent U.N. experts filed earlier this month shows that two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program have been intercepted within the last six months, indicating that the two nations have been cooperating in the development of weapons of mass […]

Last March, China quietly deployed troops to Syria. The soldiers, according to Chinese officials, trained members of the Syrian army, offering advice on medicine and logistics. Despite how little fanfare surrounded this move, it was, in fact, very significant: this is the first time China has sent troops to the Middle East for any reason […]

Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations. The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month […]

The U.S.-backed Lebanese army launched a long-awaited offensive on Saturday against Islamic State militants holed up in a remote stretch of northeastern Lebanon, just as a separate offensive by the Hezbollah militia and the Syrian army got underway right across the border in Syria. The offensive is the biggest military operation launched by the Lebanese […]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday his country had foiled Western designs to topple him but his army had not yet won the fight to end Syria’s six-year-old insurgency. In an televised address, Assad said that even though there were signs of victory after six-and-a-half years of civil war, the “battle continues, and where […]

Washington’s main Syrian ally in the fight against Islamic State 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, believes the United States has a “strategic interest” […]