Month: September 2016

WASHINGTON — Syria said Saturday that the Damascus government of embattled President Bashar al-Assad had accepted the cease-fire deal brokered by its Russian ally and the United States. “A cessation of hostilities will begin in Aleppo for humanitarian reasons,” the Syrian news agency SANA said. […]

Israeli aircraft attacked a Syrian artillery post on Saturday after a stray shell from fighting in Syria’s civil war landed inside the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Israel’s military said. The shell landed just across the border, causing no injuries, and in retaliation the air force targeted […]

The war in Syria with each passing day becomes less comprehensible even for Syrians. To date, there is no united front. There are a few hundred different militant groups fighting the Syrian government and each other. There are also foreign forces who are also involved […]

Washington’s plan to boost its Sunni alliance in the Middle East may bear no fruit, as Turkey has shifted the goalposts and established an alliance with Iran, a powerful state and a key player in the Shia Axis. Whether one likes it or not, Russia’s […]

Turkey’s ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield was supposed to help tackle Daesh in the border regions, but has instead been mostly focused on the Kurds will “hardly have a positive effect” on the political and security situation in Syria, analyst Timur Dzhukaev wrote for the Vzglyad. […]

Iraqi security forces clean up a site in the aftermath of a bomb explosion near a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 10, 2016. Share Two bomb blasts outside a shopping mall in Baghdad have killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens of […]

Iran has begun building its second nuclear power plant. Russia is helping Iran with the construction of the facility near the southern port city of Bushehr, the site of Iran’s other operational nuclear plant. Construction of the site is expected to take about 10 years […]

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, was chagrined and embarrassed this week after he asked, “What is Aleppo?” in reply to a question on MSNBC. Mr. Johnson made no excuses and said later he simply “blanked” — his word — when asked what he […]

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on Syria’s civil war (all times local): 11:30 p.m. Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which is taking part in Syria’s civil war, says it supports the cease-fire but vows to continue fighting against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s affiliate. Hezbollah’s […]