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ISIS massacres 300 and kidnaps at least 400 including women and children during attack on government-held city ISIS have abducted at least 400 civilians including women and children after capturing new territory in an assault on Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor. Activists from the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they believed ISIS rounded up the civilians following an attack on the north of the city. 'After their attack on Deir Ezzor yesterday, IS abducted at least 400 civilians from the residents of the Al-Baghaliyeh suburb it captured and adjacent areas in the northwest of the city,' the...

The Iran-backed Shia terrorist group Hezbollah has lost an estimated 1,300 to 1,500 soldiers, more than one-third of its force, while fighting against rebels and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Syria on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to Israeli experts. Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, another 5,000 Hezbollah jihadists have been wounded, analysts reportedly said.

Senior US Security Sources: Syria's Main Missile and Chemical Weapons Facility at Homs Blown up in Mysterious Explosions on March 24. North Koreans Among Tens of Engineers and Technicians Killed in Underground Plant. Factory Manufactured Scud-C and Scud-D, Liquid and Solid Fuels, Chemical Warheads, Oxidizers. Syrians Suspect Israeli Undercover Saboteurs Struck in Reprisal for Syrian Military Intelligence Aid in Terrorist Hit against Galilee Highway on March 12 - Or US Reprisal for Free al Qaeda Transit through Syria. Israeli Air Force Chief Halutz: Odds on Second Front Opening up in North Higher than Contemplated Few Months Back. Continuing Shelling and...

Syria rebels begin leaving Homs under truce deal AFP By Maher Al Mounes 2 hours ago Homs (Syria) (AFP) - Syrian rebels began evacuating the last opposition-held district in Homs on Wednesday, paving the way for President Bashar al-Assad's regime to take full control of the country's third-largest city. Hundreds of Syrian rebels and civilians were leaving the Waer district under a rare local ceasefire agreed with the regime at the start of December. Some 2,000 rebels and their families will abandon Waer in Homs -- once dubbed the "capital" of Syria's revolution -- to travel to other opposition-held areas,...

Revolutionary Guards Quds Force's notorious chief Qassem Suleimani severely injured in clashes south of Aleppo For nearly 5 years the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force’s notorious chief Qassem Suleimani has been spearheading Iran’s full-pledged support for the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. This shadowy figure has been the symbol of Tehran’s infamous plots in Syria, and reports have also indicated Suleimani was running the show and issuing orders to senior Syrian generals and political officials, and at times, even Assad himself. Enjoying the full support of and reporting only to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Suleimani had unimaginable authority in Syria. That...

This video brilliantly explains Syria's four-year civil war became so complicated, as we teeter on the edge of becoming militarily involved in it for the first time. Taking us from the first protests against Assad's regime in early 2011, the Vox video explains how different factions emerged over time and the war evolved into a confrontation between regional powers as well as the US and Russia. Next time someone argues for or against whether we should bomb Islamic State in Syria as if it's straight forward, suggest they watch this.

In Turkish media it emerges that Turkey's support for ISIS jihadists in Syria comes from the highest level of power in the country - the President and the government. Today's Zaman, which is controlled by the Gülen movement, writes that President Recep Erdoğan has admitted that the Turkish intelligence service, MIT, has smuggled weapons to ISIS in Syria. In a speech on November 24, to an assembly of teachers, the president said, according to the newspaper: "You know of the treason regarding the MIT trucks, don't you? So what if there were weapons in them? I believe that our people...

Moscow/Beirut (dpa) - One hundred and sixty Russian citizens fighting for the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria have been killed, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Thursday, amid stepped-up international military action in the war-torn country. "At the present time, there are more than 25,000 foreign terrorist militants fighting under the banner of Islamic State, including from Arab countries, Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States [a bloc of post-Soviet republics]," Oleg Syromolotov said, quoted by state news agency TASS. He added that 2,719 Russian citizens had gone to fight for the Islamist militia in Syria. "One...

(AGI) Ankara, Nov 11 - The Turkish government is preparing to send 10,700 soldiers to Syria in mid-December to fight ISIS and create safe areas for displaced people in the north of the country, reported pro-government daily Yeni Safak. The newspaper said that Ankara will present a document analysing the situation in Syria and will include a request for funds to the great powers at the G20 summit in Antalya over the weekend. Ankara's aim would be to reverse the course of the military campaign against the jihadists and the migrant crisis. The plan provides for the entry of troops...

The conflict in Syria has drawn in major global powers, some supporting and some opposing President Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family has ruled Syria for more than four decades, but how did they rise to power? Hafez al-Assad was the architect of modern Syria. Following decades of coups and counter-coups in Syria, Hafez used the network he had built in the posts of Commander of the Syrian air force and Minister of Defence to seize power in 1970. To maintain his position, Hafez created a system of divide and rule and personalised his power to such an extent that it...

MANAMA, Bahrain – The United States is ramping up its support for Syria's opposition with a pledge of nearly $100 million in fresh aid. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the additional assistance Saturday at the Manama Dialogue security conference in the Gulf island nation of Bahrain.

In an interview with Spanish newspapers that was published October 31st, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon condemned U.S. President Barack Obama’s demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be removed from office, and Moon said: “The future of Assad must be determined by the Syrian people.” The U.N. Secretary General is here implicitly blaming all of this - lots of blood and misery - on U.S. President Obama, and on the “many Western countries” who ally with him and have joined with him in demanding regime-change in Syria. The position of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been, and is, to the...

IDF units on Mount Hermon, which borders Syria, are preparing to encounter Iranian-backed terror attacks, a senior military source told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. According to the source, units operating under the command of the Mount Hermon territorial Brigade have been training to respond to a "combined terror attack" that could involve border bombs, rockets, an attempted kidnapping of soldiers, and possible anti-tank missile fire. "There is someone who gets up every morning and asks, how can I carry out an attack on Israel? Most of the time, they run into great difficulties," the source said. He stressed that...

In order to deter the Syrian and Russian Air Forces inside the East Ghouta (collection of farms) region of rural Damascus, the U.S. backed moderate rebels from “Jaysh Al-Islam” (Army of Islam) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have placed kidnapped Alawite women in cages to protect themselves from airstrikes. The U.S. backed Syrian Opposition’s social media activists posted the photos of the six kidnapped Alawite women on Twitter, adding their extra commentary that included sectarian insults to degrade the helpless women and taunt the Syrian President Dr. Bashar Al-Assad. This is not the first time that the U.S. backed...

Obama’s decision to send Special Forces into Syria is being widely viewed as a US military escalation in the country. The troop dispatch also signals that the US trying to forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington’s regime-change assets in Syria. In short, the US Special Forces are being used as “human shields” to curb Russian air strikes against anti-government mercenaries, many of whom are instrumental in Washington’s regime-change objective in Syria. First of all, we need to view a host of developments, including the hastily convened “peace talks” in Vienna, as a response by the US and its allies...

Bashar al-Assad denies dropping barrel bombs in Syria, but evidence overwhelmingly says otherwise. The use of barrel bombs has fueled the mass exodus of refugees from the country. Videos continue to be posted to YouTube showing helicopters in Syria dropping what appear to be the unpredictable weapon. Human rights group Amnesty International found that more than 3,000 civilian deaths between January 2014 and March 2015 occurred in Aleppo from barrel bombs. The makeshift weapon is an oil drum filled with explosives, fuel, and metal fragments. They are dropped haphazardly from helicopters with little control for targeting. The United Nations previously...

Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that no country could use military force in Syria without first securing the agreement of the Syrian government, the TASS news agency reported. TASS said Ryabkov was responding to a question about the prospect of the United States launching a ground operation in Syria. "The question of using military force in any form without the agreement of Damascus is for us unacceptable," it quoted him as saying.

Syrian rebel fighters have been pictured eagerly unpacking Chinese-made surface-to-air missile launchers understood to have been smuggled into the country by African arms dealers. Taken in a remote area north of the city of Aleppo, the photographs show fighters from the Free Syrian Army assembling FN-6 anti-aircraft missile launchers for use against soldiers loyal to the Assad regime. The Chinese-made weapons are thought to have been provided to the Free Syrian Army by sympathisers in Qatar, who are likely to have purchased them from dealers with links to corrupt officials in the Sudanese government, before having them smuggled into Syria...

Russian bombing and Iranian-backed forces have helped give Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled forces an advantage in the country's bitter civil war, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday, suggesting a sharp setback for the Obama administration. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to contradict upbeat assessments by the White House last month that indicated Assad's government had suffered a series of military losses and was losing control. ...snip.... In recent weeks, Russian airstrikes have supported Assad's forces and Iranian-backed fighters in an offensive against rebel groups in Aleppo province. The government recaptured...

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has confirmed that the Turkish military has attacked Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) said Turkey shot at its forces in the town of Tal Abyad on Sunday. The YPG has been a key ally of the US in fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Turkey fears advances by the YPG near its Syrian border could fuel separatist sentiments amongst Kurds in Turkey. The attacks come amid increasing tensions in Turkey ahead of elections "We said the [YPG-aligned Democratic Union Party] PYD will not go west of...