Free Republic

Syria’s former media chief and top aide to Bashar al-Assad said that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have “tricked” the ousted Syrian president in his final days as leader. Speaking to Mazeej Studios, a podcast produced by Saudi channel Al Arabiya, Kamel Saqr said that Assad was in Moscow in late November, just over a week before Syrian rebels captured Damascus. According to him, the rebels had already captured much of Aleppo by the time Assad met Putin on Friday 29 November. There, Saqr said Assad asked for Putin’s support in helping Iran transport equipment and support to strengthen his...

Syria claimed that its counteroffensive successfully pushed back insurgents attempting to advance toward the strategic city of Hama, while opposition forces reported capturing additional Syrian soldiers and Iran-backed militants in intense clashes. This latest flare-up in Syria's civil war follows recent gains by insurgents, including the capture of large areas in the northern city of Aleppo and towns in the southern part of Idlib province. The conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and armed opposition forces, which seek to overthrow him, has claimed an estimated half-a-million lives over the past 13 years. According to Syrian state media SANA, government forces,...

LLast week, apparently catching the world by surprise, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels launched a surprise offensive against government-controlled positions in northwestern Syria. Within 72 hours, incredibly, they had expelled Assad’s troops from large swathes of Aleppo. HTS’s triumph restored a rebel presence to Aleppo for the first time in eight years and paved the way for the unfreezing of the Syrian Civil War. Predictably, Russian fighter jets – supporting their ally, Assad – responded by bombing rebel-held areas of Aleppo and Idlib. Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun militias also joined the fight on the dictator’s behalf. Regardless of what...

Syrian insurgents fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have launched attacks in the central province of Hama, threatening to cut off government troops from a key route linking the capital, Damascus, with rebel-held Aleppo. The army was engaging in “violent confrontations” with armed groups in Hama, the Syrian state news agency, Sana, reported. Separately, a longtime independent war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday morning that rebel factions in the province had managed to seize several “towns in the last few hours”. “Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of strikes on the area,”...

Dozens of Syrian government troops have been filmed surrendering to rebels after they were abandoned by their comrades at a town south of Aleppo. The men are filmed being led at gunpoint by rebel fighters who shout at the prisoners and chant, “Allahu Akbar”. The prisoners, who are not wearing military uniforms, run across sand dunes towards a group of buildings with their hands behind their heads. They were captured after being left behind by retreating Assad forces near the town of Khanaser, some 50 miles southeast of Aleppo, which was seized by rebels on Saturday. Since the shock rebel...

Iran-backed militants entered Syria yesterday to bolster dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the Islamist rebels who seized Aleppo. Militias crossed into the war-torn country from neighbouring Iraq, following a lightning offensive against the Syrian army by rebel forces from the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish rebel groups. Their seizure of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and swathes of territory in the north of the country has reignited the deadly civil war in Syria and shocked its allies in Russia and Iran. President Assad blamed the West for the ‘terrorist escalation’, and accused the US and its allies...

Russia and Iran have rushed to the aid of an embattled ally as the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad announced a counteroffensive against rebel groups that have scored stunning advances in the past 48 hours. Russian warplanes hit rebel-held targets in the northwest region of Idlib on Sunday as Iran’s foreign minister made an emergency trip to Damascus to demonstrate support for the Assad regime. Syrian jets also hit rebel-held areas of the cities of Aleppo and Idlib which have fallen to the insurgents’ lightning advance. The moves were a sign of the deep shock delivered to Mr. Assad,...

The Syrian military rushed reinforcements to the country’s northwest and launched airstrikes on a major city Sunday in an attempt to push back insurgents who seized the country’s largest city of Aleppo in a surprise offensive in recent days. The insurgency, led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, launched their campaign on Wednesday with a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib, before moving toward neighboring Hama province. On Sunday, government troops created a “strong defensive line” in northern Hama, according to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as they attempted to stall the...

Syrian armed rebels have entered Aleppo just three days into their surprise offensive, marking the first time they have set foot in the country’s second largest city since government forces recaptured the city in 2016. Rebel forces launched a surprise attack this week, sweeping through several villages outside the city and reigniting conflict that had been largely static for years. In a video geolocated by CNN, a rebel fighter films as he drives through the deserted streets on the western side of the city. He is heard praising God as the vehicle approaches the Zine El Abidine Mosque in western...

A Syrian rebel leader may have been killed in a Russian airstrike on a terrorist hideout after his forces seized Aleppo in a shock offensive, local media has reported. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the current commander-in-chief of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Shamgroup, is understood to have been inside the building at the time of the attack. Meanwhile, Israel is said to be preparing for a scenario where it would need to act if the situation deteriorates. Intelligence chiefs have reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 'the collapse of the Assad regime would likely create chaos in which military threats against Israel would...

Islamist rebels have seized control of Aleppo and punched through into Hama city amid claims that Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad has allegedly fled to Russia with his family. Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria's largest city facing little resistance from government troops. Syria's armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it has redeployed and is preparing for a counterattack. The jihadist-led rebels seized Aleppo...

Extremist Syrian Islamist forces have seized control over much of Aleppo, the second-largest city in the war-torn country, raising significant new questions for the U.S. government about its policy in the highly volatile Syrian Arab Republic. "I think it is concerning if some elements of the anti-Assad forces get their hands on sensitive sites in Syria. There have been reports that they have seized the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which is where Assad’s chemical weapons program is housed among other military assets," Jason Brodsky, policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital. He continued, "Given...

As the sun set on Syria’s north-western city of Aleppo, a group of rebel fighters reached Al-Basel square. Towering over the junction is a statue of president Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Bassel, a Syrian army general who was widely anticipated to take over the leadership of the country from his father, Hafez before he died in a car crash in 1994. The monument was meant to symbolise the regime’s strength. But on Friday, fighters pulled down its adjoining Syrian flag as they captured at least five of the city’s neighbourhoods. Videos poured on to social media, many released by the slick...

The 13-year civil war in Syria has roared back into prominence with a surprise rebel offensive on Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities and an ancient business hub. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years in a war whose destabilizing effects have rippled far beyond the country’s borders. It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70% of Syria under...

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking of giving up land to Russia in exchange for joining NATO... Supporters of Pakistan's opposition PTI party held funeral prayers in Washington DC...in memory of those killed in the opposition protest... The attack launched by jihadists in northwestern Syria...accompanied by denial of access...Russian Aerospace Forces killed 200 of the jihadists in air strikes...40 percent of western Aleppo under jihadist control... Russia's Defense Minister Andrey Belousov in North Korea... In Tbilisi, Georgia tonight opponents of the government...again marched on parliament... Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Florida meeting President-Elect Donald Trump... Canada's Gross Domestic Product slowed...

Syrian rebels have launched a large-scale attack on regime forces in western Aleppo, according to a Free Syrian Army source and local residents, marking the first major flare-up in years between both sides.

BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli airstrikes around the Syrian city of Aleppo killed several people early on Monday, including an Iranian military adviser, the Syrian state media and Iranian news outlets reported. Israel did not immediately acknowledge the strikes. It was the first strike to kill an Iranian official since the April 1 attack on the Iranian Consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed seven people, including two Iranian generals and a member of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. The strike triggered a first-ever direct Iranian military assault on Israel, sparking fears of a regionwide war. Syria's state-run SANA news...

Over 40 people were killed and dozens injured in airstrikes overnight near Aleppo, in northwestern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the alleged Israeli attack hit at least one weapons warehouse belonging to Hezbollah near the Aleppo International Airport in the early hours of Friday morning. The UK-based monitor further said strikes also targeted Syrian air defense installations in nearby Al-Saferah and that explosions were heard in the Kafr Joum area, in western Aleppo. Footage from the moment of the attack shows huge explosions and mushrooms of dust rising from the area. Two unnamed security sources...

Israeli planes carried out strikes on airports in Aleppo and Damascus early Sunday, knocking both out of service, Syria’s state-run media said, marking the third such attack in 10 days. One civilian worker was killed and another wounded in the strike on the Damascus airport, the SANA state news agency said. Runways in both airports were damaged, causing all flights in and out of both airports to be canceled or diverted to an airport in coastal Latakia, SANA said. Official notices to international aviation authorities, known as NOTAMs, indicated that the runways would be unusable for at least two days....

DAMASCUS: Syria’s state television said an Israeli attack targeted the main airports in the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo on Thursday.