INSIDER
The U.S. will withdraw about 600 troops from Syria, leaving fewer than 1,000 to work with Kurdish allies to counter the Islamic State group.
Israel’s defense minister says its troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely, after Israel unilaterally expanded its frontiers in the war unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Israel’s defense minister says troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely.
Lebanon’s president says the disarmament of the militant group Hezbollah will come through negotiations as part of a national defense strategy and not through “force.”.
President Donald Trump is betting that a beleaguered Iran is so vulnerable following a tumultuous 18 months in the Middle East that it might finally be ready to abandon its nuclear program.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday sought to position his country as a point of stability in an increasingly tumultuous world, saying Turkey was essential for European security and able to span geopolitical divisions over Ukraine, Syria and U.
South Korea has established diplomatic relations with Syria’s new Islamist government months after longtime leader Bashar Assad was ousted.
Scores of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters have left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo part of a deal with the central government in Damascus.
Syria’s new transitional government has been sworn in nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-ton country.
As they spend their first Ramadan in their country in years, many Syrians who’ve recently returned from abroad to a homeland they were forced to flee have been celebrating the end of the Assad family’s rule.
For Syrians observing Ramadan, this Muslim holy month is their first in their homeland since the end of the Assad family's iron-fisted rule.
Israel’s renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.
Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, striking dozens of Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.
Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the 14-year civil war have called on the newly installed interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.
The Syrian Civil Defense says ordnance from Syria’s 13-year conflict exploded in the coastal city of Latakia, collapsing a building and killing at least 16 people.
Hamas says it has accepted a proposal from mediators to release one living American-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four dual-nationals who had died in captivity.
Iraqi Prime Minister Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has said that the head of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was killed in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with U.S.-led coalition forces Abdallah Maki Mosleh al-Rifai, or “Abu Khadija,” was “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world,” the statement said.
Dozens of clerics and others from Syria’s minority Druze community have crossed into the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights Friday for the first time in decades.
Syria’s interim president has signed a temporary constitution that leaves the country under Islamist rule for five years during a transitional phase.
Syria’s interim government has reached a deal with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast.
Syria’s top diplomat and his counterparts from neighboring countries have called for the lifting of Western-led sanctions and post-war reconciliation.
An ambush on a Syrian security patrol by gunmen loyal to ousted leader Bashar Assad escalated into clashes that a war monitor estimates have killed more than 1,000 people over four days.
A war monitoring group says the death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, including nearly 750 civilians, making it one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago.
Israel says it will send a delegation to Qatar on Monday “in an effort to advance the negotiations” around the ceasefire in Gaza.
A war monitor says two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad have left more than 200 people dead.
American Jews who fled their Syrian homeland decades ago went to the White House this week to appeal to the Trump administration to lift sanctions on the country.
Gunmen have ambushed a Syrian police patrol in a coastal town leaving at least 13 security members dead and many wounded, a war monitor said.
Israel’s defense ministry says the military has been instructed to prepare to defend a Druze settlement in the suburbs of Damascus in neighboring Syria.
Some restaurants and coffee shops in Syria were closed during the day as observant Muslims began fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
Latvia’s foreign minister is warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to achieve in peace talks what he hasn’t been able to accomplish in his war against Ukraine — weaken the United States and restore control over his smaller neighbor.
Syria’s new rulers have held a long-awaited national dialogue conference to rebuild the country after nearly 14 years of civil war and the fall of former President Bashar Assad.
A long-awaited national dialogue conference intended to help chart Syria’s political future after the fall of former President Bashar Assad is set to begin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syria’s new army or the insurgent group that led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad to “enter the area south of Damascus” as his government made clear Israeli forces would stay in parts of southern Syria for an indefinite period.
A Turkish opposition party delegation has arrived in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region against the backdrop of peace efforts between Ankara and a banned Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey.
French President Emmanuel Macron offers to back Syria’s interim government in potential partnership with the U.S.-led international coalition fighting against extremist groups in Syria and Iraq at a conference in Paris to discuss the country’s future after the fall of former Syrian president Bashar Assad.
The Senate has confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence.
Syria’s relations with Iran and Russia remain an open wound for its people after the nations backed autocratic President Bashar Assad during its long war.
Many countries have their worst showing in more than a decade in an index that serves as a barometer of public sector corruption worldwide.
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, is another step closer to Senate confirmation.
Hamas has named the next three Israeli hostages it plans to release as part of the ceasefire deal.
For over 850 years, the leaning minaret of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri stood as an iconic landmark in the Iraqi city of Mosul until it was destroyed by the Islamic State group in 2017.
Ukraine's foreign minister says his country wants to collaborate with partner countries on postwar projects worth billions of dollars not just in mining rare earth elements, but also in energy and construction sectors.
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick to be director of national intelligence, has moved a step closer to Senate confirmation.
The families of hostages freed from Gaza over the weekend described difficult conditions — including rarely seeing the sun — during their captivity.
The commander of the main U.S.-backed force in Syria says that the recent ouster of the Assad family from power should be followed with building a secular, civil and decentralized state that treats all its citizens equally no matter their religion or ethnicity.
Syria’s interim president has made his first trip abroad, traveling to Saudi Arabia in a move likely trying to signal Damascus’ shift away from Iran as its main regional ally.
The Israeli organization representing families of hostages in Gaza has celebrated the news that three high-profile men will be released next.
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick to be director of national intelligence, has faced tough questions from lawmakers during a fiery confirmation hearing Thursday.
The Syrian factions that toppled President Bashar Assad last month have named an Islamist former rebel leader as the country‘s interim president in a push to project a united front as they face the monumental task of rebuilding Syria after nearly 14 years of civil war.
Tulsi Gabbard faced tough questions Thursday about past comments about Russia, Syria and government leaker Edward Snowden during a Senate confirmation hearing on her nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence service.
Syria’s Civil Defense has uncovered over two dozen charred bodies in two basements in rural Damascus, adding to the growing tally of mass graves discovered since the ousting of Bashar Assad.
Crowds of displaced Palestinians made the arduous journey back to heavily destroyed northern Gaza for a second day, under a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Current and former European and U.S. officials have raised concerns about some of President Donald Trump’s picks for top intelligence posts.
Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat has visited Lebanon for the first time in a decade following years of strained relations between the oil-rich kingdom and the tiny Mediterranean country.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan has made an unannounced visit to Damascus, meeting with the leader of Syria’s de facto government.
The presidents of Russia and Iran have signed a broad cooperation pact to deepen their partnership amid stinging Western sanctions.
The leaders of two previously rival Kurdish groups have met in northern Iraq in an apparent step toward reconciliation at a time when the political upheaval in Syria has left Kurds in the region facing an uncertain future.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a deal to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip has been reached.
The outgoing acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center says the U.S. is facing an elevated threat of terrorism.
John Ratcliffe, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the CIA, has told members of the Senate that the nation's premier spy agency can do better.
As President Joe Biden prepares to leave office next week, he's insistent that his one-term presidency has made strides in restoring American credibility on the world stage and has proved that the U.S. remains an indispensable partner around the globe.
The imprisoned leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party has called on his group to disarm and disband in a bid to end 40 years of fighting with the Turkish state.
The European Union's foreign policy chief says the bloc's foreign ministers will discuss easing sanctions imposed on Syria at a Jan. 27 meeting in Brussels.
Intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government say they have thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani is heading to Syria to encourage the transition in the country following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by Islamist insurgents.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, with no end in sight to the 15-month conflict.
Lebanon’s parliament has voted to elect army commander Joseph Aoun as the head of state, filling a more than two-year-long presidential vacuum.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press that the U.S. needs to keep troops deployed in Syria to prevent the Islamic State group from reconstituting as a major threat.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Friday will face more international rebuke than at any time in his 12 years in power.
The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad has landed at Damascus airport.
Syria’s new foreign minister has met with his Qatari counterpart and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha on Sunday.
The truck attack in New Orleans by an Army veteran inspired by the Islamic State group unfolded amid months of warnings by officials about a resurgent terrorism threat.
The top diplomats from Germany and France are in Syria to send what the German minister called a clear signal that a “political new beginning” between Europe and Syria is possible after the ouster of Bashar Assad.
Protesters in Syria have held a sit-in demanding justice for four activists who were forcibly disappeared in 2013 and whose fate remains one of the most haunting mysteries of the country’s 13-year civil war.
The streets were buzzing with excitement in Damascus as Syrians welcomed in a new year that seemed to many to bring a promise of a brighter future after the unexpected fall of Bashar Assad’s government weeks earlier.
Syria’s de facto leader has said it could take up to four years to hold elections in Syria, and that he plans on dissolving his Islamist group that led the country’s insurgency at an anticipated national dialogue summit for the country.
The year 2024 saw President Vladimir Putin further cement his power as he sought to counter Russia's isolation over the war in Ukraine.
Syria’s embassy in Lebanon has suspended consular services a day after two relatives of deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad were arrested at the Beirut airport with allegedly forged passports.
Syria’s new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country’s fragile peace could break down.
A Syrian family that survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near the country's capital, Damascus, says the ordeal they experienced haunts them to this day.
A British-based war monitor said clashes between Islamists who took over Syria and supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad’s government have killed six Islamic fighters and wounded others.
The fate of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet is still unclear after Republican senators spent much of December carefully dodging questions.
The U.N. organization assisting in investigating the most serious crimes in Syria says the country’s new authorities were “very receptive” to its request for cooperation during a just-concluded visit to Damascus — and it is preparing to deploy.
Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi rebel group in Yemen.
A prominent Lebanese politician has met with the insurgent who led the overthrow of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, and both expressed hope Sunday for a new era in relations between their countries.
The toppling of Bashar Assad has raised tentative hopes that Syrians might live peacefully and as equals after a half century of authoritarian rule.
Even with hopes running high, so much can go wrong when a country ousts a longtime dictator and tries to start anew.
Palestinian health officials say an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in central Gaza killed at least seven Palestinians, including four children.
