Even with hopes running high, so much can go wrong when a country ousts a longtime dictator and tries to start anew.

For the world, 2024 was riven by conflict on two fronts.

Political analyst Daniel Cronrath and News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton discuss the ripple effects expected in the Middle East after the historic ouster of Syria's Bashar Assad that brought an end to his family's 50 years of brutal rule.

The deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Program has been on whirlwind visits to hotspots in the Middle East and Sudan to assess dire humanitarian situations and escalating demands for food from millions of people trapped or fleeing conflicts.

An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 12 Lebanese rescue workers inside a civil defense center in the eastern city of Baalbek.

U.S. Central Command says the U.S. military has struck a number of Islamic State group camps in central Syria, killing as many as 35 militants.

The U.N. envoy to Western Sahara is suggesting that dividing the territory between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front could be one way to settle the decades-long conflict.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed to toughen knife laws and step up deportations of rejected asylum-seekers as he visited the scene of the knife attack in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.

As the 10th anniversary of the Islamic State group's atrocities against Iraq's Yazidis approaches, a traumatized community is still in many ways convulsed by the legacy of the militants' onslaught.

The U.S. military said an airstrike in Syria in May 2023 that was targeting an al-Qaida leader killed an innocent civilian instead.

Syria's activists and pro-government media say Islamic State militants have killed at least 18 people in an attack on villagers collecting truffles in eastern Syria.

A year after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, a massive rebuilding effort is still trudging along.

The United States has attributed the drone attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes the militant group Kataib Hezbollah.

President Joe Biden has made it clear the U.S. will strike back after a deadly drone attack killed three service members and wounded more than 40 at a small base in Jordan over the weekend.

An enemy drone that killed three American troops and wounded dozens of others in Jordan may have been confused with an American drone returning to the U.S. installation.

The Biden administration has had notable success in the past couple of years in bringing home Americans who are wrongfully detained by foreign governments.

The U.S. has hit Iraqi airline Fly Baghdad and its CEO with sanctions for allegedly providing assistance to Iran’s military wing — and in addition has imposed a fifth round of sanctions on the militant group Hamas for its abuse of cryptocurrency since the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Iran says it fired missiles at what it claimed were Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria.

Iran has held a funeral for a high-ranking general of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who was killed by an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say a rocket attack at the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has caused minor damage but no casualties.

When Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched missiles and hit three commercial ships in the Red Sea, it triggered an immediate question: Will the U.S. military strike back.

The annual meeting of members of the global chemical weapons watchdog has called on countries to prevent the sale or transfer to Syria of raw materials and equipment that could be used to create poison gas and nerve agents.

The Biden administration is balancing efforts to deter militants in the Middle East without triggering a broader regional conflict.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on six people affiliated with the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah, which is accused of being behind a spate of recent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel.

The Pentagon and U.S. officials say U.S. fighter aircraft have conducted airstrikes on locations in eastern Syria involving Iranian-backed groups, likely causing casualties and destroying weapons stored at the two targets struck — a training location and a safe house.

The Pentagon says the U.S. has launched an airstrike on a site in eastern Syria.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has met with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials.

Iran’s supplying of bomb-carrying drones to Russia could see Moscow help Tehran’s program become more lethal, raising risks across the wider Middle East.

The head of a Russian mercenary group who launched a rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership in June is presumed dead after a mysterious plane crash.

Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world are commemorating Ashoura.

The European Union’s judicial cooperation agency says the Netherlands and Belgium have joined an international investigation into atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority in Syria and Iraq.

A California man has been found guilty of illegally importing an ancient mosaic from Syria.

The Pentagon says an additional six troops were injured in attacks last week in northeastern Syria that U.S. officials have blamed on Iranian-backed militants.

Qatar says it has sent 4,000 cabins built to house fans at last year’s World Cup to earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria.

Australia said it’s planning to buy up to 220 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States after the U.S. State Department approved the sale Friday.

A month after two earthquakes killed more than 55,000 people in Southeastern Turkey and Northwestern Syria, millions of people and pets that were left displaced still need help.

The head of Syria's civil aviation says flights at the international airport in Aleppo have resumed, three days after it was put out of service by a suspected Israeli airstrike.

Jacksonville’s Turkish and Syrian communities came together Saturday for a special festival with all proceeds going to help victims and survivors of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

The United Nations has launched a funding appeal for $1 billion to help humanitarian agencies in Turkey assist millions of people affected by last week's earthquakes.

Qatar plans to send 10,000 cabins and caravans from last year’s World Cup to provide shelter for survivors of the Turkish earthquakes.

The desperate search for earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria entered its final hours as rescuers using sniffer dogs and thermal cameras surveyed pulverized apartment blocks for any sign of life a week after the disaster.

The catastrophic earthquake that razed thousands of buildings in Turkey and Syria became one of the deadliest quakes worldwide in more than a decade Wednesday, and the death toll kept rising, surpassing 11,000.

The death toll along the Turkish-Syrian border continues to climb as tens of thousands of rescuers scramble to save those in the rubble.

A devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has raised questions about how long people can survive in the rubble.

The search for survivors of the earthquake that toppled thousands of buildings in Turkey and Syria has reached a critical stretch, with rescue teams from two dozen countries helping locals sift through the rubble and experts warning that the realistic window to find any in the frigid temperatures is quickly closing.

Zeliha Hisir tried to speak, but could barely move after her hourslong rescue Tuesday near the epicenter of Turkey’s earthquake.

Rescuers in Turkey and war-ravaged Syria searched through the frigid night into Tuesday, hoping to pull more survivors from the rubble after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 4,000 people and toppled thousands of buildings across a wide region.

Rescue workers and civilians passed chunks of concrete and household goods across mountains of rubble early Monday, moving tons of wreckage by hand in a desperate search for survivors trapped by a devastating earthquake.

Many governments have rushed to dispatch aid, personnel and equipment to help the rescue efforts in quake-stricken areas of Turkey and Syria.

A major 7.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Turkey has caused widespread damage across the region.

The ongoing trial of a U.S. citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Islamic State group is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq.

The U.N. refugee agency says it’s giving its highest award to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her efforts to accept more than 1 million refugees — mostly from Syria — into Germany, despite some criticism both at home and abroad.

The Spanish charity Open Arms has rescued 372 people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean Sea to Europe in unseaworthy boats in three operations.

Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon's Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is threatening to launch a new military operation in Syria to secure Turkey's southern border.

A senior U.S. official and other members of the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group have warned that the African continent is now the main target of the extremist group.

The U.S. announced Monday it is imposing financial penalties on five people accused of fundraising for the Islamic State group and using the funds to help traffic children to serve as fighters for the organization.

A bomb scare set off scenes of panic at Israel’s airport after an American family showed up with an unexploded artillery shell they had found in the Golan Heights.

The U.S. military says explosions earlier this month on a base in eastern Syria that injured several U.S. service members were not, as it originally reported, caused by artillery or another form of indirect fire.

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East says the exchange of missile strikes by Iran and Israel in Iraq and Syria puts U.S. forces at risk.

The U.N. migration agency estimates that nearly 6.5 million people have now been displaced inside Ukraine, on top of the 3.2 million refugees who have already fled the country.

Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard.

Officials say the U.S. led-coalition in Syria struck several launch sites for short-range rockets believed to be intended for attacks on an installation used by U.S. troops in eastern Syria.

Indiana congressman Greg Pence watched the Jan. 6 insurrection unfold from an extraordinary perch.

Former French President François Hollande has testified at the trial of 14 men accused of helping in the 2015 Islamic State attacks on Paris.

Coronavirus cases are surging to the worst levels of the pandemic in a rebel stronghold in Syria.

The United Nations chief is warning that a “hurricane of humanitarian crises” around the world has left civilians in conflict areas paying the highest price and is compounded by a relentless wave of attacks on humanitarian and medical workers.

The leader of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia has vowed to retaliate against America for the deaths of four of his men in a U.S. airstrike along the Iraq-Syria border last month.

The Dutch Defense Ministry says Russian fighter jets repeatedly flew low over a Dutch navy frigate in the Black Sea last week and carried out “mock attacks.”.

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East says finding better ways to counter attacks by small drones across the region is a top priority and that the U.S. is still behind the curve on solutions.

A dog smells pieces of tar from an oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea, on a beach in the Gdor Nature Reserve near Michmoret, Israel, Monday, March 1, 2021. The cleanup from the disastrous oil spill that has blackened most of the country's shoreline is expected to take months. Over 90% of Israel’s 195 kilometer (120-mile) Mediterranean coastline was covered in more than 1,000 tons of black tar, the result of the mysterious oil spill in international waters. Iranian oil tankers increasingly have been accused of smuggling oil out of the country and selling the lucrative crude abroad after then-President Donald Trump withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers nearly three years ago. Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry had kept the particulars of its investigation into the incident under close guard and obtained a court issued gag-order on all details about the case.

The U.S. military conducted airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, that the Pentagon said were used by Iran-backed militia groups, in response to recent attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)WASHINGTON – The United States launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops. Officials have noted that in the past, Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have been responsible for numerous rocket attacks that targeted U.S. personnel or facilities in Iraq. A week later, a rocket attack in Baghdad's Green Zone appeared to target the U.S. Embassy compound, but no one was hurt.

Migrants from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Sudan, rest on board the Spanish NGO Open Arms vessel after having been rescued in the Mediterranean sea, about 110 miles north of Libya, on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)ROME – Italy allowed a Spanish-flagged charity ship with 265 rescued migrants aboard to anchor off Sicily on Monday. The Open Arms vessel had brought the migrants safely aboard in separate rescues last week in the central Mediterranean. Open Arms said 96 of those rescued had been adrift two days in a wooden boat without life vests in international waters. In an earlier, separate operation, Open Arms had taken aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based.

Migrants from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Sudan, are assisted by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, after fleeing Libya on board a precarious wooden boat in the Mediterranean sea, about 110 miles north of Libya, on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)ROME – A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday was seeking a port of safety for 265 migrants its crew rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in the last few days. The Open Arms charity tweeted that its vessel on Saturday had safely brought aboard 96 migrants who had been adrift in a wooden boat with without life vests in international waters. In a separate operation two days before that rescue, Open Arms took aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based. The traffickers launch vessels, many of them flimsy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats, crowded with migrants who hope to reach European shores to seek asylum.

Tunisian authorities say 20 African migrants have been found dead after their boat, which was trying to reach Europe, sank in the Mediterranean Sea. Five survivors were rescued Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020 and authorities are searching for up to 20 others believed missing. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios, File)TUNIS – About 20 African migrants were found dead Thursday after their smuggling boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach Europe, Tunisian authorities said. Five survivors were rescued and the Tunisian navy is searching for up to 20 others still believed missing. According to survivors, the migrant smuggling boat was carrying about 40 or 50 people heading toward Italy, Ben Zekri said.

(AP Photo, File)PARIS – A French court on Thursday convicted an Islamic State operative over a train attack five years ago that was foiled with the dramatic intervention of three American passengers. The special terrorism court sentenced Morocco-born Ayoub El Khazzani to life in prison, with 22 years guaranteed behind bars. The train attack was allegedly organized by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, portrayed as the coordinator of the November 2015 attacks in Paris. He told the court that Abaaoud concocted the plan for the train attack and he followed it to the letter — until he changed his mind. The court convicted Bilal Chatra and Mohamed Bakkali of complicity and sentenced them to prison terms of 27 years and 25 years, respectively.

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2015, file photo, an injured person is transported to an ambulance after a shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris, France. The verdict ends the three-month trial linked to the three days of killings across Paris claimed jointly by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for the survivors of the market attack, said the verdict sent a message to sympathizers. The Jan. 7-9, 2015, attacks in Paris left 17 dead along with the three gunmen. Boumeddiene, the only woman on trial, fled to Syria days before the attack and appeared in Islamic State propaganda.

He said a solution must come from a joint effort by diplomatic, security and humanitarian organizations. The U.S. also has about 3,000 troops still in Iraq; on Tuesday the Pentagon announced that Trump had ordered a drawdown to 2,500 in Iraq with no change for Syria. Trump has pushed for the repatriation of foreign fighters in Syria, but their home countries have largely refused to take them back. In the short run, McKenzie said, IS is in no position to pose a major security threat to the United States. The al-Qaida extremist group and like-minded militants also are severely hobbled but not eliminated, he said.

ANKARA – Turkey’s parliament on Tuesday granted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government permission to deploy peacekeepers to Azerbaijan to monitor a cease-fire deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia that aims to end the conflict in the region. Last week, the defense ministers of Russia and Turkey signed a memorandum to create a joint monitoring center in Azerbaijan, although technical details of the mission are still being worked out. Russian officials have said that Ankara’s involvement will be limited to the work of the monitoring center on Azerbaijani soil, and Turkish peacekeepers wouldn't go to Nagorno-Karabakh. The motion for the deployment in Azerbaijan was backed by four out of five parties in Turkey's parliament. Erdogan's government said the Turkish peacekeepers were crucial for the region's peace and welfare and for Turkey's national interests.

DUBAI – President Donald Trump's national security adviser promised a “very professional transition” to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden in an interview broadcast Monday, even as Trump continues to falsely claim he won the November election. “If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner — obviously things look that way now — we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also says: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”O'Brien, Trump's fourth national security adviser, previously served as his special envoy on hostage affairs. A top Lebanese security official said Saturday that he visited Syria for two days to speak with officials there about Tice. However, there's been no public sign of tensions easing between Doha and Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The heavily-armed and bare-chested El Khazzani wounded a French-American who managed to briefly yank a Kalashnikov from his hands before the three vacationing Americans took him down. Their probe showed that Abaaoud and El Khazzani traveled together from Syria to Belgium and holed up with Chatra in a Brussels apartment. The alleged train attack plot went awry when passengers moved in on El Khazzani. Once aboard the train, El Khazzani lingered in a restroom between cars and emerged bare-chested with the Kalashnikov. He jumped in after a French banker, who has asked to remain anonymous, wrestled unsuccessfully with El Khazzani.

LYON – A Paris criminal court sentenced a 29-year-old Algerian man Thursday to life in prison for killing a woman and trying to bomb a church near the French capital in a failed 2015 attack that investigators said was plotted by Islamic State group extremists in Syria. He expressed regret over choosing that path, but denied killing the woman outside the church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. Seven other defendants found to have helped him in the attack were sentenced to between three and 30 years in prison. The Paris court also convicted in absentia two operatives who were accused of orchestrating the attack, Abdelnasser Benyoucef and Samir Nouad, and sentenced them to life in prison. Another French terrorist trial is opening later this month, involving an attempted IS attack on a high-speed Amsterdam-to-Paris train.

This image taken from a video shows amphetamines pills that were seized at the Salerno harbor, southern Italy, Wednesday, July 1, 2020.Italian police have seized 14 tons of amphetamines, allegedly produced in Syria by Islamic State group to fund terrorist activities and destined for the European illegal drug market. Customs Police Col. Domenico Napolitano on Wednesday called the discovery of three shipping containers crammed with some 85 million pills, in the southern port of Salerno, the biggest amphetamine seizure ever made worldwide. (Guardia di Finanza via AP)ROME Italian police have seized 14 tons of amphetamines, allegedly produced in Syria by the Islamic State group to fund extremist activities and destined for the European illegal drug market. The amphetamines were labeled captagon, the street name for a drug whose chemical base is fenethylline. The 14 tons of amphetamines would have raked in about 1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) in street sales had they ultimately made it to consumers, customs police said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell waits for the start of a meeting, Supporting the future of Syria and the Region, in videoconference format at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, June 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, Pool)

ISIS Propaganda via CNN(CNN) - For six days a week, the three women worked as domestic workers in homes across Singapore. Often, it is a two-way street: the domestic workers might take the first step by reaching out to militants. Other radicalized domestic workers take on a more active role, becoming financiers, recruiters and coordinators. Of the 50 radicalized domestic workers identified by IPAC, at least 12 had attempted to reach Syria via Hong Kong, as of June 2017. Keeping a close watchThe recruitment of domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore has not gone unnoticed.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi believed to have been killed in a US military raid, sources say. The world has spent the day reacting to the news that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. President Trump then spoke to the nation Sunday morning. "I am grateful for the skill and courage of our special operations and intelligence professionals," she said. "So they naturally and rightfully will praise the military and special operations and the intelligence community.

President Donald Trump has slapped Turkey with punishing sanctions over its military invasion of northern Syria. Distributed by LAKANA. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gabriel Chaim for CNN(CNN) - US and Turkish troops conducted their first ever joint ground patrol within what Turkey has called the "safe zone" that runs along the Syria-Turkish border and extends into the northeast. The operation is aimed at creating a buffer zone that will keep US-backed Kurdish militia -- the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- away from Turkey's border. "Today's patrol maintained security within the area and demonstrates our continued commitment to address Turkey's legitimate security concerns," said US Army spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins. Caggins said during the operations Turkish officers documented that the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had withdrawn their troops from the designated area and had removed a series of some defensive fortifications. The joint patrol follows earlier aerial surveillance flights and the establishment of a joint operations center.

The Adrian Darya, formerly known as the Grace 1, set sail under an Iranian flag for an unknown destination. With the arrival of two engineering teams from two separate locations, the tanker is expected to depart Gibraltar tonight," Iran's ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, said earlier in the day via Twitter. It was seized July 4 in territorial waters of Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the edge of southern Spain. The Adrian Darya's owner said the released Iranian tanker would head to the Mediterranean, Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency, citing Iranian Maritime official Jalil Eslami, reported last week. The US also got involved in the standoff when the Justice Department applied to extend the Iranian tanker's seizure and block its release.

GIBRALTAR - The United States has unsealed a warrant for the seizure of an Iranian oil tanker anchored off the coast of Gibraltar. It is the latest twist involving the vessel at the center of a standoff between Tehran and the West. The warrant comes just a day after a judge in Gibraltar said the Grace 1 supertanker -- which is reportedly carrying 2.1 million barrels of oil -- was free to set sail. Friday's warrant from the US Justice Department appears to be a last-ditch attempt to stop the tanker setting sail, after it failed to stop Gibraltar's Supreme Court approving its release on Thursday. For now, the tanker remains in Gibraltar waters as it awaits a new captain and a number of crew members, Fars added.

GIBRALTAR - The US Department of Justice has made a last-minute application to block the release of the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1, which was seized by authorities in Gibraltar last month, a spokesman for the Gibraltar attorney general told CNN. Gibraltar attorney general Joseph Triay revealed the application had been made at a short hearing at the Supreme Court on Thursday morning. The matter will return to the Supreme Court of Gibraltar at 4:00 p.m. today," the Gibraltar government said in a statement. The US Department of Justice declined to comment and the State Department has not responded to CNN's request for comment. Nearly a month later, the tanker -- and its crew -- remain detained in Iran.