Tag Archives: rebels

The Kremlin on Monday rebuffed criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump of Russian and Syrian government military action in Syria’s Idlib province, saying it was justified. Trump on Sunday urged Russia and Syrian government forces to stop bombing Idlib, following a Friday Kremlin statement that signaled Moscow would continue to …

Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition inched closer to the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Sunday as they battled Iranian-aligned Houthi fighters entrenched there, local military sources and residents said on Sunday. The coalition has deployed thousands of troops to retake Hodeidah, a vital entry point for …

President Bashar al-Assad told a little-known Kuwaiti newspaper that Syria had reached a “major understanding” with Arab states after years of hostility over the country’s civil war. The interview in the Al-Shahed newspaper, published Wednesday, was Assad’s first with a Gulf newspaper since the war began in 2011. Assad didn’t …

With Bashar Assad and his Russian allies on the verge of victory in Syria’s civil war, the Trump administration is facing new pressure to respond forcefully and prevent a bloodbath of historic proportions — but analysts say the U.S. has virtually no good options, as seven years of muddy American …

Turkey has stepped up arms supplies to Syrian rebels to help them stave off an expected offensive by the Syrian army and its Russian and Iran-backed allies in the northwest near the Turkish frontier, rebel sources told Reuters. Senior rebel officials said Turkey had sent more military aid to rebels …

Russia has deployed at least a dozen vessels to waters off Syria ahead of the final regime offensive against rebels, in what is believed to be the largest Russian naval buildup in the Mediterranean since the nation entered the conflict in 2015. Russian media reported at least two submarines and 10 …

A “National Army” being set up by Syrian rebels with Turkey’s help could become a long-term obstacle to President Bashar al-Assad’s recovery of the northwest – if they can end factional rivalries that have long blighted the opposition. The effort is at the heart of plans by the Turkish-backed opposition …

The head of a Syrian research facility that western countries say was part of a chemical weapons programme has been killed in a car bombing, the pro-government Syrian newspaper al-Watan has said. Aziz Asber was the director of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre in Masyaf, near Hama, which …

Updated at 11:03 p.m. ET Venezuelan officials say that President Nicolás Maduro has escaped an assassination attempt unharmed. Maduro was giving a live televised speech in the capital city of Caracas on Saturday when, a government spokesman said, explosive-carrying drones went off near the president. Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez called …

Defeated Syrian rebels near the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are preparing to evacuate the region and cede control of the frontier to Bashar al-Assad, securing a key victory for the Syrian president, whose forces are on the verge of concluding a swift campaign to reclaim control of southern …

The Latest on the situation in Syria (all times local): 4:45 p.m. Syria’s military says it has expelled the Islamic State group from the country’s vast eastern desert. The military says it’s cleared about 5,800 square kilometers — or 2,200 square miles — of the expanse linking its heartland to …

A rebel-held village in northwestern Syria on Thursday was attacked in an airstrike shortly after Muslims broke their Ramadan fast after sunset, according to a human rights group in the country. The attack killed at least 35 and wounded dozens, including children, reports said. Such airstrikes have been relatively uncommon …

At least four Russian combatants have been killed by militants in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zour. Two military advisers died when the Syrian army battery they were directing was attacked. Five other Russians were injured and two died later of their wounds, the defence ministry said. Syria’s army …

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday an Israeli attack on Iranian military facilities south of Damascus had killed at least 15 people, including eight Iranians. The reports of an Israeli attack in Kisweh late on Tuesday emerged after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was pulling out of the …

The militants, who blocked the road, left their positions and handed over their weapons to government forces. According to the newspaper Al-Watan, the Syrian Arab Army has regained control over the stretch of the M5 highway between the cities of Homs and Hama due to the implementation of a reconciliation agreement in a militant-held enclave north of Homs (165 km from Damascus). …

The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local): 10 p.m. Syrian state media say rebels have agreed to surrender an enclave near Syria’s third largest city to the government. Al-Ikhbariya TV says rebels have agreed to allow government forces into the countryside north of Homs and re-establish state institutions. Rebels will have the …

Russia troops said Monday they expect to reach an agreement with a major Syrian rebel group to arrange its exit from the last rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta in another key victory for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces as they push to gain control of the region on the edge …

Syrian rebel groups said Friday that a deal had been struck to evacuate thousands of people from the besieged and ­broken Syrian enclave of Eastern ­Ghouta amid growing reports that men who crossed to government territory are being forcibly conscripted. Friday’s agreement, which was expected to take force in the …

Intense Syrian government shelling and airstrikes of rebel-held Damascus suburbs killed at least 98 people in what was the deadliest day in the area in three years, a monitoring group and paramedics said Tuesday. A day after Monday’s government barrage, retaliatory shells rained down on the capital Damascus, killing at …

Russia has ordered its warplanes in Syria to fly higher to avoid being shot down by shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles after one of its jets was shot out of the sky at the weekend, the Izvestia daily reported on Monday. Syrian rebels downed the Russian SU-25 plane on Saturday in Idlib …

A Russian Sukhoi-25 fighter jet has been shot down in a rebel-held area in Syria’s north-western province of Idlib. The Russian defence ministry said the pilot had ejected but was killed in a ground fight. Video posted on social media appeared to show the plane being hit, while other video …

Kirill Kudryavtsev | AFP | Getty Images An officer takes pictures of drones allegedly used during recent attacks on Russia’s bases in Syria, at a briefing in the Russian Defence Ministry headquarters in Moscow on January 11, 2018. Russia‘s defense ministry said Friday it tracked down and killed the group …

Some of the anti-regime fighters who had evacuated from Western Ghouta under a deal with the Assad regime began arriving in Idlib and Daraa provinces, according to local sources. The first group of evacuees comprising 108 group members, including 21 women and 29 children werebrought to a camp early Saturday in …

Days of fierce clashes here in Yemen’s capital have opened a violent new front in the country’s multisided civil war, with an alliance of Yemeni forces battling a Saudi-led military coalition fracturing — a potentially major shift in the conflict. The latest clashes have pitted a Yemeni rebel group known …

The Levant News — More than 2,000 rebels and their family members have left the devastated district of Qaboun on the edge of the Syrian capital Damascus after more than two months of aerial strikes and artillery shelling, state media said on Sunday. The rebels had agreed overnight to a …

The Levant – – Seventy five Syrian rebels trained by the United States and its allies to fight ISIS have entered northern Syria since Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday. Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Observatory, said the rebels had crossed into Syria from Turkey with 12 …

THE LEVANT  – Syrian troops have seized a village just north of Aleppo that could allow them to cut off a supply line to rebel-held districts of the country’s second city, a monitoring group said Friday. Soldiers, backed by fighters from Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, took Handarat, four kilometres (2.5 …

Source: Reuters – Ukraine said on Monday its troops had wrested more territory from pro-Russian rebels, advancing towards the site where Malaysian flight MH17 was brought down, which international investigators said they could not reach because of the fighting. Troops recaptured two rebel-held towns near the crash site and were trying …

THE LEVANT – Eastern Damascus was hit Tuesday by its fiercest fighting in months, a monitor said, as rebels stepped up a bid to break a siege and pro-regime forces tried to stop them. The air force pounded the rebel-held eastern neighbourhood of Jobar, as opposition fighters launched mortars into …

  According to the Syrian official news agency, SANA, the Syrian army units have killed and wounded a number of rebels and “terrorists” and destroyed their vehicles in Aleppo and its countryside. A Syrian military source told SANA that the army units killed and wounded “terrorists” in Bani Zaid and …