Amb. James Jeffrey, the highest-ranking U.S. official on Syria, will be traveling to Brussels next week to discuss opening a new front of economic pressure against Iranian influence in Syria. Iran hawks in the Trump administration have seen their fortunes rise, fall, and rise again...

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has now endured through nearly nine years of civil conflict. The question for those invested in Syria’s future is no longer whether the regime will survive but how it will seek to consolidate its power before ending the war still ravaging the country....

The landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been teetering on the edge of collapse since the United States pulled out unilaterally in 2018. The European Union says it will “spare no effort” to keep the deal alive, but with...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The death of Iran’s top General in a U.S. air strike on Friday has sparked speculation among Syrians over a Syrian Intelligence role as the last stop for Maj. Gen Qaseem Soleimani was in Damascus before landing in Baghdad. The Monday's visit of Ali Mamlouk, Head of the...

President Donald Trump is not the first American leader to have Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in his sights, but he was the first to pull the trigger. It’s a pattern that has emerged throughout Trump’s presidency. On a range of national security matters, he has cast aside the same...

More than eight years into devastating conflict, Syria appears to be stuck in a situation of "no war and no peace", analysts have said. The Syrian conflict erupted in 2011 after government forces cracked down on civilian protesters demanding more freedom and economic opportunities....

Key point: TOW missiles used by Syrian rebels blew holes through Russia's armored tanks. The interconnected conflicts raging across the Middle East today have amounted to a dreadful human catastrophe with spiraling global consequence. One of their lesser effects has been to deflate the...

The Trump administration’s rapidly shifting strategy in northern Syria has U.S. commanders there scrambling to protect their forces from an expected surge in actions by military units from Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government, as well as their proxy forces, according to Defense...

A December 1 New York Times investigation found that Russian aircraft were responsible for an August strike in the last anti-government held area in Syria. Two months ago, my colleague and I investigated the same attack, finding that it amounted to an apparent war crime. On the evening...

Practice makes perfect, and the Russian air force has gotten a lot of practice striking Syrian rebels. The Russian Air Force has learned valuable lessons during the recent campaign in Syria, according to a former senior Russian air commander. In fact, Russian air operations in support...

Even among hardliners in Iran, there seems to be an acknowledgment of one fact after widespread protests, violence and a security force crackdown following a spike in government-set gasoline prices: This will not be the last time demonstrators come out on the street. As Iran struggles...

I’ve spent months these past eight years in Syria’s amputated cities. They are a scar on all our lives – the Russians, the Syrians, the armed Islamists, the western powers that spent more time trying to destroy Syria than the Syrian regime. The bodies buried deep within these heaps of...

On a Sunday night in early October, 24-year-old Sherin Zadah was working on her graduate school application at her San Diego home when her father, who had been watching the nightly news, called out: “Oh, my God, what is Trump doing?” The White House had just announced a pullout of U.S....

A Pentagon Inspector General report says President Donald Trump's decision to retreat from northeastern Syria and allow a Turkish incursion there gives ISIS the ability to rebuild and plan attacks on the West. Prior to the Turkish incursion in early October, a Pentagon report indicated that...

In recent weeks, some American troops have moved from Syria to Iraq. Airmen have moved from the United States to an airbase in the UAE, and up to two thousand more U.S. soldiers are headed to Saudi Arabia. All of this is on top of the continued presence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia,...

That wars end very differently to our own expectations – or our plans – was established long ago. Because “we” won the Second World War did not mean that the Americans would win the Vietnam war, or that France would vanquish its enemies in Algeria. Yet the moment we decide who the good guys...

Last Sunday in northeast Syria was a day fraught with geopolitical symbolism. As Russian forces raised their flag over a former school that had been used by American troops in the town of Ain Issa, about 100 miles to the east on the M4 highway a U.S. patrol watched as Turkish or Turkish-backed...

A 45-member constitutional committee launched it meetings Monday in Geneva. The public is still divided with fears of prolonging the timeframe especially since many of the international resolutions are stalled and regional and international division continues. The mini-committee approved...

Islamic State (IS) group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was found and killed over the weekend in northern Syria just a few miles from the Turkish border in a US raid that evaded the Turkey’s Incirlik base, in a sign of the increasing distrust between US and Turkish militaries. The compound...

President Trump is renewing his push for U.S. control of Syrian oil. But experts say there's not much oil there, and what there is belongs to the Syrian government. Still, the idea of controlling the oil fields is one that has long appealed to Trump. And it may provide a rationale for...