(Al Jazeera)- When the Russian intervention into the Syrian conflict accelerated in mid-2016, many analysts and partisans declared the "Battle of Aleppo" to hold the key to the future of the Syrian conflict. Decisive victory one way or another, or the re-establishment of a military...

By Hassan Hassan ( The National )- The extent to which communities in Syria and Iraq that have fallen under ISIL’s influence have changed since the group took control might take a generation to fully comprehend. In much of the expanse that ISIL has controlled or still holds, social change was...

As the Syrian regime and its allies prepared to ramp up their attack on Aleppo in November, one of the rebel groups defending the opposition-held part of the city took up arms against another, seizing its stores of ammunition, fuel and food. The incident near an Aleppo frontline underlined the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian opposition figure and former political detainee Michel Kilo said he told the Saudis that for every fighter killed in Syria will save 5 Saudis later due to the projects and aggressive intentions of Iran towards Saudi Arabia which Iran will not hesitate to implement if it...

(Independent)- Nearly half of Russians fear Moscow's intervention in Syrian conflict could lead to World War III, a poll has found.  Moscow, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been conducting bombing raids in Syria since September 2015. Forty-eight per cent of...

(News Deeply)- On September 17, U.S., British, Danish and Australian warplanes attacked a Syrian military base in Deir Ezzor that had been holding out against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) for months. The U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes killed at least 62 Syrian troops before a frantic...

(Independent) Moonscape. Desert. Blitz. The past 100 years of war have turned all our words into clichés. I rage at every reference to the Second World War – because it’s over, because Hitler is dead, because we won and because we shouldn’t dig up old graves to frighten future generations. But...

(Middle East Eye)- It is often said that a symbiotic relationship exists between terrorism and the media. Where terrorism needs the commercial media to communicate its message to either its target or broader audience, commercial media come to depend on the ratings boost often gained by reporting...

(Foreign Affairs)- On January 25, 2011, tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets, demanding an end to the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Eighteen days later, Mubarak stepped down. In Tahrir Square, the crowds cried, “Lift your head high, you’re an Egyptian.” “We can...

As civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo are battered by air strikes, ground offensives and shelling, what has happened to the world's responsibility to protect populations under threat? The Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Security Council were established after World War Two to...

(The Guardian)- Her hair was tastefully curled, her makeup flawless and discreet. Asma al-Assad’s tone, too, was impeccably sober when she gave her first television interview in eight years earlier this week. Like all Syrians, she told her interviewer in her light London accent, she felt...

(Vox)- The hot new policy idea in Washington is the hottest old idea: direct US military intervention in Syria’s civil war. In the past several months, the siege of the rebel-held eastern part of the city of Aleppo has dramatized the war’s terrible cost. In the last debate, Hillary Clinton...

Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump in three debates. She leads in many preference polls of the most competitive states. Barring a significant shift in the next two weeks, she is in a strong position to become the first woman elected U.S. president. But Clinton will end the campaign still...

(theguardian)- Speaking at the Conservative party conference last month Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, set out a vision of Britain as a “soft power superpower”, projecting values through influence, ideas and the power of persuasion. If ever there were a time and a place for exercising our...

(Bloomberg)- Vladimir Putin’s backing for the relentless air bombardment of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has provoked some foreign governments to accuse Russia of carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The U.S. and some European Union countries including Germany are considering...

(Independent)- Syria’s army and Hezbollah and Iranian allies are preparing for a massive invasion by thousands of Isis fighters who will be driven out of Iraq when Mosul falls. The real purpose behind the much-trumpeted US-planned "liberation" of the Iraqi city, the Syrian military suspect, is...

(The Guardian)- The novel way of diplomacy proposed by foreign secretary Boris Johnson has so far materialised in a lone gentleman with a poster outside our embassy – not something I would describe as a big diplomatic victory. But the very fact of having to resort to (non-existent) campaigners...

(Sputnik News)- Washington needs to develop a clear strategy in Syria and answer the question of what its national interests in the Syrian war are, US-based journalist Antoun Issa notes, throwing into question the "necessity" of the US' direct military involvement in Syria. The next US...

(theguardian)- The far left’s ideology is not “leftwing” in any sense that a socialist from the 19th or 20th centuries would have understood. It is simply opposition to the west whatever the west does. Occidentalism explains the appearances of Labour’s leaders on Iran’s propaganda channels , the...

(Bloomberg)- Even a war as pitiless as Syria’s can have a low point. The battle for Aleppo has produced carnage, civilian suffering and, according to some, war crimes on a scale rarely surpassed in the five-year conflict. Backed by Russian airstrikes and militias supported by Iran, forces...