The international coalition battling the Islamic State group will begin a final push on the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa in the coming days, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday. But on the ground, the US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance spearheading the battle for the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Huge explosion rocked the village of Qomhana in the central Hama province as rebels and regime forces engage in fierce clashes early Friday. Local activists said the powerful Islamist alliance of Haya't Tahrir al-Sham, led by former al-Qaeda group Fatha al-Sham, has carried...

(New York Times)- Abu Mohammed is bored. He estimates that two years ago he earned more than $800,000 from smuggling thousands of migrants into Turkey from Greece. He rented an office in Aksaray, an area of Istanbul popular with Syrians, to serve as his headquarters. At one point, he had more...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Head of the Tribes Army has rebuffed regime claims that his alliance of tribes based at the border with Jordan and Iraq is an affiliate to Jordan's intelligence, saying the coordination with Amman is strategic in fighting ISIS. Sheikh Rakan Khudhair, who with several Free...