RIGA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday he had been informed that agreement was reached for 200 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters to pass through Turkey to help defend the Syrian border town of Kobani against Islamic State militants....

The army has shrunk by nearly half since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 but experts say the remaining military force is now both more flexible and capable. It has transformed itself from a traditional military built on the former Soviet model into an effective...

(Reuters) - Air strikes by U.S.-led forces have killed 553 Islamist fighters and 32 civilians during a month-long campaign in Syria , a monitoring group which tracks the violence said on Thursday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the vast majority of the...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad has replaced five provincial governors, including some overseeing regions that include major fronts in Syria's civil war, state media said on Wednesday. The state news agency said Assad had shuffled governors of...