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The Israelis tried to cut their losses in Syria. They failed

(The Middle East Eye)- As Iran consolidates its presence and influence in Syria, Israel fears that its "Syrian policy" is collapsing. To cut its losses, the Jewish state has embarked on a new and urgent diplomatic-intelligence initiative spearheaded by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen. On...

The Battle for Raqqa: A War of Tactics and Caution

By Abdullah Ghadawi ( Atlantic Council )- The base of the Islamic State’s (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) power is in Raqqa and Mosul and is connected with each side deploying fighters across the border in mass. But while the United States and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) took back Mosul, the...

New U.S. plan for Syria gives Assad the upper hand

By Abdullah Ghadawi (Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian arena is witnessing today more than ever major transformations that has strategic dimensions at the political and military levels following successful truces in several regions and the activation of the plan of de-escalation zones,...

Can the latest attempt at a ceasefire in Syria succeed?

(The Economist)- The guns have fallen silent over southern Syria. Under a deal brokered by Russia and America, the Syrian regime and its rebel adversaries, which have fought for six bloody years, have agreed to stop killing each other in parts of the country. Since the truce came into force on...

Newest Russia threat? military challenges U.S. and Europe by winning in Syria

(Newsweek)- Russia's support for the Syrian government in its war against jihadists and other insurgents has given Moscow a newfound military foothold in the Mediterranean, one that could present a serious challenge to another foe: NATO. The Institute for the Study of War, a...

How Omran, the dazed Aleppo boy who reappeared this week became a political pawn

By Samantha Schmidt ( The Washington Post )- For a few fleeting moments, scores of people worldwide knew the face and name of the young Syrian boy in the ambulance. They saw the gut-wrenching scene in Aleppo last August captured in a photograph and video that quickly circulated on...

Qatar and Syria’s seven priorities

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian revolution and Qatar have many intersections and Qatar preceded everyone in some of these intersections. Zaman al-Wasl presents 7 priorities for Qatar with the Syrian revolution: July 18, 2011: The Qatari Ambassador and the Qatari Diplomatic Mission...

Syria’s bloodiest battle is yet to come — and 1 million civilians are at risk

(The Washington Post )- They came from every corner of Syria: people who fled fighting but could not afford smugglers’ fees to go farther. Now nearly 1 million are packed into one province in Syria’s northwest, eyeing a weeks-old cease-fire there with trepidation, fear and mistrust....

Trump said he would ‘take out’ the families of ISIS fighters. Did an airstrike in Syria do just that?

( The Washington Post )- Back when he was still a candidate and not president of the United States, Donald Trump had a suggestion for winning the battle against the Islamic State: “Take out their families.” “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families,...

What Trump can learn from previous US presidents' Mideast visits

( The Middle East Eye )- US presidents tend to either sink or swim during forays to the Middle East. So when the current commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, boards Air Force One for his first foreign presidential venture to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, he may benefit from a recap of his...

If London were Aleppo – 4.3 million dead or displaced

The bombed-out buildings of Aleppo may bear little resemblance to London’s gleaming skyscrapers but the two cities once had much in common, something German artist Hans Hack has seized on to bring home the reality of war. Before Syria’s 6-year-old conflict, Aleppo, like London, was...

Key opposition group on brink of collapse, last chance talk

By Abdullah Ghadawi (Zaman Al Wasl)- The atmosphere of tension has returned to the corridors of the Syrian National Coalition after the recent election battle in which Riad Saif and his supporters wan the presidency. These elections have left a situation of political...

France: presidential candidates weight on Syria conflict

By Ethar Abdulhaq (Zaman Al Wasl)- The French debate between the presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen was almost a debate on the Syrian issue, or so it looked like when it came to discussing the file of security and terrorism as it is the most delicate file to play...

The organisation ridding the world of chemical weapons

( The New Arab )- Russia criticised the world's chemical weapons watchdog for not sending experts to the site of an alleged chemical attack in Syria, saying it was "unacceptable to analyse events from a distance". But the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is in a...

The Islamic State has tunnels everywhere. It’s making ISIS much harder to defeat

( Washington Post )- Yesterday, the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a network of Islamic State caves and tunnels in Afghanistan. The military said its spectacular use of force was necessary to destroy the underground terror hideout (though it's not clear that the MOAB was...

Susan Rice’s claim that Obama got Syria to ‘verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile’

( The Washington Post )- “We were able to find a solution that didn’t necessitate the use of force that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished. Our aim in contemplating the use of force following the use...

Are US strikes on Syria good or bad?

( Middle East Eye )- Analysts in the United States reacted cautiously to President Donald Trump’s decision to order a massive military strike on a Syrian airbase on Thursday in retaliation for a “barbaric” chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. Responses were...

A chemical weapons attack in Syria exposes Trump’s Assad problem

(The Washington Post)- Yet again, the world is watching gut-wrenching images emerge from the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria. Activists claim the Syrian government launched an airstrike on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the country's northwestern Idlib province. Scores of...