Israeli planes made another round of airstrikes in Syria last week, targeting Iranian militia bases in the east and an alleged chemical weapons research laboratory in Aleppo province. The number of Israeli strikes in Syria over the past nine years is estimated to be in the hundreds, but the...

Syria's top tycoon publicly airing his grievances has revealed a power struggle within the ruling family as it tries to cement its power after nine years of war, analysts say. After years of staying out of the limelight, business magnate Rami Makhlouf this month in two videos on Facebook...

A defiant tyrant and his ruthless wife square up against the family oligarch, with the spoils of a nation at stake. It could be standard Ramadan television fare, but not this year. Instead, all the intrigue of Syria’s ruling family has been laid out in a spectacular real-life drama that...

When Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict on Bashar al-Assad's side in September 2015, its involvement was seen as crucial for the survival of Syria's dictatorial president, whose army had been severely weakened by desertions and had suffered a string of defeats by rebel forces. Since...

President Vladimir Putin is letting his impatience show with Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, who isn’t proving as grateful for being kept in power by Russian intervention in his country’s brutal civil war as the Kremlin leader needs him to be. Consumed at home by the twin shocks of...

While the Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people worldwide and infected more than 2.5 million, Syria has officially reported relatively few cases. If the epidemic were to worsen there, the death toll would be all the higher as the country, still under international sanctions,...

The Russian government has revealed that its new T-14 Armata main battle tank was shipped to Syria for use under “field conditions.” Armata, a brand new tank design, was apparently shipped to Russian forces in Syria but it is not clear if the tank actually saw combat. Moscow originally boasted...

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 reputations of Western main battle tanks mistakenly thought to be night-invulnerable in the...

It is arguably one of the most coveted prizes in Syria’s civil war, and after eight years of fighting, Syrian President Bashar Assad has got it back. The Damascus-Aleppo highway, or the M5, is known to Syrians simply as the “International Road.” Cutting through Syria's major cities, the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- With the ongoing Russian-led offensive on last rebel stronghold in northwestern Syria and with the threat of violation of the Sochi ceasefire agreement, indicators of the U.S. involvement can be discerned in the nature of mobilization and bombing, targeting the Syrian regime...

For months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been relatively silent or evasive over Russia's role in the humanitarian catastrophe playing out in northern Syria's Idlib province, even when directly challenged. If pushed, he would repeatedly say that his trust in his personal...

The Syrian government's recapture Wednesday of the key highway town of Maaret al-Numan is the latest step in a regime push to retake the opposition's last major bastion. How important is the town to the Damascus government, what's left of the ever-shrinking region, largely dominated by...

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...