The Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah is poised to launch a much-anticipated offensive to the north of Damascus in a counterinsurgency campaign that is likely to prompt hand-wringing in Washington and more Saudi frustration with Western inaction in...

  Salih Muslim , co-chairman of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said a solution in Syria without President Bashar al-Assad is not easy. “A solution without Assad means the death of 2 million Alawites," he said.  Muslim, who gave an exclusive...

  Iraq is going to break up.  It is already happening, but no one wants to acknowledge it because no one wants to be perceived as being responsible for the disintegration of a major Middle Eastern country .   There is not much about the...

Syrian forces seized a suburb of Damascus on Thursday from rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a push that has shored up government control of the capital's outskirts, state television reported. Assad's forces, backed by Shi'ite fighters from Lebanon,  Iraq...