Islamic State's leaders used spies to root out suspected enemies in their ranks in the countdown to this month's U.S.-led attack on their de-facto capital Raqqa, the wives of three Tunisian fighters who fled the Syrian town said. They described how the leaders had fled Raqqa as pressure...

Syria’s former defense minister Mustafa Tlass, a close friend of President Bashar Assad’s father and predecessor Hafez, died in Paris Tuesday, his son Firas said. He was 85. Tlass, whose other son Manaf was among the most high-profile regime officials to defect during the early days of...

Slightly more Europeans now view the United States unfavorably under President Donald Trump than favorably, according to a survey of public attitudes in three dozen countries that comes as Trump prepares for a return visit to the continent early next month. The Pew Research Center survey...

( The Guardian )- For the 10 months I spent as a detainee in the prisons of Bashar al-Assad, I only saw my family in my dreams. At night, the screams would stop for an hour or two, and I could close my eyes and remember what it was like to be human. When I slept, I would return to my life....