The UN special envoy for Syria announced Wednesday that the 45-member committee charged with drafting a new constitution for the conflict-torn country will meet for the first time in nine months on Aug. 24. Geir Pedersen told the Security Council that convening the UN-facilitated,...

  Mahmoud Arnaout is another pro-Bashar al-Assad militant who fled to Germany in 2018 after participating in the regime's military operation in the southern suburbs of Damascus. Arnaout, 46, originally from the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, lives in the city of...

In May, Syrian tycoon Rami Makhlouf, a cousin and long-time ally of President Bashar al-Assad, took a once unimaginable step. In a video he published on social media, he lashed out against Assad's "inhumane" state security forces. "Mr President, the security forces have started attacking...

 Syrian President Bashar al Assad said Wednesday that sweeping new US sanctions amounted to a new stage of economic warfare against his government and were part of Washington's long- standing efforts to "choke" Syrians' living standards. In a statement, Assad also blamed the sanctions,...