( The Wall Street Journal )- Before launching the battle to capture Islamic State’s de facto capital, the U.S.-led military coalition dropped leaflets calling on extremists to surrender. On the ground, militants were going door to door, demanding that residents pay their utility bills....

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russia has built a base for its S-400 long-range air defense missile systems in Hama province, well-informed sources said, 15 km (10 miles) far from the newly-discovered Iranian missile facilities in the most loyal area to Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The key...

( Financial Times )- For years, Ammar’s tiny money transfer shop in the Turkish city of Antakya caught no one’s attention but the fellow Syrian refugees who pressed inside to send and receive money from abroad, until this summer, when security officials started visiting every week....

(The New York Times)- In an effort to purge extremist propaganda from its platform, YouTube has inadvertently removed thousands of videos that could be used to document atrocities in Syria, potentially jeopardizing future war crimes prosecutions, observers and rights advocates say....