The leaflets make no mention of the candidates' party, just a splash of colour and pledges carefully calibrated to fit with those of the new centrist president. Welcome to campaigning in Emmanuel Macron's France, where moderates of the left and right are hitching their wagons to the new...

By Abdul Salam Haj Bakri (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian media outlets saidin recent days that a large prisoner exchange operation is expected to take place with Jaish al-Islam in eastern Damascus suburbs before Eid al-Fitr. According to the reports, the exchange is expected to include 4,000...

A U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance has seized new territory west of ISIS' Syrian bastion Raqqa, bringing it closer to a final attack on the city, activists said Saturday. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an operation to capture Raqqa in northern Syria last November, and have...

( Financial Times )- By the time he reached Turkey after fleeing his hometown of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Isis in Syria, Hassan was destitute and desperate. And so, over his own misgivings, he helped a friend working with western intelligence to pinpoint the location of an Isis jail in...