Five years into the Syrian civil war, Qutaiba Idlbi, a native of Damascus, recalled a question he first heard at the onset of the revolution. “Why should we go out to the streets if we know that Assad is going to shoot unarmed people?” Idlbi remembered that question, raised by...

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Three Kurdish-led territories in northern Syria are expected to imminently announce a federal system, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The move will “[widen] the framework of self-administration which the Kurds and others have formed,” according to Idris Nassan, a representative of Kobani’s foreign affairs department. Kobani, Jazeera, and Afrin are the three regions that...

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Russian diplomats are stressing that Israel’s national security interests will not be hurt by the country’s sudden announcement of its plans to withdraw troops from Syria, which Israel’s top general admitted took him by surprise, Ynet reported Tuesday. “We will try to ensure that this (Syria) crisis is resolved, and we will also...

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Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that the Iran-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad has used banned chemical weapons against civilians since the current ceasefire began, Reuters reported on Tuesday. “The Syrians used military grade chemical weapons and lately have been using materials, chlorine, against civilians, including in these very days,...

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Israeli rule over the Golan Heights should be considered “lawful and just” and should be supported by the United States and the international community, Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, argued in an analysis Friday for Real Clear Politics. Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War....

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The use of Shi’ite militias from across the Middle East to boost the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is the latest example of how Iran uses “Shiite proxies to bolster its reach and influence” across the region, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) Wednesday. Fighters from Hezbollah, Iran’s...

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Leading Syrian opposition figures have accused Secretary of State John Kerry of threatening to cut aid to forces fighting dictator Bashar al-Assad unless they agreed to attend peace talks on terms dictated by Assad’s backers, Iran and Russia. Mohamad Alloush, a member of the Syrian opposition’s High Negotiating Committee (HNC), told...

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As the Syrian village of Madaya continues to be under siege by the forces of Iran-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad, with nearly two dozen people dead from starvation, the hunger problems continue to worsen throughout the country. One in three Syrians doesn’t have adequate access to food, NPR reported Tuesday. This food insecurity is caused by civilians surrounded...

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Russia is facing criticism over reports that it bombed the office of an American NGO in the central Syrian province of Idlib, Foreign Policy wrote on Monday. The Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) said in a statement that its field office has been “completely destroyed” by a Russian airstrike. The organization’s...

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Russia is supplying the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah with advanced weaponry, including “long-range tactical missiles, laser guided rockets, and anti-tank weapons,” according to two anonymous Hezbollah commanders, The Daily Beast reported on Monday. The duo, who used the false names Bakr and Assir, met with The Daily Beast separately in December...

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