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  • Idlib, Syria: Nine dead, dozens injured after Russian warplanes attack Jisr al-Shughur

    “Thirty minutes after the strike, I went to the location,” 26-year-old Ahmad Rahhal, a local journalist, said. “I saw wagons of tomato on the ground and blood on the floor.” The White Helmets said this was the second day of airstrikes in the area, coming ahead of the Muslim festival, Eid al-Adha, in the Muslim-majority country. The past four days have also seen artillery fire, the civil defense added. Sunday’s strike in Jisr al-Shughur stands as the most fatal in northwestern Syria so far in 2023.

  • US Commander Accuses Russia of ‘Buffoonery in the Air’ in Syria

    A top U.S. military commander accused the Russian air force of encouraging its pilots to engage in "buffoonery in the air," raising the risk of accidents or even conflict in Syria. Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, the combined forces air component commander for U.S. Central Command, told reporters Wednesday Russian jets continue to violate deconfliction protocols in Syria multiple times a day, putting U.S. forces at risk. And despite previous warnings from the United States, Grynkewich said Russia’s aggressiveness seems to be worsening.

  • Roadside bomb kills 3 military personnel in Syria’s Homs

    Three soldiers were killed and six others wounded when a roadside bomb blasted into their bus in the central province of Homs on Sunday, pro-government Sham FM radio reported. The bomb ripped through the bus at the al-Jabriyeh intersection on the road toward the town of Mushirfeh in the eastern countryside of Homs, said the report. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the death toll could likely rise due to the number of critically wounded people.

  • Syria’s War Economy

    In the Sahel area, for example, there are well-established smuggling networks that claim they are now Islamic State of Maghreb or Al-Qaeda, although they were originally formed as a smuggling network. On the other hand, in Syria, rebels were desperately looking for funding and started smuggling gasoline. Most recently, Syrian rebels have gotten involved in Captagon smuggling. Captagon is an amphetamine drug that is produced in regime-held Syria.

  • I work in Syrian civil society. There were gaps in our performance after the February 6 earthquake

    Syrian NGO offices are mostly concentrated in areas where the earthquake struck, such as Turkey’s Gaziantep and Hatay provinces. Some NGO employees and their families ended up becoming victims as a result. Others suffered from instability. Despite this, they arranged their affairs within a short period and designed the required response for the affected people in northern Syria.

  • Syria’s opposition calls for fresh talks with Assad government

    "The international, regional and Syrian conditions provide an appropriate circumstance for the resumption of direct negotiations... under a specific agenda and timetable," the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) said in a statement. Negotiations to resolve Syria's crisis hit an impasse in 2018 over Assad's role in any political transition, and several rounds of subsequent UN-brokered talks aimed at forging a new constitution have failed.

  • Saudi team arrive in Damascus ahead of Syria embassy reopening 

    A Saudi technical team has arrived in Syria to prepare the reopening of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). The delegation, led by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Ghazi bin Rafea Al-Anzi, met with  Syria's Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minsiter, Ayman Sousan at the headquarters of the foreign affairs ministry in the Syrian capital, the report added.

  • Commentary: Syria’s Assad in Saudi Arabia reflects the Middle East’s new normal

    “The Americans are dismayed,” a Gulf source close to government circles told Reuters. “We (Gulf states) are people living in this region, we’re trying to solve our problems as much as we can with the tools available to us in our hands.”

  • Commentary: Syria’s Assad in Saudi Arabia reflects the Middle East’s new normal

    “Riyadh didn’t begin the normalization push with Assad’s regime, but it did run with it, and hard,” tweeted H.A. Hellyer, a senior fellow at the RUSI think tank in Britain, gesturing to overtures made to Syria earlier by countries like the United Arab Emirates. “That’s all part of Riyadh’s calculation that its domestic agenda requires de-escalation within the region on any other file, so that full attention is focused within.”

  • U.S. officials walk back claim Syria strike killed senior al-Qaeda leader

    U.S. military officials are walking back claims that a recent strike in Syria killed an influential al-Qaeda figure, following assertions by the dead man’s family that he had no ties to terrorists but was a father of 10 tending to his sheep when he was slain by an American missile.