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Day 2 of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire sees Israeli airstrike on Lebanon and scattered attacks

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  • Assad’s family ‘flees’ to Russia – but Kremlin won’t come to Syrian leader’s rescue

    Bashar al-Assad’s family fled to Russia in the days after rebel forces launched a shock offensive that captured swathes of territory across northern Syria, it has been revealed.

  • In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?

    Across northern and central Syria this week, families who've been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been holding joyous reunions."I didn't believe it, it was very emotional," said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the Syrian NGO the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister."I couldn't believe I was seeing her again," he told CBC News from northern Syria. "I lost my brother, my mother and father ov

  • How Syria’s rebel leader went from radical jihadist to a blazer-wearing ‘revolutionary’

    Jolani replaced his jihadist camo attire for a Western-style blazer, established a semi-technocratic government in Idlib and promoted himself as a viable partner in Western efforts to curb Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

  • Hezbollah sent 'supervising' forces to Syria's Homs, sources say

    Lebanese armed group Hezbollah sent a small number of "supervising forces" from Lebanon to Syria overnight to help prevent anti-government fighters from seizing the strategic city of Homs, two senior Lebanese security sources said on Friday. "Homs must not fall," one of the sources told Reuters, adding that senior officers deployed overnight to oversee some Hezbollah fighters who had been in Syria near the border with Lebanon for years.

  • War monitor says Syria rebels enter strategic city of Homs

    A war monitor said late Saturday that Islamist-led rebels had entered the strategic city of Homs, on the way towards Damascus where Syria's embattled government said it was setting up an impenetrable security cordon.Syria's defence ministry, however, said that news "about terrorists entering the city of Homs is unfounded." 

  • US-backed Syrian Kurds seize eastern city of Deir el-Zor, sources say

    HASAKEH, Syria (Reuters) -A U.S.-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured the main city in eastern Syria and the main border crossing with Iraq on Friday, taking effective control of Syria's vast eastern desert in two rapid moves. Two security sources based in eastern Syria said that by Friday afternoon the alliance, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), had taken full control of the city of Deir el-Zor, the third city to fall out of President Bashar al-Assad's control in a week.

  • Middle East latest: Syria's forces withdraw from Homs, a key link between the capital and coast

    Syrian opposition fighters have reached the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, and government forces abandoned the central city of Homs as the rebels' surprising offensive picks up speed. President Bashar Assad's whereabouts are unknown. Homs is an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces that are the Syrian leader’s base of support.

  • Thousands flee as Syrian insurgents advance to the doorstep of the country's third-largest city

    Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs, the country’s third largest, as insurgents seized two towns on the outskirts Friday, positioning themselves for an assault on a potentially major prize in their march against President Bashar Assad. The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the latest in the stunning advances by opposition fighters over the past week that have so far met little resistance from Assad’s forces. A day earlier, fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth largest, after the army said it withdrew to avoid fighting inside the city and spare the lives of civilians.

  • By running Aleppo, Syrian rebels seek to show they are alternative to Assad

    A week after Islamist rebels seized Syria's second-largest city, in a surprise advance deep into government-held territory, Aleppo is slowly coming back to life. Traffic police wave cars through intersections and internet coverage has improved as a rebel-linked telecoms network has expanded its reach, according to half a dozen residents and Reuters footage. These measures are part of an effort by the rebel alliance spearheaded by Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as the Nusra Front, to show Syrians - and the West - that it is a viable alternative to President Bashar al-Assad, analysts say.

  • Syria govt loses control of key city Daraa

    Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, a war monitor said, in another stunning blow for President Bashar al-Assad's rule after rebels wrested other key cities from his grip.Never in the war had Assad's forces lost control of so many key cities in such a short space of time.

  • Chinese embassy in Syria urges citizens to evacuate immediately as civil war reignites

    The Chinese embassy in Syria urged its citizens to leave the Middle Eastern nation "as soon as possible", with the revival of its decade-long civil war and the capture of more cities by anti-government militants. "At present, the war in northwestern Syria is growing tense, and the security situation in Syria is further deteriorating," the embassy said on Thursday. "The embassy in Syria suggests that Chinese citizens in Syria take advantage of the fact that commercial flights are still in operati

  • Syria in maps: Where have anti-Assad rebels taken control?

    A visual guide to the latest developments as advancing Syrian fighters set their sights on Damascus.

  • Situation in Syria creating new weakness for Hezbollah, Iran, says US envoy Hochstein

    U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said the situation in Syria, where rebels are pressing a rapid advance that is threatening President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power, was creating a new weakness for militant Lebanese group Hezbollah and for Iran. The U.S. envoy, who negotiated a U.S-brokered ceasefire agreement in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that went into effect on Nov. 27, said he believed Hezbollah was not yet eliminated but it was rather weakened. Iran has been a backer of Assad in Syria's long civil war, sending allied forces including Hezbollah and Iraqi militias to bolster the Syrian military.

  • Iraq considers Syria intervention as rebels advance

    BEIRUT (Reuters) -Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim ruling parties and armed groups are weighing the pros and cons of armed intervention in Syria, viewing as a grave threat the advance of Sunni Islamist rebels who have taken two Syrian cities and now bear down on a third. Baghdad has a dark history with Syria-based Sunni fighters, thousands of whom crossed into Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and fuelled years of sectarian killing before returning again in 2013 as Islamic State to conquer a third of the country. The Syrian rebels currently advancing in Syria, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have disavowed Al Qaeda and IS and say they have no ambitions in Iraq, but the ruling factions in Iraq have little trust in those assertions.

  • Is the 'writing on the wall' for Syria's Assad?

    More than 13 years since Bashar al-Assad's security forces opened fire on protesters demanding democratic reforms, the Syrian president's grip on power may finally be weakening.In a further sign of Assad's isolation, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) group, which controls much of northeast Syria, said it was ready to speak to its foes among the Turkish-backed rebels.

  • Rebel forces 'reach Damascus suburbs' as protesters topple statue on outskirts

    Syrian rebels have reportedly taken the key city of Homs and reached the suburbs of the capital Damascus as their lightning offensive threatens to end Bashar al Assad's 24-year rule. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents are now active in three Damascus suburbs, including Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya - making it the first time they have reached the outskirts of the city since 2018, when government forces recaptured the area after a years-long siege. Meanwhile, Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul-Ghani said insurgent forces had now "fully liberated" Syria's central city of Homs - in a strategically important move the cuts off Damascus from coastal military bases.

  • Iran begins to evacuate commanders as forces abandon Assad

    Iran has started to evacuate military commanders from Syria, in a sign that the regime is losing faith in Bashar al-Assad’s ability to hold back a rebel uprising.

  • Rebels close in on central city of Homs as aid groups sound alarm on Syria

    Rebel forces pushed their offensive in Syria further south early Friday, closing in on the central city of Homs as humanitarian groups sounded the alarm on the escalating conditions for civilians trapped in the fighting.Syrian Kurdish fighters also captured control of the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, further gripping more land under control of President Bashar al-Assad's control, sources told Reuters. It was the third major city, after Aleppo and Hama in the northwest and centre, to fall out of

  • What the Syrian rebellion could mean for the balance of power in the Middle East

    Western and Arab states, as well as Israel, would like to see Iran’s influence in Syria curtailed, but none wish for a radical Islamist regime to replace Assad.

  • Security at Australian synagogues stepped up as Netanyahu links Melbourne attack to Labor stance

    Security measures increased at Jewish sites across Victoria, while New South Wales Police commits to increased patrols of significant sites in that state