Syria civil war - Page 3

The leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organization warned Thursday his Lebanon-based group has acquired a stockpile of illicit weaponary and rockets despite traditional supply lines through war-torn Syria being cut.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions between the two countries after a Russian spy plane was shot down by Syria during an Israeli airstrike.

MOSCOW — A Russian reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by a Syrian missile over the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 15 people on board, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday. It blamed Israel for the crash, saying the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli fighters attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

Hours after an alleged Israeli airstrike on the Damascus airport in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed the country’s policy of employing military action to prevent weapons transfers to the enemies that pose an immediate threat.

An Israeli missile attack targeted the Syrian capital’s airport late Saturday, activating air defenses which shot down a number of the projectiles, state news agency SANA reported.

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday announced that it had officially shuttered its “Operation Good Neighbor” program, ending over five years of humanitarian assistance that the Jewish state has given Syrian nationals near the border.

AMMAN – Turkey has stepped up arms supplies to Syrian rebels to help them stave off an expected offensive by the Syrian army and its Russian and Iran-backed allies in the northwest near the Turkish frontier, rebel sources told Reuters.

KHAN SHAYKHUN, Syria — Violence in northwest Syria has displaced more than 30,000 people this month alone, the United Nations said Monday, warning that a looming assault could create the century’s “worst humanitarian catastrophe.”

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman says Germany is talking with allies about the situation in Syria but isn’t confirming a report that Berlin is mulling the possibility of participating in future military strikes.

MOSCOW — Russia on Sunday accused the United States of carrying out bombings using white phosphorous in eastern Syria against military targets in civilian areas, which is banned under international law.

WASHINGTON — The US Treasury announced sanctions Thursday targeting a network of business groups that supplies fuel to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, along with one that handles regime trade with the Islamic State group.

TEL AVIV – Israeli company ImageSat International published satellite photos of the damage to an Iranian military site in Syria from Tuesday’s airstrike that was attributed to Israel.

Syria and Russian forces prepare to ‘clean out’ the ‘terrorists’ in Idlib ahead of massive bloodbath.

ISTANBUL – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that dropping bombs and missiles on Syria’s last rebel-held province of Idlib could cause a “massacre,” in remarks published Wednesday.

Israel has threatened to attack any Iranian military assets in Iraq as it has done in Syria, following reports Tehran has moved ballistic missiles closer to the Jewish state.

Iran Interior Minister Rahmani-Fazli wants European Union member states to fund the economic, social and political costs he claims Afghan refugees impose on the Shiite country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Sunday with a US envoy for Syria for talks on the war-ravaged country and Iran, his office said.

At least two members of pro-government military forces were killed overnight in a string of explosions at a military airport near the Syrian capital, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A string of powerful blasts from the direction of a military airport in Damascus lit up the skies and shook the capital city in the early morning hours on Sunday, residents and state TV reported.

MOSCOW — Russia has announced major military drills in the Mediterranean Sea amid growing tensions over a rebel-held enclave in Syria.

The defense ministers of Iran and Syria have signed an agreement on military cooperation and reconstruction in the war-torn country, Iranian media reported on Monday.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami on Monday charged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was keeping the Middle East in a perpetual state of conflict in order to damage the Iranian economy.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami arrived in Syria on Sunday for meetings with senior defense and military officials as part of a two-day visit, according to the Tasnim news agency.

MOSCOW — Russia on Saturday said Syrian rebels were preparing a chemical attack in Idlib province which will be blamed on Damascus and used as a pretext for Western powers to hit government targets in the war-torn country.

BEIRUT — The Islamic State group has released a new militant audio recording, purportedly of its shadowy leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his first in almost a year.

The leader of Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate has vowed to fight on in Idlib province, the country’s last major rebel stronghold, in the face of a possible government offensive there.

RIYADH – Saudi Arabia on Friday announced a $100 million contribution to a US-backed campaign to “stabilise” northeastern Syria, once a bastion of the radical Islamic State group.

TEL AVIV – Hezbollah chief on Tuesday said the Trump administration’s sanctions against Iran will not impact either Tehran or its proxies, and added that the Lebanese terror group was stronger than the IDF and ready for a new round of conflict with Israel. 

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump’s administration believes missing US journalist Austin Tice is still alive, six years after he is thought to have been taken captive in Syria.

TEL AVIV – Satellite images released on Saturday by an Israeli intelligence firm show the destruction resulting from an alleged Israeli airstrike on an Iranian missile production facility in northwestern Syria last month.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Heavy bombardment killed nearly 30 civilians across northern Syria on Friday, a monitor said, in some of the fiercest shelling of rebel-held areas there in months.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz on Tuesday welcomed the killing of a leading Syrian chemical weapons scientist but refused to comment on speculation that intelligence agency Mossad was involved.

The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has been accused of killing a top research director at a military agency linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program.

TEL AVIV – The IDF on Tuesday released a video showing Israel’s raid on Syria in May that destroyed more than 50 Iranian targets in the most extensive military strike in the country since 1974.

Israel claimed Syria’s long-running civil war had effectively come to an end Thursday and predicted the Golan Heights frontier between the two countries would be much quieter over the coming months.

TEL AVIV – Israel has asked Russia to ensure that Syrian troops refrain from massacring civilians in the south of the country while the Assad regime continues its takeover of the area near Israel’s border from rebel groups, Channel 2 news reported.