WASHINGTON The United States has imposed a fresh round of sanctions on Syria, targeting four ministers, one airline and one TV station, just as a new peace conference is being planned to end the 27-month conflict in the Middle East country.The Department of Treasury blacklisted the ministers of ...

ANKARA : A Turkish F-16 fighter jet crashed in south-eastern Turkey on Monday near the Syrian border, and its pilot is believed to have safely ejected, an army statement said."Radio communication was cut around 2:15 pm (1115 GMT) with the F-16 fighter plane on mission in the Amanos mountains," ...

Alex Lantier In a series of interviews, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said that sarin gas used in Syria was fired by the US-backed opposition, not the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.Her account explodes the lies on which Washington and its European allies have based their campaign for war ...

TEHRAN : Iran is ready to help "train" the Syrian army if Damascus seeks such assistance, the commander of the Islamic republic's army ground forces, General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, was quoted as saying on Sunday. "As a Muslim nation, we back Syria, and if there is need for training we will provide ...

BEIRUT AFP/Reuters Syrian forces were on Thursday tightening the noose on rebels holed up in a key area of the central city of Homs, the Observatory for Human rights watchdog said.“The Syrian army, supported by back-up forces and expert officers from Iran and Hezbollah, has taken control of ...

KARACHI  - President Asif Ali Zardari reiterated Pakistan’s support for all efforts to facilitate a peaceful Syrian-led and inclusive solution meeting the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. The president said this while talking to Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal ...

DAMASCUS  - Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi escaped an assassination bid on Monday, surviving a blast against his convoy in Damascus, in the latest attack on top members of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. The attack came as Republican lawmakers in the United States stepped up calls for ...

BEIRUT A ground-to-ground missile was fired on a town in northern Syria at dawn on Sunday and killed at least four civilians, two of them children, a watchdog reported.Anti-regime activists of the Aleppo Media Centre said the missile, which slammed into a residential area of Tal Rifaat, was a Scud, ...

DAMASCUS  - The head of Syria’s rebel Al-Nusra Front pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri on Wednesday, but distanced his group from claims it has merged with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.Al-Nusra's announcement is likely to bolster assertions by President Bashar al-Assad's regime ...

Lately, Iran has made headline news in a variety of ways. The Jewish entity regards Iran as an existential threat, the West continues to fret over its nuclear programme, the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) bitterly complains about Tehran's interference in Bahrain and Yemen, and Syrians blame Iranian ...

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels have seized several weapons depots in the village of Khan Toman in Aleppo province after days of fierce clashes, a military source told AFP on Sunday."Opposition fighters gained control over weapons and ammunition stores in the village of Khan Toman in southern Aleppo ...

DAMASCUS  - Syria's opposition National Coalition said Friday it will form a government to run "liberated areas" of the country, as least 12 people were killed and dozens wounded in a missile strike on the northern city of Aleppo.International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, said a ...

DAMASCUS  - Rebels overran Taftanaz airbase in northern Syria on Friday, a watchdog said, in a significant advance as talks between the UN peace envoy and US and Russian officials failed to make headway on ending the conflict.“The fighting at Taftanaz military airport ended at 11:00am ...

BEIRUT  - Warplanes bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus on Sunday for the first time since the start of Syria’s more than 21-month conflict, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The air strike killed at least eight civilians in the Yarmuk camp, which has been ...

BEIRUT - Syrian army forces pounded rebel-held suburbs around Damascus with fighter jets and rockets on Sunday, activists said, killing at least ten and wounding dozens in an offensive to stop rebels closing in on the capital.Rebels planned to push into the city center from their strongholds on the ...

DAMASCUS - Syrian rebels downed an army helicopter for the first time on Tuesday with a ground-to-air missile from newly acquired stocks, a watchdog said, in a potential turning point for the 20-month conflict.A car bomb hit a regime security post near Damascus and clashes raged around the capital, ...

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels attacked army positions in the northern province of Aleppo on Saturday while violence also raged in and around the capital, monitors and residents said.Regime forces shelled the northeast and southwest outskirts of Damascus as clashes broke out in the western district of Kfar ...

DAMASCUS  - Syria's Arab-led rebels seized new territory in the eastern Euphrates valley from government forces on Thursday but ran into resistance from Kurdish militia on the Turkish border in a potential new security concern for the key Nato member.Rebel fighters captured the Euphrates town ...

DAMASCUS- Syria’s regime unleashed tank fire and air strikes on rebels Wednesday as it slammed France for recognising an opposition bloc formed in Qatar that it said amounted to a “declaration of war”.Tanks shelled two Palestinian refugee camps in the opposition bastion of ...

NEW YORK - Syria’s public has been increasingly disgusted by the actions of some rebels, including poorly planned missions, senseless destruction, criminal behaviour and the ruthless killing of prisoners, The New York Times reported Thursday.In a dispatch from Beirut, the newspaper said, the ...

Faisal Al QasimIt is not true at all that all Arab armies are merely private militias at the beck and call of the rulers. Some of them are real national armies and quite a few have turned out to be more nationalistic than others during the Arab Spring. Although it has been reported that the deposed ...

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian rebels said on Saturday they had launched a major assault on a northern airbase used to deploy regime air power, on the eve of a crucial meeting to decide the future of the opposition.The attack on the Taftanaz base, from where helicopter gunships raid opposition positions ...

DAMASCUS  - Rebels killed 28 soldiers as fighting raged on Syria's northwestern battlefields Thursday, a watchdog said, in some cases apparently beating and then executing troops taken prisoner.The fresh clashes came as the main opposition Syrian National Council hit back at US warnings of ...

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria’s army and main rebel force said they will cease fire on Friday, in line with an internationally backed truce during holidays, but both reserved the right to respond to any aggression.A peace initiative by UN and Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi calls on both ...

MOSCOW  - The Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have shoulder-launched missile systems, including Stingers made by the United States, Russia’s top general said on Wednesday.Russian chief of staff General Nikolai Makarov, whose country is the Syrian ...

GENEVA (AFP) - More than 100,000 Syrians have fled their war-torn country for neighbouring Lebanon, itself hit by rising tensions in recent days, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.“Lebanon has become the third country in the region to see its population of registered Syrian refugees and ...

MAARET AL-NUMAN  - Syrian jets hammered a rebel town on Friday, the second day of an assault in which the regime is accused of using cluster bombs, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi landed in Damascus to press for a truce.The heads of the Arab League and the United Nations issued a joint call to ...

DAMASCUS  - The army took a pounding at the hands of rebels in northern Syria, a watchdog said on Friday, as tensions between Damascus and Ankara escalated over cargo seized from a Syrian passenger plane.A rebel offensive killed more than 100 soldiers in two days, the Syrian Observatory for ...

DAMASCUS  - The Syrian regime rejected a UN call for a unilateral ceasefire on Wednesday as rebels confronted columns of tanks and troops sent to retake a town on the road to main battleground city Aleppo.President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, on the back foot with rebels controlling ...

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Turkey bombarded Syrian army positions afresh on Monday in response to what Turkish officials said was a new shell strike on a border town, just hours after UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned of the dangers.Ban said there was a growing risk that the conflict in Syria, now in its 19th ...