President Trump said on Tuesday that he would lift sanctions on Syria, throwing an economic lifeline to a country devastated by nearly 14 years of civil war and decades of dictatorship under the Assad family. Mr. Trump was expected to meet for the first time with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in Saudi…
Israeli fighter jets struck near the Syrian presidential palace on Friday in what Israeli leaders said was a warning to the government to protect the Druse minority after a new wave of sectarian violence. More than 100 people were killed this week in clashes involving a number of parties, including Sunni Muslim extremists not fully…
Israel launched airstrikes on Syria on Wednesday and threatened to strike government forces there if clashes persisted between pro-government fighters and militiamen from the Druse minority. Wading into the latest eruption of sectarian violence in the country, the Israeli military said its aircraft had struck a group of “operatives” accused of having “attacked Druse civilians”…
Violent clashes between pro-government fighters and Druse militia around Syria’s capital, Damascus, spread on Wednesday and drew Israel’s military into the fray, leaving at least 11 people dead, according to the Syrian authorities and a war monitor. The total death toll for two days of unrest rose to at least 28 after the latest outbreak…
Deadly clashes fueled by sectarian tensions erupted on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people, Syrian officials and a war monitoring group said on Tuesday. The violence erupted overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, which has a large population from the minority Druse sect. It…
As the rebels swept across Syria, symbols that had once seemed omnipresent collapsed. In Aleppo, a statue of one of Mr. al-Assad’s brothers, Bassel al-Assad, on a horse was toppled. The horse remained. In a village north of Damascus, the capital, a giant statue of the ousted leader’s father, former President Hafez al-Assad, was felled….
More than 100 chemical weapons sites are suspected to remain in Syria, left behind after the fall of the longtime president, Bashar al-Assad, according to the leading international organization that tracks these weapons. That number is the first estimate of its kind as the group, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, seeks to…
Now, his relatives are making the rounds in Washington with Mr. Moustafa, who said they had met with people at the National Security Council, the State Department and on Capitol Hill. A State Department spokeswoman confirmed that a meeting took place; the White House did not respond to a request for comment. Maissa Kabbani, a…
The trainer paced the grounds of a mountain enclave in southwestern Syria, shouting at dozens of new recruits as they drilled sprints between barricades made from old car tires. “You have to practice as if it’s real,” screamed the instructor, Fadi Azam. “Want me to start shooting at you instead to make it real?” he…
Syrians on Sunday were digesting the overnight announcement of a caretaker government that will be in power for the next five years, accepting with some resignation the continued dominance of the rebel group that seized power in December but welcoming its representation of the country’s main ethnic minorities. The rebels who overthrew President Bashar al-Assad…