Special to WorldTribune.com NICOSIA — The regime of President Bashar Assad has intensified counter-rebel operations in Syria. Opposition sources said the Syrian military was ordered to step up air and ground strikes on Sunni rebels. They said the military bolstered operations around Aleppo and Damascus, both of which contain a major rebel presence. “It appears […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ANKARA — Turkey has begun sending home Saudi fighters in Syria. Officials said Turkey responded to a request from Saudi Arabia and sent nationals who had been fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria. The officials said many of the Saudi fighters had crossed the border from Syria into Turkey […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Geostrategy-Direct.com WASHINGTON — Iran has poured billions of dollars to save the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran overcame severe economic problems to maintain support of the Assad regime. In a report to Congress, the community said Iran was working closely with its main […]
Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — A leading Western think tank has assessed that the Middle East would continue to be turbulent in 2014. The International Institute for Strategic Studies determined that war and revolt would plague much of the Middle East over the coming year. In its annual assessment, the London-based institute warned of surprises […]
Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — Western nations have concluded that the regime of President Bashar Assad was preventing the transfer of Syria’s weapons of mass destruction. Western diplomats said the Assad regime, despite pledges to the United Nations, has surrendered less than five percent of Syria’s 1,300 ton-chemical weapons stockpile. The diplomats said Damascus was […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Fariborz Saremi In these strange and unstable times in the Middle East one surprising and superficially positive event is ironically also a new major cause for concern. Iran and the United States of America, longstanding enemies, would appear to be close to lasting rapprochement. Rather than producing greater feelings of security […]
Special to WorldTribune.com NICOSIA — President Bashar Assad is said to have overseen an increase in barrel bomb attacks against Sunni rebels in Syria. The opposition said the Syrian military has intensified its use of barrel bombs against rebel strongholds. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks, in which oil drums packed […]
Special to WorldTribune.com TEL AVIV — Israel is said to have again attacked Syria’s military. Opposition sources said the Israel Air Force struck a Syrian military facility in the Mediterranean port of Latakia. The sources said the Israeli attack appeared to have targeted a warehouse that contained the Russian-origin S-300PMU2 air defense system. “We heard […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Geostrategy-Direct.com NICOSIA — Syria has reported renewed links with Western intelligence agencies. Officials said NATO and other Western intelligence agencies have resumed contact with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They said the links were renewed over the last six months amid a Western assessment that Assad would survive the Sunni […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, Global Information System / Defense & Foreign Affairs In the so-called “Geneva II” round of talks underway (in Montreux, Switzerland, not Geneva) during late January 2014, on the conflict in Syria, Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Jarba has kept demanding, in the name of the international community, the […]