Tag Archives: Syria

Beirut, Lebanon | AFP |  Syria’s eight-year war has seen the Damascus regime lose control of key oil fields and caused state hydrocarbon revenues to plummet by billions of dollars. Weak production has forced President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to import oil, but Western sanctions on Damascus and Tehran are hampering incoming …

  Washington, United States | AFP | Now that the Islamic State group has officially lost its geographic “caliphate,” the Pentagon is marking a historic moment in its years-long campaign to defeat the jihadists. From a military perspective at least, the United States can claim significant success in its strategy of …

Beirut, Lebanon | AFP |  The Syrian conflict, which entered its ninth year on Friday, has ravaged the lives of millions of people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Here are some figures: – Victims – The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Britain will strip citizenship from a UK teenager who joined the Islamic State group in Syria but now wants to return home with her newborn baby, a lawyer for her family said Tuesday. Shamima Begum’s fate has stirred controversy since she and two friends fled London to join the …

Berlin, Germany | AFP | Germany vowed Monday to prosecute German IS fighters but warned that it would be “extremely difficult” to organise the repatriation of European nationals from Syria, after US President Donald Trump called on allies to take back alleged jihadists. Syria’s US-backed Kurdish forces, which are battling Islamic State group jihadists in …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | A teenager who joined the Islamic State group in Syria but now wants to return to Britain on Sunday gave birth in a refugee camp, as European governments grapple with what to do with returning jihadists ahead of a US troop pullout. Shamima Begum, whose fate has stirred controversy …

Paris, France | AFP | The imminent fall of the Islamic State’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria has left many countries grappling with what to do with jihadists who want to return. Several hundred foreign jihadists are being detained by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main fighters on the …

  Near Baghouz, Syria | AFP | Jihadist fighters made a desperate last stand in eastern Syria on Wednesday, while their wives and children fled the final, blood-soaked implosion of the Islamic State group’s “caliphate”. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces on Saturday launched a final push to expel IS fighters from the sole remaining morsel …

Washington, United States | AFP | The US Senate approved by a large majority Monday an amendment critical of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, in a sign of the deep discontent caused by the policies within his own Republican ranks. The resolution was sponsored by the Republican leader of …

Sousa, Syria | AFP | The Islamic State group’s once-sprawling “caliphate” has been reduced to a four-square-kilometre pocket of territory in eastern Syria, a senior Kurdish commander said Monday. With support from a US-led military coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are in the final stages of an assault launched more than four months ago …