Intense Russian air strikes battered rebel bastions across Syria on Friday, a monitor said, just hours before a midnight deadline for a landmark ceasefire in the country’s five-year civil war. With the ceasefire due to take effect at 2200 GMT, U.S. President Barack Obama has warned Damascus and key ally Moscow that the “world will be watching”. Both President Bashar ...

Russian and Syrian government forces have gained ground north of Aleppo, intensifying an assault on rebel-held areas that has prompted tens of thousands more Syrians to seek refuge across the border in Turkey. The assault around Aleppo, which aid workers have said could soon fall to government forces, helped to torpedo Syrian peace talks in Geneva this week. Russia’s intervention ...

LATAKIA, Syria — Leaving Damascus is no longer an easy journey these days; the Syrian regime has erected dozens of military checkpoints between the northern entrance of the capital and the international highway to inspect the documents and luggage of travelers. Through these inspections, the regime is trying to catch those evading compulsory military service and those opposing the regime. ...

The United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has met representatives of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for the first day of peace talks in Geneva. The main opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), will attend the UN-brokered talks, but has refused to take part at the start of what are meant to be six months of negotiations ...

A relative calm prevailed over the Greek island of Kos by the time photographer Jörg Brüggemann landed there in August. The site of overloaded dinghies carrying migrants from the Aegean Sea became less common. Riots began dwindling. Only a few relics from the crisis remained: rows of deflated boats and scattered life vests strewn over the island’s white sand. It ...

Evidence of an unfolding famine in the Syrian city of Madaya continues to mount, with the international rights group Amnesty International publishing accounts of people trying to survive on boiled water and leaves. Except that now that it’s winter, the leaves are gone. Even more chilling is the idea that Madaya may not be the exception in Syria today, after ...

WRITTEN BY EDITOR KALAHAN DENG What is the issue? The boats just kept coming and coming. Wave after wave of people fleeing war, persecution or hardship trying to reach safety and the promise of a better life in Europe. While migration to Europe is nothing new, this year saw an unprecedented surge of arrivals, creating humanitarian, logistical and political crises. ...

Russia will use more advanced military force against terror groups in Syria “if necessary,” President Vladimir Putin said Saturday. His comments came a day after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution that supports an international effort to find a political solution to the 5-year-old civil war in Syria. Russia has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but the United ...

Standing at the edge of a tiny marina on the Greek island of Lesbos, two strangers are clinging to one another. They do not know each other’s names. They don’t speak the same language. But they are locked in an embrace as if they are mother and daughter. “She wouldn’t let go of me. She just felt safe, so we ...

Syrian troops recaptured a military airport and nearby town east of Damascus on Monday, more than three years after they were overrun by rebel groups. “The Syrian army has taken full control of the town of Marj al-Sultan and its airport in Eastern Ghouta,” a rebel bastion east of the capital, the military source said. Rebel groups seized the airport, ...