Republicans are putting President Barack Obama and his party on the defensive over accepting Syrian refugees, following reports that one of the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks entered Europe as part of the wave of Syrians fleeing civil war. GOP governors and lawmakers were quick to announce they wouldn’t allow Syrian refugees into their states and are appealing for ...

SYRIAN REFUGGES ARRIVE IN CANADA,WHICH ONE FAMILY CALLS ‘PARADISE’ Outfitted in new winter coats and clutching their yawning 16-month-old daughter in the wee hours of Friday morning, a Syrian refugee family on the first large government flight began their new life in Canada — or, as they call it, “paradise.” “We really would like to thank you for all this ...

Syrian activists say at least 26 civilians, including children, have been killed in the north-east of the country by air strikes possibly carried out by the US-led coalition. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says the village of al-Khan, near al-Hawl in Hasakah province, was hit. A US spokesman in Iraq said the reports would be ...

A Kurdish militia in Syria says it is winning a battle against Islamic State (IS) fighters around the Syrian city of Hasakah, with the aid of US-led air strikes. The Kurds are working with other militias under an umbrella group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. They say they have killed 200 IS fighters in the three-week operation which is an ...

The Hague-based chemical weapons watchdog Monday voiced “grave concern” at the continued use of toxic arms in Syria, calling for those behind such attacks to be held accountable. A special meeting of the U.N.-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) met to discuss the findings of three reports after investigations in Syria. The body expressed “grave concern regarding ...

Much of the response to the Paris attacks – French and international – has been uplifting: the spirit of resistance, the solidarity, the stated determination not to change “our” way of life. But one aspect of the reaction in Britain has been quite the opposite: the rush by sectional interest groups – armed forces, police, politicians – to press their own advantage. They ...

Once one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities, parts of Damascus are now a city in desolation where death can strike at any time from above. A man filming in the city earlier this month showed how terror is the new normal in the Syrian capital, as fighter jets dropped a series of bombs onto a building only a ...

The French army on Sunday bombed an oil supply centre held by the Islamic State (IS) group in eastern Syria, according to Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. “We intervened in Syria… yesterday evening with a strike on an oil supply centre near Deir Ezzor on the border between Iraq and Syria,” Le Drian told journalists on the sidelines of a ...

The United States is set to deploy troops on the ground in Syria for the first time to advise and assist rebel forces combating ISIS, the White House said Friday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the U.S. would be deploying “less than 50” Special Operations forces, who will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American ...

At least 120,000 people were displaced in Syria this month, which is more than doubling an earlier UN estimate of 50,000. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in  it’s first report on the humanitarian impact of the Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, several hospitals had been hit from the air and women and children had been killed by bombs. ...