When Islamist fighters stormed a besieged hospital in northwest Syria, regime soldier Mohammad Mahmoud Assafnarrowly escaped a brutal fate by pretending he was already dead. The 28-year-old was one of at least 150 soldiers and family members who had been trapped in Jisr al-Shughur hospital for almost a month. As Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and other Islamist factions overran ...

Jasmina Milovanov, 26, abandoned her two children, aged five and seven, with a babysitter earlier this month before telling friends she was in “Sham” — Arabic slang for Syria. The Muslim convert or “revert” told the babysitter she was going to pick up a new car when she left her Western Sydney home but she never returned. She sent a ...

Hezbollah fighters captured more territory in Syria’s Qalamoun mountains Monday, three weeks into an offensive to oust jihadis from the rugged border region, Al-Manar said. The report said Hezbollah fighters captured several highlands northeast of the outskirts of Nahleh along Lebanon’s eastern mountain range shortly before midday. The Hezbollah-run Al-Manar said the advancing fighters destroyed a military vehicle belonging to ...

ISIS militants stormed the Syrian city of Palmyra Wednesday, seizing it from government forces in fierce fighting as Syria’s antiquities chief called on the world to save its ancient monuments. Syrian state television said late Wednesday that the jihadis were entering the famous antiquities area to the southwest of the modern city of Tadmur. The capture of Palmyra is the ...

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday praised Iran’s support as a “key pillar” in his fight against rebels, as a third Iranian official visited Damascus in less than a week. The visits come after several military losses for the Syrian government and as Tehran negotiates a key nuclear deal with the United States, which backs the rebels fighting Assad. “The ...

At least 72 fighters have been killed in a single day as the Syrian army battled to relieve some 250 besieged regime loyalists under rebel assault, a monitoring group says. President Bashar al-Assad had personally pledged to rescue the trapped troops and civilians who have been holed up in a hospital complex since rebels captured the northwestern town of Jisr ...

Children were killed and wounded in Aleppo on Sunday in a barrel bomb attack that destroyed a building where students were sitting exams, residents and rights groups said. At least seven people were killed, including four children and a school teacher, and dozens were wounded in the air strike that targeted the Seif al-Dawla teaching centre. Rebel authorities accused the ...

A suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday in a central neighborhood of the Syrian capital targeting the head of Syrian military supplies. The blast occurred in an area where major security compounds are housed, according to a Syrian army source speaking to Reuters news agency. The army source told state television the security forces had killed all the members ...

The US military denied Sunday a report that strikes led by Washington had killed at least 52 civilians in northern Syria earlier this week, saying those killed were actually fighters. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor director Rami Abdel Rahman had told AFP that seven children were among the dead from US-led coalition strikes overnight Thursday into Friday on the ...

Airstrikes on a marketplace in Idlib province Sunday killed at least 40 civilians, including women and children, as Syrian forces stepped up attacks on rebels a day after losing a key town. There were fears the death toll would mount from the bombing raids on Darkoush, a rebel-held town near the Turkish border, which also wounded dozens of people, a ...