Israel's Netanyahu: "Whoever murders hostages doesn't want a deal."

Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Netanyahu: "Whoever murders hostages doesn't want a deal."

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  • As Assad falls, the power dynamics of this troubled, volatile region will utterly change

    Not when it comes to events currently under way in Syria, a country straddling the fault lines of the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime will be the most significant event yet in the upheaval that's followed the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel last year. It will be the end of a brutal reign of terror that has lasted since the Assad family, under patriarch Hafez Assad, seized power in the early 1970s.

  • Israel seizes land on Syrian border and bombs Damascus

    Israel has seized land along its border with Syria and carried out air strikes on Damascus.

  • Watching with trepidation and glee, Netanyahu orders military to seize Syria buffer zone

    Israeli leaders are watching events across the border in Syria with trepidation, as 50 years of detente were upended in a matter of hours.

  • Russia's Lavrov says advance by Syrian 'terrorists' is inadmissible

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday it was inadmissible to allow what he called a terrorist group to take control of Syrian lands. He was speaking in the Qatari capital Doha after meeting the Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers following a rapid advance by Syrian rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group that threatens President Bashar al-Assad's rule. "It's inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of the lands in violation of agreements," said Lavrov during a political forum in Doha.

  • Syria’s Assad Is Under Siege and Is Making Overtures to US

    (Bloomberg) -- With Syrian rebels edging ever-closer to the capital, President Bashar Al-Assad is making a last-ditch attempt to remain in power, including indirect diplomatic overtures to the US and President-elect Donald Trump, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.Most Read from BloombergA Chicago Skyscraper Cements the Legacy of a Visionary Postmodern ArchitectNYC’s Run-Down Bus Terminal Gets Approval for $10 Billion RevampKansas City Looks Back on its Long, Costly Ride

  • The US military struck 75 ISIS targets in Syria as Assad's government fell

    President Joe Biden said the US sought to prevent ISIS from regrouping amid the chaos of Assad's fall.

  • Why the next twist could bring yet more pain after Assad

    It took just 11 days to end the 13-year rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, an offensive so rapid that what unfolds next in Syria itself is, to an extent, anyone’s guess.

  • Hamas armed wing releases video of Gaza hostage

    The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday of an Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack of October 2023.In the undated, three-and-half-minute video that AFP has not been able to verify, Matan Zangauker says in Hebrew that he has been in captivity for more than 420 days and calls for public pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of all captives held in Gaza.

  • US launches air strikes on Isis targets in Syria

    The US has carried out precision air strikes against Isis targets in Syria amid concerns that the terror group will regroup in the “vacuum” created by the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

  • Syrian government falls in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family

    The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days. Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free. The man who read the statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, an opposition group, called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.”

  • Rebels declare end of Assad rule in Syria

    Islamist-led rebels declared that they have taken Damascus in a lightning offensive on Sunday, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria.The president's reported departure comes less than two weeks since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group launched its campaign challenging more than five decades of rule by the Assad family.

  • ‘He has come out an old man’: joy and grief as loved ones released from Assad prisons

    Family members describe renewed hopes after decades-long searches for political detainees in ‘Kingdom of Silence’

  • Syrian Kurds say they've taken Deir el-Zor, as rebels advance

    STORY: :: U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters say they have full control of Deir el-Zor as rebels advance across the country ::December 7, 2024:: Deir el-Zor, Syria:: Khaled Hassan, Syrian Kurdish fighter"We, the forces of the Deir el-Zor Military Council, entered the city of Deir el-Zor today in al-Qusour neighborhood and we released the prisoners. Now Deir el-Zor is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces. We are the sons of Deir el-Zor and we liberated our city from the Syrian regime, the Damascus government, and the Iranian and affiliated militias."SDF forces were seen patrolling the streets of Deir el-Zor on the banks of the Euphrates river, armed and driving in pick up trucks, one day after seizing the eastern Syrian city. The SDF advance came as Syrian rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, entered suburbs of the key city of Homs on Saturday, sources said, pressing a lightning fast advance as government forces battle to save President Bashar al-Assad's 24-year rule.The rebels had already taken the northern city of Aleppo last week and the city of Hama earlier this week, dealing the biggest blows to Assad in years.

  • Damascus embassy of Assad ally Iran vandalised

    Iran's embassy in Syria was vandalised on Sunday, an AFP photographer said, after Islamist-led rebels declared the fall of Tehran ally Bashar al-Assad following a sweeping offensive that culminated in Damascus.On Saturday, as the rebels pressed their lightning offensive but had not yet taken Damascus, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on "the Syrian government and legitimate opposition groups" to enter negotiations.

  • Britain’s Syrian refugees vow to return home after fall of regime

    Syrian refugees in Britain vowed to return to their homeland on Sunday as they celebrated rebels seizing control of Damascus and ousting president Bashar-al Assad.

  • The fall of Bashar Assad after 13 years of war in Syria brings to an end a decades-long dynasty

    Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers. The exit of the 59-year-old Assad stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. As the uprising hemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.

  • What the Syrian rebellion could mean for the balance of power in the Middle East

    Western and Arab states, as well as Israel, would like to see Iran’s influence in Syria curtailed, but none wish for a radical Islamist regime to replace Assad.

  • UK would welcome fall of Assad regime – Angela Rayner

    She said ‘dictatorship and terrorism creates problems for the people of Syria’, as she called for a political solution.

  • Toddler released from jail with hopes of Syria on his shoulders

    First they tried to shoot the lock off. Then they tried crowbarring it. Maybe someone found a key.

  • Syria latest: Syrians celebrate Bashar Assad's fall as his whereabouts remain unknown

    Crowds gathered in Syria's Damascus on Sunday to celebrate the fall of Bashar Assad’s government with chants, prayers and the occasional gunfire after opposition fighters entered the capital following a stunning advance. Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian opposition war monitor, said Assad took a flight from Damascus and left early Sunday. There was no immediate official statement from the Syrian government and Assad's whereabouts remain unknown.