BEIRUT/BAALBEK: Hezbollah fighters and the Syrian army made major gains Wednesday seizing control of the highest peak in theQalamoun region along the border with Lebanon, after gaining large swaths of territory in fierce fighting that killed 53 Syrian jihadis. Security sources told The Daily Star that regime forces and its Lebanese allies swept areas around Tallit Moussa, after… اقرأ المزيد
The latest story from Syria this week, published by The Daily Telegraph, was that Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, had been placed under house arrest for having had contact with Turkish intelligence and Rifaat Assad, the exiled uncle of Bashar Assad. Almost immediately the story was debunked, and Wednesday Mamlouk was… اقرأ المزيد
BEIRUT: Hezbollah and the Syrian army seized total control of the outskirts of the village of Al-Juba, in the Qalamoun mountains, Monday. Clashes then intensified around the town of Ras al-Maara, according to the party’s TV outlet Al-Manar. Syrian rebel commander Ahmad Ibrahim Massoud was reportedly wounded in the outskirts of Al-Juba… اقرأ المزيد
BEIRUT: An all-out military confrontation in the Qalamoun mountains has not yet begun despite the ongoing clashes pitting Hezbollah and the Syrian army against Islamist militants, a senior source familiar with military developments in the region said Sunday. Although Hezbollah and Syrian troops have made major military gains since they began the campaign in Syria’s… اقرأ المزيد
The last-minute agreement to form a right-of-center government in Israel headed by the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu is neither surprising nor shocking. Rather, it is consistent with the trends of the past four decades that have seen the entire Middle East region shift toward increasingly narrow state identities and government policies defined by a combination… اقرأ المزيد
BAALBEK, Lebanon: The Syrian army and Hezbollah Thursday recaptured a large strategic territory in Syria’s Qalamoun region following clashes that killed and wounded dozens of jihadis, security sources said, in fresh hostilities that threatened to further drag Lebanon into the Syrian war. Hezbollah and Syrian troops seized five “strategic hills” in the eastern part of… اقرأ المزيد