Sunni-backed opposition forces battling to overthrow the regime of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad will soon try to eradicate Israel, according to statements made by Abed Shihadeh, a top Jordanian Salafist figure. Shihadeh, who was speaking at the funeral of a suicide bomber, went on to label the United States “the...

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Iranian Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi declared on Saturday that the presence of NATO anti-missile assets in Turkey was “very dangerous for the future of mankind,” particularly singling out Europe as threatened. A planned visit to Turkey by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was subsequently canceled, and increasingly pitched...

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Israel will be forced to take military action if the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attempts to transfer portions of its non-conventional arsenal to Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, according to warnings issued on Sunday by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Using language that echoed Israeli...

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Syrian armed forces have dispatched fixed-wing aircrafts and troops into two Damascus suburbs to dislodge Sunni-backed rebel forces that have taken control of the neighborhoods. The campaign comes as the Assad regime finds itself increasingly beseiged, with opposition forces also in range of Damascus’s airport, which they have declared a...

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Global concern is spiking as evidence emerges that Syria has loaded sarin gas materials into chemical warheads. Once prepared and loaded the weapons have 60 days before they expire, raising fears that the Bashar al-Assad regime intends to use them imminently against rebel forces seeking its overthrow. The Syrian war,...

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Instability triggered by the Syrian civil war – which is being fought as a three-way proxy war between Sunni states on one side, Iran and its proxies on another, and international Kurdish groups on a third – spilled into Israel again this weekend. Gunfire from the Syrian side of the...

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Turkish officials are considering deploying NATO Patriot batteries along Turkey’s southern border with Syria, a critical step in establishing a no-fly zone over northern Syria that would provide protection to opposition forces seeking the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party has seen its “Zero...

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UN officials are formally condemning the incursion earlier this week of three Syrian tanks into the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates Israel and Syria. The incident – which constituted a breach of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries – highlighted the degree to which the chaos of Syria’s...

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Warning signs that the Syrian civil war may spill into Israel sharpened further Monday night as cross-border gunfire struck a routine Israeli army patrol on the Golan Heights. The worrying incident follows another from Saturday, in which three Syrian tanks entered a demilitarized zone (DMZ) between Israel and Syria, marking...

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Lines between opposing groups in the Syrian civil war sharpened further over the weekend, as ethnic Kurds emerged as opponents to both the Bashar al-Assad government, which is backed by Iran and its proxies, and to Syrian rebel groups, who are backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Syrian Kurds have...

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