Latest Syria government News

Syria's president asks former communications minister to form a new government

Sep. 14, 2024 10:59 AM EDT

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree Saturday in which he named former Communications Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali as the head of the new government following July’s parliamentary election, state media reported. Jalali, 55, has been under European Union...

Syria says Israeli strikes kill 18 people in a large-scale attack

Sep. 09, 2024 21:50 PM EDT

MASYAF, Syria (AP) — The number of people killed in overnight Israeli strikes in Syria has risen to 18 with dozens more wounded, Syria's health minister said Monday — the largest death toll in such an attack since the beginning of the war in Gaza. One of the sites targeted was a...

Rights group alleges Lebanon and Cyprus violated refugees' human rights and EU funds paid for it

Sep. 04, 2024 02:54 AM EDT

BEIRUT (AP) — European aid sent to Lebanon in an attempt to regulate migration by sea is funding practices that violate human rights, according to a global watchdog report published Wednesday. As part of a policy to contain migration, authorities in Cyprus have physically pushed...

A Syrian journalist who reports for international agencies is arrested by Turkish-backed authorities

Aug. 27, 2024 11:12 AM EDT

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A local journalist in rebel-held northwestern Syria who works with international news agencies was arrested by Turkish-backed authorities, his wife and rights groups said Tuesday. Journalists and activists called Bakr Qassim's arrest part of an ongoing crackdown...

Turkey and Russia resume joint patrols in northern Syria as Ankara seeks to mend ties with Assad

Aug. 24, 2024 04:57 AM EDT

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey and Russia have resumed joint military patrols in northern Syria after nearly a year's break, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced Saturday. Combined patrols began in the Operation Peace Spring area, the statement said, referring to a 30-kilometer (19-mile)...

Crossing between a government and opposition-held area in Syria closes after violence

Aug. 20, 2024 16:40 PM EDT

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A key crossing inside Syria between an area held by the government and one held by the opposition was closed again on Tuesday after violence followed its brief reopening this week. A local activist and a war monitor said that opposition groups protested the...

An Israeli strike in Lebanon kills 10 and triggers response from Hezbollah as tensions simmer

Aug. 17, 2024 11:32 AM EDT

NABATIEH, Lebanon (AP) — An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon early Saturday killed at least 10 Syrian nationals, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The strike on Wadi al-Kfour in Nabatieh province is among the deadliest in Lebanon since the Hezbollah militant group and...

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters say they killed 18 pro-government gunmen in rare attack in eastern Syria

Aug. 12, 2024 20:51 PM EDT

QAMISHLI, Syria (AP) — U.S.-backed Syrian fighters carried out a rare attack Monday in eastern Syria, striking at three posts manned by pro-government gunmen and claiming that they killed 18 of them in a major escalation near the border with Iraq. The renewed clashes in Syria’s...

Pro-government fighters attack areas of US-backed fighters in east Syria. 2 killed

Aug. 07, 2024 14:29 PM EDT

QAMISHLI, Syria (AP) — Violence surged in opposition-held areas of Syria on Wednesday as government-backed fighters killed at least two people in rare violence in the east, while a truck bomb exploded in the northern city of Azaz, killing nine people, the main U.S.-backed force in the war-torn...

Hezbollah military commander claimed killed by Israel was blamed by the US for 1983 Marine bombing

Jul. 30, 2024 19:13 PM EDT

BEIRUT (AP) — The Hezbollah commander who the Israeli military says it killed in an airstrike Tuesday had been blamed by Israel for a deadly weekend rocket attack and was accused by the U.S. of orchestrating the 1983 bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen. A...