Speech on Wednesday to outline 'new stage' in US relations President may announce future Afghanistan troop level President Barack Obama is preparing to set out his vision for Americas role in the world following the final withdrawal from Afghanistan, in a commencement address to the US military academy at West Point on Wednesday. In a speech that is being seen as the presidents rebuttal to critics...
Pro-Assad forces are poised to cut off rebel supply lines and end nearly two years of insurrection in the ruined city High spring in Syria's largest city and the final battle has arrived. From his vantage point on a frontline in Aleppo's northeast, Abu Bilal, a rebel commander, had spent the past month staring at a ridge line about a mile away that marked the closest Syrian military position. A large...
In an exclusive interview, the former UN secretary general says the world's reluctance to intervene in multiple emergencies is scuppering the search for peace The world has let down the people of Syria, leaving tens of thousands to die as neighbouring nations wage proxy wars instead of working to prevent the bloodshed that has engulfed the country for the past three years, according to the former UN...
Leading provider of aid in Syria told by Assad officials not to operate in opposition-held areas in defiance of UN resolution One of the largest aid providers in Syria, Mercy Corps, has been forced to close its operations in Damascus because Syrian officials said it could not work in opposition-held areas of the country. The demand is in defiance of a UN security council resolution demanding that all...
Changing 'aidscape' demands humanitarian goals with clear targets as part of post-2015 development plan There will be intensive brainstorming about the future of humanitarian action in the next two years. In March 2015, the third world conference on disaster risk reduction will take place in Japan. The UN development summit in September 2015 will establish the successors to the millennium development...
Washington condemns Moscow and Beijing for sinking draft resolution backed by 65 countries and rest of security council Russia and China have vetoed a draft UN resolution calling for the crisis in Syria to be referred to the international criminal court ignoring support for the measure by 65 other countries and all other members of the security council. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador, had earlier...
The attempt to engage the international criminal court offers hope to those who have lost their loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods The Goya-like record of the atrocities that have marked the Syrian conflict from the beginning is long and brutish. Videos, YouTube clips and written reports smuggled or sent by email or telephone out of the country have detailed the shooting and torture of prisoners,...
Officers take away material from the home of Abdullah Deghayes, after raiding the Saltdean property Police have finished searching the home of a British teenager who was killed while fighting in Syria, taking away material "which may be relevant to the inquiry". Officers from the South East Counter Terrorism Unit (Sectu) and Sussex police raided the home of 18-year-old Abdullah Deghayes on...
How an American journalist is attempting to tell the story of Syrias conflict through an online adventure game The sound of a gunshot rattled against the back of Mitch Swensons teeth as he sprinted across a Turkish field. If the guards had fired to scare rather than wound, the warning had its intended effect. Swenson, a 26-year-old in his final year of a creative non-fiction course at Columbia University,...
The author, Neil Gaiman has visited Jordan with the UN Refugee Agency to see for himself the situation for Syrian refugees, living there. He shares some of his perspectives with us Warning graphic content: Some people may find one of the images disturbing Read Neil Gaiman's article on his visit to Jordan Continue reading... ...
The conflict in Syria has forced two and a half million people to flee the country. Neil Gaiman visits two refugee camps in Jordan run by UNHCR and hears the stories of some of those who have escaped the violence and terror to rebuild their lives in these cities in the desert See more photographs from Neil Gaiman's visit to Jordan We are in a metal shed in Azraq refugee camp, Jordan, sitting on a low...
International Committee of the Red Cross says operation to feed 60,000 in northern city is under way for first time since October The first major distribution of emergency food rations in Aleppo since October has begun on both sides of the frontlines, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday. The Syrian government finally gave approval this week for the...
One address belongs to father of 18-year-old British jihadi Abdullah Deghayes who died in Syria Anti-terrorism police are searching four addresses in Brighton and Hove in connection with the death of a British teenager who was killed fighting in Syria. Abdullah Deghayes, 18, died on a battlefield over a month ago in north-west Syria near the border with Turkey. Two of his brothers Amer, aged 20, and...
Syrian rebels detonate a huge bomb on Thursday 8 May underneath a hotel in Aleppo used by President Bashar al-Assad's forces, destroying it and damaging other buildings on the edge of the city's medieval citadel. The explosion appeared similar in execution to a blast on Tuesday 6 May outside the town of Ma'arat al-Nu'man in the north-western province of Idlib, where explosives were buried in a tunnel...
Commander of Aleppo's tunnel forces is responsible for blasts that have killed Syrian troops and boosted rebel morale The most wanted man in Aleppo is feeling satisfied. Less than a week before, he had helped pack the last of 25 tonnes of explosives into a tunnel dug under a hotel and filled with Syrian troops. "I was sitting in this room," said Abu Assad, the rebel commander of Aleppo's...
Resolution would authorise international criminal court to look into allegations against Syrian government and opposition Russia has said it will veto a UN resolution to refer the Syrian conflict to the international criminal court (ICC) if it comes to a vote in the security council, after nearly 60 countries announced their support for the measure. Moscow's position, announced on Tuesday by Gennady...
Mashudur Choudhury left Britain with aim of joining al-Qaida-inspired rebels fighting regime of Bashar al-Assad A father of two has been convicted of a terror offence for arranging to travel to Syria to join a jihadist training camp. Mashudur Choudhury, 31, is one of at least five men from Portsmouth who travelled to the conflict last October with the alleged intention of joining al-Qaida-inspired...
Government official says Lieutenant General Hussein Ishaq was killed as rebels attacked base near Mleiha The head of Syria's air defences has been killed in clashes near the capital, Damascus, according to a government official. The official said Lieutenant General Hussein Ishaq had been killed as rebels attacked an air defence base near the town of Mleiha on Saturday. Continue reading... ...
British-based activist group says women and children among up to 29 dead after possible suicide blast in Aleppo An explosion near a border crossing between Syria and Turkey killed as many as 29 people and wounded many others, an activist group monitoring the Syrian civil war said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion occurred on Thursday at a garage near the Bab...
Saudi Arabia understood to be playing lead role in co-ordinating efforts to arm carefully vetted rebel units in Syria The US, Britain, and European and Arab states are to increase all aspects of support for the mainstream Syrian opposition fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, John Kerry said on Thursday. Speaking after talks in London, the US secretary of state said he would not discuss...