Insistence on regional autonomy and a federal solution for Syria is straining the de facto alliance between the Rojava Kurds and Damascus, despite their mutual enmity for Turkey.
Is Trump's breach with Putin real, or is all the sudden sabre-rattling part of an elaborate charade to throw Congress off the scent of ongoing Trump-Putin collusion?
The ultra-hawkish Henry Jackson Society warns that the US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria are allied with anarchists and elements of the Turkish and European armed left.
Amid growing crisis in Venezuela, it emerges that the country's state oil company, heavily indebted to Russian giant Rosneft, made a big donation to Trump's inauguration festivities.
US air-strikes killed more Arab civilians in ISIS-held territory, escalating tensions as US-backed Kurdish forces advance on Raqqa, the Arab-majority ISIS capital.
The vote over the name change from South Ossetia to Alania reveals how the autonomist aspirations of the Ossetians (however legitimate) have been exploited in the Great Game. (Map: Wikipedia)
Trump, whose own air-strikes have killed hundreds, decides he must bomb an Assad air-base to retaliate for a gas attack—while the “anti-war” left is undisturbed by the gas attack.
As rebels infiltrated Damascus in a surprise attack, defense of the city was joined by Hezbollah al-Nujaba, an Iraqi Shi'ite militia under command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The US air-lifts Kurdish fighters into ISIS territory in preparation for a final assault on Raqqa—while bombing the city, deepening the growing enmity between Kurds and Arabs.
The Kurdish YPG militia says it has agreed to establishment of a Russian military base in its territory, although Moscow calls it a "reconciliation center."
A new Qaeda affiliate in Syria has claimed responsibility for a double bomb attack targeting Shi'ite pilgrims near a shrine in Damascus that killed at least 40 Iraqis.
Dictator Bashar Assad told reporters he found Trump’s stance on Syria to be “promising,” and broached inviting in US troops to fight ISIS in a “rapprochement” with Russia.
