Iran is invited to the US-backed Vienna "peace" talks on the Syria war—seeming to confirm suspicions that cooperation against ISIS was the real motive behind the nuclear deal.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement to Congress that the US will begin ground operations against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria.
Turkish military forces attacked Kurdish positions on the Syrian border, raising fears that Turkey is moving to establish its "buffer zone."
A new coalition of 13 armed organizations announced the formation of the Democratic Forces of Syria, which is now planning a major offensive against ISIS.
The Iranian military presence in Syria has rapidly escalated in recent days, with hundreds of fresh troops reported to be arriving at an airport in strategic Latakia governorate.
The US and Russia each groom their own rival proxy forces to fight ISIS and the Nusra Front—which in turn pledge to turn Syria into "another Afghanistan."
Amnesty International accuses Syrian Kurdish forces of ethnic cleansing against Arabs and Turks in areas liberated from ISIS, raising pressure on Kurdish authorities for an accounting.
In a claim convenient to Russian war propaganda, a group of Tatars calling themselves the Crimean Jamaat reportedly pledged loyalty to Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise.
With tensions high between Turkey and Russia, Moscow's intervention risks drawing the Kurds into the geopolitical game and escalating divisions within the Syrian resistance.
The Syrian regime says Russian air-strikes hit "ISIS dens"—but a look at the map indicates the strikes were nowhere near ISIS territory, and targetted rebel forces hostile to ISIS.
An Aleppo-based seed research center, forced by the war to flee to Beirut, has made an emergency request for seed stock from a "doomsday" vault on a remote Arctic island.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is now the first Western leader to take Vladimir Putin's bait in agreeing that Bashar Assad can be part of a Syrian "transition government."
