ISIS, retreating before an advance by Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, launched a stealth attack on the Kurdish town of Kobani, with a wave of car bombs and random shootings.
A report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian war states that new reports of chemical attacks this year are under investigation.
The US State Department finds that the number of "terrorist attacks" around the world rose by a third in 2014, largely due to the expansion of ISIS and Boko Haram.
As Syrian Kurdish forces advance towards Raqqa, the ISIS capital, Turkish state media have launched a campaign charging them with ethnic cleansing of Arabs in seized territory.
Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front acknowledged that its followers were responsible for a massacre at a Druze village, which was quickly condemned by other rebel factions.
ISIS advanced on Aleppo and launched an offensive on the Syrian Kurdish city of Hassakeh as the US and coalition partners met in Paris. No Kurdish leaders were invited to the summit.
Syrian rebels are turning down Washington's offer of training to fight ISIS, because the State Department is imposing the stipulation that it not be used to fight Assad.
ISIS militants blew up the Tadmur prison complex at Palmyra—a move protested by Syria's civil resistance as destroying evidence of the Assad regime's crimes there.
The US government formally removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as a step toward restoring full diplomatic relations. Cuba had been listed since 1982.
Islamist rebels led by al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front have seized new territory in northwestern Syria, and issued a pledge to take Damascus and topple the regime.
Kurdish forces of the People's Protection Units (YPG) have formed an alliance with the Assyrian Military Council to fight ISIS for control of northeast Syria's Hassakeh governorate.
As the world awaits ISIS destruction of the archaeological treasures of Palmyra, human rights groups are raising the alarm over the fate of the city's civilian inhabitants.
