Syria's government

The 13-year civil war between Syria's government and rebel fighters has ended. But the peril is not over for Syria's Kurdish minority.

Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin has visited Damascus, for what the Syrian information ministry said would be talks involving its new rebel leadership.

The ministry said that Kalin and Qatar's head of state security, Khalfan al-Kaabi, arrived in the capital to meet with Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and caretaker prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir.

Syria's government appears to have fallen after opposition fighters said they had entered Damascus following a stunning advance and a Syrian opposition war monitor reported that President Bashar Assad had left the country.

Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday called on Turkey to refrain from making provocative statements about events in Syria amid rising tensions over the Syrian province of Idlib.

Syria's government has agreed to allow planes from regional aviation giant Qatar Airways to fly over the country after eight years of conflict kept its planes at bay.

The Syrian army said Israel targeted a military site in Hama province early on Sept. 7 which a war monitor said could be linked to chemical weapons production. 

The airstrike killed two soldiers and caused damage near the town of Masyaf, an army statement said. It warned of the "dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region."

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will reportedly launch an offensive to oust Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants from Deir al-Zor province, an official from the alliance told Reuters on Aug. 25. 

Syria's government and opposition meet on July 10 for a seventh round of UN-sponsored peace talks with little expectation of a breakthrough to end the six-year conflict.

The talks in Geneva open after a ceasefire took effect in three provinces in southern Syria on Sunday, with a monitor reporting that the region was mostly quiet despite scattered violations.

The US Senate voted nearly unanimously on Thursday for legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to get Congress' approval before easing any existing sanctions on Russia, Reuters reports.

Russia on May 19 condemned strikes by the US-led coalition against Syrian forces as "unacceptable", state media reported, after the bombing of pro-government troops.