Tahrir

This photo shows a car belonging to the US delegation parked outside a hotel in Damascus on Dec. 20, 2024

The first U.S. diplomats to visit Syria since President Bashar Assad's ouster earlier this month are in Damascus on Dec. 20 to hold talks with the country's new leaders and seek information on the whereabouts of missing American journalist Austin Tice.

American envoys have arrived in Syria to talk directly to the new Islamist leaders, the State Department says, in the most official U.S. diplomatic mission to the country since the start of the long-running civil war.

The Turkish backed jihadists terrorists reported late Friday night that they controlled Daraa (south), where the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began. It is the fourth strategic town where government forces have lost control in the past week.

Residents cheer as Syrian anti government fighters pour into the captured central-west city of Hama on Dec. 6, 2024.

Anti-regime forces pressing a lightning offensive in Syria aim to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad's rule, their leader said in an interview published on Dec. 6.