Al-Assad family

Britain will not work with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to combat Islamic State (IS) fighters in the country and his permission would not be needed for any military intervention, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Friday.
      

Human Rights Watch said Aug. 21 that hundreds of victims of a chemical weapons attack in Syria remained without justice one year on, days after Damascus’s stockpile was completely destroyed.

Today marked the first anniversary of the attack on the capital’s Ghouta region, a stronghold of the rebel movement, which the United States estimated killed up to 1,400 people.

Six children were among at least 15 civilians killed in overnight bomb attacks by government and rebel forces in the divided city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said Monday.
      
"At least nine civilians, three of them children, were killed in barrel bombs (dropped by regime aircraft) in Shaar," an eastern district, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
      

A Syrian guide of Turkey’s Anadolu Agency was killed on July 16 in a rocket attack, the state-run agency has reported.

Ahmed abu Rasha was killed as the team drove toward Museyir, an Aleppo district controlled by rebels, to cover a bombing incident.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad was sworn in Wednesday for a new seven-year term, warning Western and Arab governments they will pay dearly for backing those who took up arms against him.
      
In a triumphant speech delivered after he took the oath of office at a red carpet ceremony in Damascus, Assad branded the 2011 Arab uprisings a "fake spring".
      

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is to be sworn in Wednesday for a new term in a war-ravaged country, as other conflicts in the turbulent region hog the international community's attention.
      

The jihadist Islamic State group took control of the rebel-held half of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor on Monday, buoyed by advances in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring goup said.
     

Ankara is rolling up its sleeves to stanch the rush of militants transiting its soil on their way to join the jihad in the country’s southern neighbors.

The jihadist Islamic State seized control Thursday of a major Syrian oil field on the Iraqi border, as rival fighters withdrew, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
      
By seizing the Al-Omar oil field, IS now controls most oil and gas fields in the oil-rich Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, most of whose countryside is also under its control.
      

The West’s Syria policy could be best summarized in Sarah Palin’s words: “Let God sort it out.” That the U.S. forwarded the issue to God has not only helped Bashar al-Assad, but also the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enhance their sphere of influence.