American-led intervention in Syria

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria said Thursday that three of the terror group's drone experts were killed in Syria this month, VOA reported.

The UN Security Council should take "urgent measures" to stop the atrocities and human rights violations committed in Syria by the US-led coalition, the Syrian foreign ministry has said, denouncing the coalition and its unwelcome presence as "illegal."

The US-backed coalition liberated more than 90 percent of the Syrian city of Raqqa, which was under the control of the Islamic State, the agencies said.

"After stronger attacks, the US-led coalition released at least five key neighborhoods just in the last 48 hours," Syrian Human Rights Director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov has called on the US-led international coalition and the opposition supported by it not to hamper the actions of the Syrian government forces against terrorists.

Iraqi forces are reported to have launched an operation to recapture the last stronghold of so-called Islamic State in the country's western desert, reported BBC.

A military source told the BBC that soldiers, Anbar provincial police and Sunni Arab tribal fighters began moving on the town of Ana on Tuesday morning.

Syrian government troops came closer yesterday to encircling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in a pocket of Deir Ezzor city after crossing the adjacent Euphrates River, Moscow and a monitoring group said.

Russia said on Sept. 8 to have killed several top commanders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in an airstrike in Syria, including the "minister of war" who has a bounty on his head.

Barcelona, Spain. Sixteen people died and more than 120 were injured in the attacks. They were claimed by the Islamic State group.  The investigation into last month's attacks in Spain is becoming increasingly international.

A commando operation backed by Russian warplanes and helicopters has killed 25 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in central Syria, a monitor said on Aug. 13.

Supported by regime ally Russia, Syria's army has waged a months-long offensive to recapture the vast desert region that stretches from the country's center to the Iraqi and Jordanian borders.

U.S.-led coalition raids on Raqa in northern Syria have killed 29 civilians over the past 24 hours as American-backed forces battle Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a monitor said on Aug 8.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine women and 14 children had been killed in coalition air raids on Raqqa city since the Aug. 7 evening.