United Nations officials said Tuesday, estimating the cost of this effort at $1 billion.

The United States is planning to build as many as 17 Ebola treatment centers in Liberia, with about 1,700 treatment beds, while the United Nations is planning an expanded mission in the region, based in Accra, Ghana, according to Anthony Banbury, the United Nation’s Ebola operation crisis manager. It is intended to be more nimble than the United Nations’ notoriously bureaucratic operations, bringing in as many as 500 trucks and jeeps from other missions in Africa, possibly paying teams in one country to speed up safe burials, buying fuel for monitoring teams in another country, or offering helicopters to transport health workers where they are needed.

Whether Sierra Leone’s lockdown will constitute an effective response is open to question. Despite the mobilization, the volunteers hardly appeared to be thick on the ground. In some neighborhoods, residents said they were yet to see any of the green-vested young men and women who had volunteered.

Defense lines will include a 60-kilometer stretch of a "non-explosive barrier," thousands of kilometers worth of trenches for personnel, armored vehicles and communication lines, and 4,000 army dugouts, the statement said.

This paper details Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria from the beginning of the conflict to the present. Much of the focus is on 2013, when Hezbollah publicly acknowledge its presence in Syria and deepened its commitment on the ground. The first part of the paper explores the relationship between Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria and Hezbollah’s rationale for its involvement in Syria.

Hezbollah acknowledged earlier that members of its militia were fighting in Syria alongside the regime leader Bashar Al-Assad which has led to a spill-over of the violence into Lebanon.

Al- Bahra said: "Although the Lebanese government has distanced itself from interfering in the Syrian affairs, this does not mean that the government abandons its responsibility towards the Syrian refugees on its territory."

The ball was set rolling by Ryan Crocker, the whiz diplomat who made his reputation as the US ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan. In an article for the New York Times, he argued that it was “time to consider a future for Syria without Assad’s ouster." His reason? “It is overwhelmingly likely that is what the future will be.” His circular logic found few takers, though notable among them was former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden.

Crudely defined, the US has no interests at stake in Syria, and the Obama administration was never enthusiastic about overthrowing Assad.

According to the Daily Beast, the administration is already debating whether to embrace Assad as an ally in a war against terror.

The Syrian government has ramped up airstrikes in Raqqa since August after insurgents seized an airbase and other military posts, capturing and executing dozens of soldiers and forcing remaining Syrian troops out of the area.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has previously called for support to fight the militants, but western governments have been hesitant to back a leader that has been accused of routinely carrying out dangerous tactics against militants, including the indiscriminate dropping of barrels packed with explosives that have killed scores of civilians across the country over the past three and a half years.

The main Kurdish political party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), say they are obvious allies for Western states as the only force with a proven track record of combating ISIS there. The Kurds are dismissive of the moderate Syrian opposition that has been backed by the West but outgunned by Islamist groups.

Since ISIS overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in June, the PYD has been offered a chance to address both issues in a flurry of contacts with foreign officials, including some from “major powers,” said Khaled Eissa, the PYD’s representative in France. He declined to identify the countries involved, citing diplomatic protocol.

Part of the White House’s plan is to enhance support for moderate Sunni Arab groups, who are fighting against both Assad and ISIS.

n Syria, nearly three million children, half the school population, are now not attending classes on a regular basis.

lso sent 3 million people fleeing to neighbouring countries in search of refuge and left a further 6.5 million displaced inside their war-torn homeland.