Syrian and Russian warplanes conducted several airstrikes on the suburbs of Idlib province in northern Syria, amid fierce clashes between pro-Assad forces and rebel groups on the ground, local activists reported. 

“Syrian and Russian air forces targeted the town of Killi in Idlib, killing fifteen people, including three children,”

Since the start of the Russian airstrikes in Syria in Sept. 30, some 350 people, including 120 civilians and 33 children, have been killed.

Failed asylum seekers in Germany are voluntarily returning home, but only because the government is paying them.

The Federal Government has set aside some €2.14 million to pay for voluntary repatriations, which includes travel subsidies of €200 per person, although this does not include people who have entered Germany without a visa.

The figures come as Germany tightens its asylum laws, allowing for faster deportation and classifying the Balkan nations of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as “safe”, thus making it more difficult for people from those countries to claim asylum, and much easier to deport them.

n a surprising development this past week, Russia has notified all scientists at Moscow State University (MSU) that they must submit their research papers to the state security service before they will be permitted to publish them.

Perhaps this should not be a surprise. Vladimir Putin has steadily imposed ever greater restrictions on the media, to the point where most Russians are not even aware that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 last year.

Putin’s obsession with power and control might be an opportunity for the rest of us.

Sleek combat jets loaded with precision bunker-buster bombs roar into the skies as soldiers in desert-style uniforms march past rows of neat housing at this Russian military base at one of Syria’s largest airports.

A small group of journalists visiting the base this week could see a dozen Su-24 bombers taking off into the night with a deafening roar, piercing the darkness with scarlet flames from their engines.

Putin has pointed at the launch of 26 cruise missiles from Russian navy ships in the Caspian at targets in Syria 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away as a signal to the U.S. that Russia can pack a similar punch.

The West has failed utterly to understand the appeal of the ISIS narrative, much less to develop effective counter narratives.

In the meantime ISIS is reaching out, especially in Africa but also in Central Asia and wherever a state of “chaos” or “savagery” (at-tawahoush) exists, to fill the void. It is establishing its caliphate as a global archipelago where “volcanoes of jihad” erupt, so that it may survive even if its current core base between the Euphrates River in Syria (Raqqa) and the Tigris in Iraq (Mosul) is seriously degraded.

The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq released a video Sunday purportedly showing the joint raid of a prison by U.S. and Kurdish peshmerga forces in which they released 70 hostages held by the Islamic State group.

U.S. officials said the plan for the rescue mission had called for the U.S. troops, who are members of the elite and secretive Delta Force, to stay back from the prison compound and let the Kurds do the fighting. The Americans transported the Kurds to the scene aboard five U.S. helicopters. However, the U.S. troops were drawn into the fight to help the Kurdish soldiers.

Western-backed rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have rejected an offer of military support from Russia.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Russia was ready to help the rebels if they attacked militants from the Islamic State (IS) group.

The president for his part on Sunday hosted a visiting delegation of Russian parliamentarians in Damascus.He again expressed his gratitude for Moscow's support, and said that eliminating "terrorist" groups would resolve his country's problems.

South Korea's navy has fired shots at a North Korean boat that strayed into its waters, the Yonhap news agency reports.

The incident comes as the countries hold the second of two reunions for family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The world would be a better place if dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Moamer Kadhafi were still in power, top Republican US presidential hopeful Donald Trump said in comments aired Sunday.

I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster. The whole Middle East. It all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Obama. It blew up."

Leaders from several European countries are holding an emergency meeting to try to find a common position on the migrant crisis in the Balkans.

A draft statement calls on countries to stop waving through migrants without the agreement of their neighbours.

If no agreement is reached, he added, "we will soon see families in cold rivers in the Balkans perish miserably".

"Yesterday, an Israeli citizen crossed our borders in order to join enemy groups in Syria. We will work to revoke his citizenship. Whoever joins enemy groups in order to fight against us will not be an Israeli citizen

The Golan Heights is regarded internationally as occupied territory despite Israeli annexation. It is home to 41,000 residents, including Jews, Druze and Alawites.

Israel captured the territory from Syria during the 1967 Israel-Arab war, and it was eventually annexed.

Airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes in western Syria are reported to have killed dozens of civilians, Human Rights Watch says, suggesting that the bombings appear to be war crimes

"the strikes were by Russian forces because the sound of the planes was different from the sound made by Syrian air force planes, and the Russians fly much higher."

The U.S. military vowed to investigate the report. U.S. Central Command said at the time that coalition forces had carried out airstrikes in the area. But it said it had no indication that any civilians were killed in those strikes.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he's sorry for "mistakes" made in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he doesn't regret bringing down dictator Saddam Hussein.

"I can say that I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong

Blair acknowledged to Zakaria that there are "elements of truth" in the view that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the principle cause of the rise of ISIS.

The Turkish president says a journalist will pay "a high price" for publishing leaked video footage that purports to show the country's intelligence agency sending weapons to Syria.

Amr Farrag is a prominent Muslim Brotherhood youth cadre. The 28-year-old Cairene is a widely followed exponent of the organization’s ideology on social media and manages the popular pro-Brotherhood news portal Rassd. But these days, he no longer operates in Cairo. On July 5, 2013—two days after the Egyptian military responded to mass protests by removing Brotherhood-backed President Mohamed Morsi—the organization’s leaders urged Farrag to relocate to Istanbul, so that he could evade the Egyptian government’s anti-Brotherhood crackdown and reestablish the organization’s media operations in exile. Meanwhile, as many more Muslim Brothers fled to Turkey during the chaotic weeks that followed Morsi’s ouster, the Brotherhood formed a committee in Istanbul to resettle them, hoping to preserve the organization until it could return to power in Egypt, which it promised its members would happen very soon.

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan said Monday that Israel’s security situation on the northern border has improved as a result of the Syrian civil war, which has served to drain the blood of Hezbollah.

When Muslim Brotherhood Secretary General Mahmoud Hussein issues a statement, then party spokesman Mohamed Montasser issues another to refute it, it is obvious that there are internal conflicts. Hussein’s statement, which was overlooked by the Brotherhood’s media outlets, said he was still secretary general and that Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat is acting supreme guide.

On 18th May, 1868, the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was born near St. Petersburg. Nicholas’ reign would go on to witness some of the most significant moments in Russian history: the Russo-Japanese War, the 1905 Revolution, the First World War and ultimately, the Revolution of 1917 which saw the abolition of the monarchy and Russia’s transition to Bolshevism.

THE CONCEPTION of "Leninism" has been contentious for many years. It is an "ism" that has been targeted not only by all enemies of revolution, but by many who favor a revolutionary transition to a future society of the free and the equal.