Al-Nusra Front

President Donald Trump said on Feb. 6 that the U.S. at his direction has conducted a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaeda leader who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

Turkey's presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın has said that changing borders of the Idlib de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, as determined by Astana and Sochi agreements, is out of the question.

Speaking at a news conference on Feb. 6, Ibrahim Kalın said it is not possible for Turkey to accept any proposal of change regarding the de-escalation zone.       

ISIL extremists are mounting increasingly bold attacks in Syria and Iraq following their loss of territory in both countries and are planning for the breakout of their fighters in detention facilities, U.N. experts said in a new report.

An assault on rebel-held northwest Syria by government forces has pushed some 700,000 people to flee toward the Turkish border and raised the specter of an international crisis, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said on Jan. 29.   

The Turkish and Russian military chiefs had a discussion of developments in Syria's Idlib province on the phone, the Turkish army said on Jan. 30.

Turkish Chief of General Staff Yaşar Güler and his Russian counterpart Valery Gerasimov discussed the latest developments in Idlib, a de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, the Turkish Armed Forces said on Twitter

At least ten civilians were killed when Russian warplanes hit residential areas in Idlib, a de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, overnight, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 30.         

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Russia that Turkey was running out of patience regarding the continued offensive by the Syrian army in Idlib and will take unilateral actions to stop it if Moscow fails to persuade Bashar al-Assad's regime to cease the military operations in the last rebel-held enclave.

A renewed drive by Bashar al-Assad regime to recapture rebel-held territory in Syria's northwest sparked a fresh exodus of many thousands of civilians toward Turkey's border on Jan. 28 amid heavy airstrikes, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 28.

Some 21,000 civilians have fled Syria's northwestern region of Idlib to places near the Turkish border in the last 24 hours, amid heightened bombardments by the Syrian regime and Russia, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 27.

A Frenchman has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for seeking to recruit dozens of youths to fight as jihadists in Syria and for leading a brigade of French-speaking Islamists in the war-torn country.
Mourad Fares, 35, fled Syria in 2014, and was arrested in Turkey and handed over to French authorities the same year.