Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War

Turkish officials are confirming that their country has forged an alliance with Saudi Arabia to help rebels fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
                   
The pact, which provides rebels logistical and financial support, is a concern for a U.S. administration wary of empowering radical Islamist groups in Syria.
                   

The Turkish and Qatari foreign ministers will meet to discuss regional developments, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has said in a statement, amid reports that the two countries' cooperation in Syria has begun to yield results to the advantage of rebels.

Emboldened by recent advances thanks to a more "coordinated" military assistance from regional allies, Syrian rebels have asked for the support of the United States to set up safe zones before the Bashar al-Assad regime collapses.

Bashar Al-Assad said he had invited Hezbollah militants to fight alongside his regime but he denied the presence of Iranian troops in Syria in an interview with French television broadcast April 20.

Negotiations over the Syria crisis are currently taking place in the Russian capital Moscow.

The talks that are also attended by representatives of the regime in Syria and some opposition leaders will continue until April 9.

The Syrian delegation in Moscow was headed by the country's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja'afari.

Talks on ending the war in Syria were set to start in Moscow April 6 but the absence of key opposition groups meant there was little hope of progress in resolving the conflict.
      

A U.S.-led programme to train Syrian opposition forces to fight hardline Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, which was due to begin earlier this month, has experienced "a minor delay", Turkey's foreign minister said on March 27.
   

Some U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria may be willing to send troops to accompany and support the Syrian opposition force the coalition is planning to train and send back to Syria, Army General Ray Odierno said on March 18.
   

The fighting in Syria, which started with an uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime and transformed into a deadly civil war, has entered its fifth year. As of January 2015, it has claimed over 220,000 lives, displaced 7.6 million people inside Syria, and driven another 3.5 million people out of the country.

Syria's military downed a US drone in the country's west because it was snooping in an area where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists are not present, a military source said March 18.

"Did the drone come into Syrian territory just to have a picnic?" asked the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.