Syrian Army

BELGRADE - The Syrian army continues to move into the northern province of Raqqa, home to the de facto capital of the self-claimed caliphate of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) group fighting in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The army first pushed into Raqqa Saturday.

Syrian troops backed by Russian warplanes on March 24 advanced into the ancient city of Palmyra, which has been under jihadist control for nearly a year, a monitor and a military source said.

Syrian army troops recaptured a new village north of Aleppo on Feb. 8, bringing troops and allied militiamen to within a few kilometers of the Turkish border, while around 30,000 Syrians have massed at the Turkish-Syrian border due to a major Russian-backed offensive in the area, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has said. 

Ambulances and buses entered the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Zabadani on Dec. 28 to ferry scores of the insurgents to Turkey under a deal brokered by the United Nations, rebel sources there said. 

Under the deal, rebel fighters holed up for months in the town near the Lebanese border have been promised safe passage to Beirut airport, then on to Turkey. 

A ceasefire in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border and in two villages to the north has broken down after renewed heavy shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Aug. 29. 

At least 35 civilians were killed and 120 were injured when a Syrian army fighter jet crashed into a busy marketplace in the rebel-held northwestern town of Ariha on August 3, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The Syrian army and its allied militia launched a major assault on the rebel-held Syrian city of Zabadani on July 4, Lebanese group Hezbollah's television station said. 

Turkey?s always dynamic, always changing agenda does not permit many of us to follow and cover foreign policy issues in the necessary depth. This is especially the case amid the tense internal political climate on the eve of the June 7 parliamentary elections.

Islamist rebels and the Syrian army fought fierce battles in Latakia province overnight close to President Bashar al-Assad's ancestral home, the army and rebels said, after weeks of insurgent gains in the country's northwest. 

The Palestinian leadership has rejected the idea of joining the conflict in Syria's Yarmouk camp, apparently ruling out involvement in a joint military operation to expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).