Syrian civil war

The United States will send 400 troops to train moderate Syrian rebels this spring. Pentagon spokesman Maj. James Brindle confirmed the planned deployment early Jan. 16 morning. The U.S. plan was first reported by Defense One Jan. 15.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu will attend a meeting on countering the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in London next week, British Ambassador to Ankara Richard Moore said via Twitter yesterday, Jan. 14. That tweet was in reference to my piece titled ?Turkey should not be excluded from anti-terrorism league? in the Hürriyet Daily News on Jan. 13.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad urged states fighting terrorism to share intelligence, Syrian state media reported on Jan. 14, saying European policies were responsible for attacks by Islamist gunmen in France last week.
   

More than 276,000 irregular migrants entered the European Union last year, more than double in 2013, the bloc's commissioner for migration and home affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said Jan. 14.

"In 2014, more than 276,000 migrants arrived in the EU, representing an increase of 138 percent compared to the previous year," Avramopoulos told the European Parliament.

Turkey's prime minister has refused to heed Western demands to "do more" to stem the flow of foreign fighters joining Islamic insurgents fighting in Iraq and Syria, saying the country has already blacklisted 7,000 people and deported 2,000 more.

A double suicide attack that killed eight people at a cafe in the Lebanese city of Tripoli was carried out by the Islamic State group, the interior minister said on Jan. 11, contradicting a claim of responsibility by the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
   

Negotiations between Turkey and the U.S. with regard to the anti-ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) coalition have reached a deadlock due to the wide gap between the two countries.

Syria's main Western-backed opposition group on Thursday appealed to the international community to help Syrian refugees and internally displaced people suffering amid a snowstorm that struck the region this week, killing at least five people.
     

Germany's cabinet on Jan. 7 agreed to keep two German Patriot missile batteries in southern Turkey for another year, where they are deployed as part of a NATO mission to defend Turkey's border with Syria.
   
The mandate, which needs approval from parliament, allows a maximum of 400 German soldiers to serve in NATO-member Turkey until January 2016.
   

Voicing regret over "unfair international criticism" of Turkey over foreign fighters using the country as a transit point to join Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, Interior Minister Efkan Ala has tasked Turkish ambassadors to "tell the world about the facts."