UN chief Antonio Guterres has said he continues to support UN's Independent Commission of Inquiry on warfare in Syria despite the resignation of prosecutor Carla Del Ponte who blamed the lack of backing from the Security Council for her decision."I have no power [to prosecute] as

Russia’s covert intervention on the side of Republican candidate Donald Trump in last year’s presidential campaign has boomeranged against him.Before and after taking office, Trump had pledged to improve relations with Moscow, but he has been overruled by Congress, in spite of it

Al Qaeda has won the post-Daesh power struggle in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. Hay’et Tahrir Al Sham, a takfiri coalition dominated by Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Fatah Al Sham (formerly Nusra), routed Ahrar Al Sham, a sometime partner on Syria’s battlefields.Following Daesh’s

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the first anniversary of last year's failed July 15 coup by sacking 7,563 soldiers and police officers.This action added to the 150,000 military and intelligence personnel, civil servants, judges, prosecutors, teachers, professors and

The fourth of July US independence holiday provided an opportunity for “resistance” to the Trump administration to demonstrate opposition to its policies.Foremost among these is its decision to repeal “Obamacare”, the flawed Affordable Care Act adopted by the previous administrat

Since the end game for the pseudo-caliphate established in Mosul and Raqqa is near, parties to Syria’s proxy wars are jockeying for advantage for the coming phase of the battle over the country.Syria’s most powerful protector, Russia, is operating on three levels. Its warpla

US-backed forces in Iraq and Syria have launched fierce assaults on Daesh-held Mosul and Raqqa, jangling alarm bells over the certain slaughter of civilians trapped or held as human shields in these cities.Civilians living in both these cities have been urged to flee at risk of b

The Conservative defeat in the June 8 British parliamentary election and the projected landslide for the 14-month old “Right-Left” party of French President Emmanuel Macron have dealt a heavy body blow to European “Trumpism”.This phenomenon formally emerged when Donald Trump star

The bombings in London and Manchester, claimed by Daesh, may not have been motivated by Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza 50 years ago, but the failure of the international community to end Israel’s occupation is a core factor in the radicalisation of Mu