Tag Archives: syria

The governments of eight European Union member states said Friday the situation in Syria should be re-evaluated to allow for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees back to their homeland. In a joint declaration, officials from Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta and Poland said they agree on a re-assessment that would lead to “more effective ways …

More than 300 Syrian refugees headed back home to Syria in a convoy on Tuesday, leaving two remote northeastern towns in crisis-stricken Lebanon where anti-refugee sentiment has been surging in recent months. Lebanese officials have long urged the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or help them return to Syria. Over the past months, leading Lebanese …

Syria’s U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over to Baghdad two Islamic State group militants suspected of involvement in mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014, a war monitor said Friday. The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came a day after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said it had brought back to the country three IS members from …

The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. The repatriation was the largest Washington has carried out from the camps to date, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Five of …

The number of Syrian refugees leaving Lebanon is likely to keep rising as donors cut back on aid, the head of the U.N.’s migration agency warned Tuesday, as pressure builds over their arrival on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration, said that around 3,000 Syrians have left Lebanon since January, compared …

Amnesty International said Wednesday it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria. The centers and camps hold about 56,000 people — the majority of them children and teens — and are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led …

The trial of a former Syrian army general over his alleged role in war crimes committed in 2012 in his home country started at a Stockholm court Monday, a first according to a human rights organization. Syria has been ravaged by civil war for over 13 years. Brig. Gen Mohammed Hamo, who is currently residing in Sweden, is charged with …

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A suicide bomber set off his explosives late on Thursday in northwestern Syria, killing the co-founder of the country’s main al-Qaida-linked group that controls much of the northwest, a war monitor said. Some activists disputed the source of the explosion, saying instead that a remotely detonated bomb killed Abu Maria al-Qahtani, whose real name was Maysara …

A U.S. court has ordered Iran and Syria to pay $191 million over the 2018 Hamas killing of an American citizen living in Israel. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found on Thursday that the family and estate of Ari Fuld are entitled to compensation due to Iran and Syria’s support for terrorism. Neither Iran nor Syria …

The president of Cyprus said Tuesday he has personally asked the head of the European Union’s executive arm to intercede with Lebanese authorities so that they could put a stop to boatloads of Syrian refugees from heading to the east Mediterranean island nation. President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters that Lebanon is the beneficiary of significant EU financial aid for both …