Syria News

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The Group of Eight leaders meeting in Northern Ireland on Tuesday called for an international conference on the ongoing crisis in Syria to be held "as soon as possible" but offered little new that might end the civil war there.

G8 leaders on Tuesday threw their weight behind calls for a peace conference on Syria to be held in Geneva "as soon as possible", after a summit dominated by the country's civil war.

By Andrew Osborn and Oliver Holmes ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Differences between Russia and the West mean an international peace conference on Syria is now unlikely before August, a source at a meeting of Group of Eight leaders said on Tuesday as surging government forces brought heavy fighting to Aleppo. World leaders called for peace talks to be held as soon as possible ...

Prime minister says test undertaken at weapons research centre provide credible evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons David Cameron has provided fresh detail from the joint intelligence committee setting out the credible evidence the UK has gathered showing that the Assad regime in Syria has used the "abhorrent agent sarin" to attack the opposition at least twice. "There is credible ...

Russia's fundamental differences with the West over how to seek peace in war-torn Syria has left Moscow isolated and this year's summit of the Group of Eight industrial democracies in some disarray – creating a situation that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper bluntly described as "G7 plus one."

By Jessica Donati, Ghaith Shennib and Firas Bosalum BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Abdul Basit Haroun says he is behind some of the biggest shipments of weapons from Libya to Syria, which he delivers on chartered flights to neighboring countries and then smuggles over the border. After fleeing Libya in his 20s, Haroun established himself as a property developer in Manchester. After about two ...

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have begun ethnically cleansing Sunni Muslims and deliberately pushing refugees across the border into Lebanon, the Lebanese caretaker minister for social affairs said on Tuesday. Assad is battling a Sunni-led revolt in Syria, which he and his father before him have ruled for four decades. He belongs to the minority ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Militants supporting opposing sides of Syria's civil war clashed in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, killing one, a security source said, rocking a city where divisions have been simmering for months. Syria's war started with pro-democracy rallies but was suppressed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Now majority Sunni Muslim rebels wage war against ...

       

By Alexei Anishchuk ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin clashed with other world leaders over the civil war in Syria at a tense G8 summit, blocking any mention of the fate of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from a final communique to be issued on Tuesday. Isolated at the G8, Putin resisted attempts by other world leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama ...

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland, June 18 (UPI) -- Group of Eight leaders worked to develop a statement on Syria acceptable to nations wanting a transition of power and Russia, an ally of the Syrian government.

President Obama talked about Syria's civil war in an interview with Charlie Rose on PBS, rejecting criticism that he should have decided earlier to send arms to rebels.

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) — Hunting for a glimmer of common ground, the leaders of major economic powers are declaring themselves dedicated to a political solution to Syria's bloody civil war, even as President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin stake out diametrically opposite stands on which side deserves military support.

Al Qaeda's affiliate inside Syria is now the best-equipped arm of the terror group in existence today, according to informal assessments by U.S. and Middle East intelligence agencies, a private sector analyst directly familiar with the information told CNN.

Earlier action by the United States to arm rebels seeking Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow would not have meaningfully slow the violence in that country’s ongoing civil war, President Barack Obama said in his first extensive comments about the situation in Syria.Obama defended his administration’s handling of the protracted Syrian civil war following the U.S. government’s ...

At the G-8, leaders seek a Syria consensus despite a US-Russia divide        

Syria’s central bank said a $1 billion credit line from Iran will help to prop up the pound, which weakened after the U.S. decided last week to arm rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland, June 18 (UPI) -- Seeking consent on Syria amid a West-Russia schism over its future is a key job of Group of Eight leaders ending their summit Tuesday, a White House aide said.

President Obama defended the administration's decision to "ramp up" their support to Syrian rebel forces by, among other things, providing some lethal aid, during a sprawling interview with Charlie Rose on Monday night. The president "rejected" the view that getting more involved in Syria is a bad idea because of our previous experience in Iraq intervention, adding that he wants to frame the ...