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President Donald Trump has told some members of Congress that he is considering military action in Syria in retaliation for this week's chemical attack, and recognizes the seriousness of the situation, a source familiar with the calls tells CNN. The source said the President had not firmly decided to go ahead with it but said he was discussing possible actions with Defense Secretary James Mattis. Trump is relying on the judgment of Mattis, according to the source. US officials tell CNN the Pentagon has long-standing options to strike Syria's chemical weapons capability and has presented those options to the administration....

Spanish authorities have seized property and assets worth almost £600 million belonging to relatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Police raided 15 properties belonging to the President Assad’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, and some of his children, as part of a money laundering investigation . Judge José de la Mata has also moved to block 16 bank accounts held by individuals suspected of being connected to Rifaat al-Assad and deposit accounts belonging to 76 companies. Investigators believe that more than £250 million in Syrian public funds have been siphoned into these accounts. The judge ordered the seizure of more than 500...

BEIRUT, LEBANON (12:45 P.M.) – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued their large-scale offensive in the western countryside of Al-Raqqa on Thursday, liberating several sites from the Islamic State (ISIL) terror organization. The SDF targeted the Islamic State’s positions in the Tabaqa countryside, killing and wounding a large number of terrorists today. According to Kurdish activists, the Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the villages of Safsafah Al-Shamaliyah and Safsafah Al-Jnoubiyah near the strategic town of Tabaqa in the western countryside of the Al-Raqqa Governorate.

•President Trump plans military action on Syria after horrific nerve gas attack on civilians •President Trump declares that he’s changed his mind about military action •Marco Rubio says Trump’s policy emboldened Bashar al-Assad •John McCain and Lindsey Graham advocate cruise missiles and safe areas President Trump plans military action on Syria after horrific nerve gas attack on civilians In a very dramatic gesture, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley at the Security Council stands and displays picture of baby killed by nerve gas and excoriates Russia's ambassador for supporting al-Assad, saying, 'How many more children have to die before...

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that this week’s devastating chemical weapons attack in Syria had changed his view of the brutal civil war in that country, though he declined to say how the United States would respond. Mr. Trump said the images of death inside Syria in the aftermath of the chemical attacks “crosses many lines, beyond a red line, many many lines.” And he said that the death of “innocent children, innocent babies, little babies” has made him reassess the situation and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. “It’s very, very possible, and I will tell you it has...

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered the Tabqa airport west of the northern city of Raqqa on Sunday, following battles with the Islamic State (IS) group, the SDF spokesman told Xinhua. The SDF entered the Tabqa airport in the city bearing the same name in the western countryside of Raqqa Province, the de facto capital of the IS. Talal Silo, the SDF military spokesman, said the battles with the IS militants are taking place inside and around the airport, adding that the facility will be declared liberated from IS within hours. Silo said the achievement comes with the help...

The battle to recapture the ISIS de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria will begin in "days," France's defense minister said on Friday. "France has always said that Raqqa was a major objective," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on French TV outlet CNews. "Today, one can say that Raqqa is encircled, that the battle for Raqqa will start in the coming days. It will be a very hard battle, but a battle that is going to be of utmost importance."

A MASSIVE offensive to seize ISIS “capital” in Syria is set to begin within days – with Coalition forces vowing to “rid the world of the scourge that is ISIS”. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the battle to recapture Raqqa from the evil terror clan was likely to start in the coming day after Coalition forces encircled the city. It comes just two days after ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in Westminster in which four people were murdered by maniac Khalid Masood. And US-backed forces are reported to be trying to capture Karama, a major village east...

America’s 16-years in Afghanistan has so far resulted in 2,216 dead soldiers, 20,049 casualties, and an estimated $800 billion in direct war costs -- not including veterans’ health and pension payments that could reach $400 billion before it’s all over. Add another $100 billion of USAID reconstruction costs, which is more than the cost of the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe, adjusted for inflation, and you’re well over a trillion dollars. The Pentagon still has 8,400 troops in place, a figure Defense Secretary James Mattis may alter, which is why it’s especially troubling that Russia has decided to flex...

The top U.S. general in Europe told lawmakers Thursday that Russia and the Taliban are growing increasingly close, suggesting that the Kremlin might even be supplying the insurgent group. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, did not elaborate to the Senate Armed Services Committee on what type of equipment the Taliban might have received or when.

THE last caliph to make the Syrian city of Raqqa his capital was a lover of fine wine, art and women. Although certainly brutal (he had his most loyal adviser cut into three pieces in 803), Harun al-Rashid is best remembered for his lasciviousness, which inspired some of the raunchiest tales in “The Arabian Nights”. By contrast, Raqqa’s current overlord—the self-declared caliph of a self-declared caliphate—will be remembered for unleashing a spasm of grotesque violence that erupted in Iraq and spread as far as the shores of Libya and the mountains of Afghanistan. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will have also presided...

If there were lingering questions whether U.S. ground troops would play a frontline role in the assault to retake Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria, they can be laid to rest now. A fleet of U.S. helicopters carrying about 500 Syrian fighters and their U.S. advisors flew into ISIS-held territory March 22 to begin the first major phase of the Raqqa offensive. The move marks the first time American soldiers have conducted an air assault with local forces in Syria, CNN reports. Backed by Apache helicopters and Marines firing M777 howitzers, the U.S. advisors and their Syrian...

Chaldean Catholic church whose image announced the fall of Mosul in 2014 has been liberated. When so-called Islamic State (ISIS) swept through Iraq in June 2014, a ‘before-and-after’ picture of the Church of Our Mother of Perpetual help in Mosul emerged showing the crucifix topping the building replaced by the black banner of the terror group. Reports at the time detailed how the Christian community desperately fled the city as ISIS rapidly imposed its rule there. Now, liberating forces have revealed how the Perpetual Help became a central location for that rule. According to emerging reports, ISIS fighters quickly identified...

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with their Syrian Arab Coalition fighters, launched a multi-pronged offensive behind enemy lines on Wednesday to liberate the Tabqah Dam in Syria from ISIS. Apache helicopters, U.S. Marine artillery and special operation troops were part of this operation to drop SDF fighters near Tabqa. “The Coalition supported this offensive with air movement and logistical support, precision airstrikes, Apache helicopters in close air support, Marine artillery, and special operations advice and assistance to SDF leadership,” the US-led coalition said in a statement. “Over the last four months, the Coalition has conducted more than 300 airstrikes...

Despite candidate Donald Trump's welcome, sometimes critical look at long-standing entangling U.S. alliances and arrangements, there was little doubt, given his rhetoric on the war on terror, that he would ramp up military involvement. He redeclared that war in his inaugural, putting a new face and new rhetoric to a decades-long fight. Sixty days into the Trump administration, the new contours of the war on terror are starting to take shape. Foreign Policy reports there is a renewed bombing campaign against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen following a late-January raid the Trump administration insisted was a holdover...

Washington (CNN)Fighters in Syria have begun a major ground offensive, backed up by US forces, to retake a vital dam near Raqqa, Syria, from ISIS, a US official told CNN Wednesday. Tabqa Dam is located 25 miles west of Raqqa, ISIS' self-declared capital, and supplies electric power to a wide area of Syria, according to the US. The area has been under ISIS control since 2013. Retaking the dam is considered a vital step in the further isolation of the area around Raqqa and eventually retaking the city.

Key Takeaway: Russian President Vladimir Putin's primary objective in Syria is to constrain U.S. freedom of action - not fight ISIS and al Qaeda. Russia's military deployments at current levels will not enable the Iranian-penetrated Assad regime to secure Syria. Moscow's deepening footprint in Syria threatens America's ability to defend its interests across the Middle East and in the Mediterranean Sea. The next U.S. step in Syria must help regain leverage over Russia rather than further encourage Putin's expansionism. Russia's intervention in Syria in September 2015 fundamentally altered the balance of the Syrian Civil War.Russia re-established momentum behind Syrian President...

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday threatened to destroy Syrian air defence systems after they fired ground-to-air missiles at Israeli warplanes carrying out strikes. "The next time the Syrians use their air defence systems against our planes we will destroy them without the slightest hesitation," Lieberman said on Israeli public radio. Israeli warplanes hit several targets in Syria on Friday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the strikes targeted weapons bound for Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was paid more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the presidential election, according to documents released Thursday by a Democratic congressman. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland asked the Trump administration to provide a comprehensive record of Flynn's contacts with foreign governments and interests. Flynn accepted $33,750 from Russia's government-run television system for appearing at a Moscow event in December 2015 — a few months before Flynn began formally advising President Donald Trump's campaign — and thousands more in expenses covered by the network and in speech fees from other Russian firms, according to the...

AGHDAD — The remaining western Mosul neighborhoods held by the Islamic State group are now completely surrounded and IS has lost more than 60 percent of the territory the militants once held in Iraq, according to a senior coalition official. "ISIS is trapped," Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition against IS, told reporters in Baghdad Sunday, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group. He told reporters the Iraqi army had taken control of the last road leading out of Mosul late Saturday night.