Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Tanks to come from units already in Middle East, report says
Trump has said US ‘secured oil’ despite withdrawal
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country.
Donald Trump has said he will lift the economic sanctions imposed on Turkey after its government informed the US that it would make the ceasefire in Syria ‘permanent’. Claiming success at the US-brokered effort, the US president said on Wednesday that ‘this was an outcome created by us’
Erdoğan hails agreement with Putin in which Kurdish fighters will be moved from border area
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have agreed on the parameters of a proposed Turkish “safe zone” in Syria, a development that could bring an end to Ankara’s offensive against Kurdish forces over the border by severely curtailing their control of the area.
The two leaders were locked in marathon talks for more than six hours in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi, emerging just two hours before a five-day ceasefire brokered by the US expired at 10pm local time.
Angry scenes demonstrate sense of betrayal amid rushed US pullout as Trump says remaining force is to protect oil not Kurds
Pelted with fruit and hounded by insults, the American military’s exit from Syria was very different from its time on the ground. The remnants of the US presence in the north-east of the country made an ignominious departure on Monday, driving through towns that had welcomed them for the past four years.
The regional capital of Qamishli, a hub of cooperation between US officers and Kurdish officials throughout the war against Islamic State, was among the least hospitable spots on the road out. As US battle trucks, sporting large American flags, made their way through town and headed towards Iraq, groups of locals threw rotting fruit and vegetables at them, cursing soldiers that only two weeks ago many in the region had considered to be their protectors.
People have thrown rotten fruit and stones at US troops as they left Syria in armed vehicles, with one man appearing to shout: ‘You liars!’
Donald Trump’s decision to suddenly withdraw US forces from Syria, which prompted an incursion by Turkish forces, has also created concern on what to do about accused Isis fighters and their families
Evacuation part of US-brokered ceasefire, as Nancy Pelosi leads congressional visit to region
Kurdish officials say their fighters have evacuated Ras al-Ayn, giving Turkey and its allies control of one of the border cities that has borne the brunt of fighting since Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria.
The Turkish defence ministry said a convoy of 86 vehicles left the city on Sunday afternoon carrying fighters from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Front (SDF) and wounded civilians south to cities beyond the 20-mile buffer zone that Turkey is seeking to clear along its border with Syria.
Despite last week’s US-brokered truce, fighting continues on the Turkish-Syrian border
It’s an unusually hot autumn in the plains of southern Turkey, where in some places nothing but wire fencing is all that separates this country from the chaos that has engulfed Syria over the last eight years.
Cotton, pistachio and olive trees grow on both sides of the border. But plumes of black smoke are only rising above towns on the Syrian side.
Turkey-US deal asks Kurdish forces to vacate designated ‘safe zone’ in northern Syria during five-day ceasefire
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, has said his country would “crush the heads” of Kurdish militants if they did not withdraw from a planned “safe zone” in northern Syria.
On Thursday following an intervention from the US, Turkey agreed to pause its military offensive in north-eastern Syria for five days while Kurdish fighters withdrew from the safe zone.
Other European states also preparing to repatriate citizens accused of Isis links via safe zone
Belgium and other European states are preparing to evacuate citizens accused of having links to Islamic State from detention camps in north-eastern Syria through a newly declared safe zone being carved out by Turkish forces along the border.
Belgian officials informed family members of detainees held in two camps on Friday that they would attempt to take advantage of a five-day ceasefire to retrieve nationals allegedly tied to the terror group. The Guardian has learned that other European states, including France and Germany, are also looking at ways to take advantage of the window declared by US vice-president Mike Pence on Thursday to repatriate women and children.
Artillery fire and ground clashes reported in violation of US-brokered five-day truce
Fighting is continuing on the border between Syria and Turkey in defiance of a supposed five-day ceasefire negotiated between the US and Turkey.
Intermittent artillery fire and ground clashes were heard in the border town of Ras al-Ayn on Friday morning, one of the two main targets of the nine-day-old Turkish offensive, as the Turkish military and Syrian rebel proxies struggled to wrest control of the town from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Kurdish Red Crescent says six people, some civilians, in hospital with mysterious burns
UN chemical weapons inspectors have announced they are gathering information following accusations that burning white phosphorus was used by Turkish forces against children in Syria earlier this week.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Friday morning that “it was aware of the situation and is collecting information with regard to possible use of chemical weapons”.
Donald Trump said the US had to let Kurdish allies and Turkey 'fight a little while' before agreeing to a five-day ceasefire with Ankara. In a rally held in Texas, he said: 'Sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids in a lot, you gotta let them fight, and then you pull them apart.'
Turkey launched its cross-border offensive in northern Syria on 9 Octoberfollowing Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from the region
Trump hails ceasefire and ‘safe zone’ on Turkey-Syria border as ‘great day for civilisation’ but few believe it
The deal agreed between the US and Turkey immediately achieved the priority objective of vice-president Mike Pence’s peace mission to Ankara: Donald Trump was able to claim victory on Twitter.
The president had unwittingly alienated most of his own party over his acceptance of the Turkish invasion of north-eastern Syria, and was already in the midst of an impeachment battle.
The mayor of Doral, Florida, a small town outside of Miami, was taken by surprise by the White House’s announcement that the G7 summit would be held at one of Trump’s own resorts there, the Washington Post reports.
The announcement, a clear example of using the power of the presidency to benefit Trump’s private interests, has sparked anger and widespread criticism.
I just talked to the mayor of Doral — who now needs to plan to host 8 world leaders and thousands of diplomats. He learned this when we did, by watching Mulvaney on TV. He still hasn’t gotten a call from the White House. https://t.co/7A9AekUhoy
In his final hours, Elijah Cummings, the son of sharecroppers who became an influential Democratic congressman from Baltimore, was still working to help immigrants with chronic medical conditions.
That’s what members of his staff told Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, she tweeted today.
As I was paying my respects to our forever Chairman, his staff told me that in his final hours he signed subpoenas to USCIS and ICE, pursuing justice for immigrants in my district & across the country with chronic medical conditions. A man of his word every moment of his life. pic.twitter.com/igzUPl1yPF
Mike Pence strikes deal with Turkish president in Ankara
Agreement appears to cement key Turkish objectives
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has agreed with the US vice-president, Mike Pence, to suspend Ankara’s operation on Kurdish-led forces in north-east Syria for the next five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw, potentially halting the latest bloodshed in Syria’s long war.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters would pull back from Turkey’s proposed 20-mile (32km) deep “safe zone” on its border, Pence told reporters in Ankara on Thursday evening after hours of meetings with Turkish officials.
US vice president Mike Pence on Thursday announced that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had agreed to a ceasefire in Syria, where Turkey had launched an offensive on Kurdish forces once allied with the US in the fight against the Islamic State group. Ankara will suspend its operation on Kurdish-led forces in north-east Syria for the next five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw
US president’s letter to his Turkish counterpart is ‘the product of an amateur’, say critics
We now know – not that there was ever much doubt – that Donald Trump writes presidential letters like he talks – with a blustery mix of flattery and threats. His letter to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has all the charm and elegance of an eviction notice from a slumlord, but on White House stationery.
Those who have observed him the longest say this is how he has always expressed himself. The most remarkable aspect of the Erdoğan letter is arguably that it shows the extent to which the distinctions between Trump’s personality and the remaining formal trappings of the presidency have crumbled away.
President vows to destroy Turkish economy if Syria invasion is not resolved humanely, but brash language and diplomatic missteps draw confusion
Donald Trump warned his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “don’t be a fool” and said history risked branding him a “devil” in an extraordinary letter sent the day Turkey launched its incursion into north-eastern Syria.
The letter, first obtained by a Fox Business reporter, was shorn of diplomatic niceties and began with an outright threat.
Donald Trump on Wednesday played down the crisis in Syria touched off by Turkey’s incursion against US-allied Kurdish forces, saying the conflict was between Turkey and Syria and that it was okay for Russia to help Damascus. The US president, speaking to reporters at the White House, said the Kurds were ‘no angels’