rebels

US backed Kurdish fighters of the YPG guard American military vehicles in the northern Syrian village of Darbasiyah, April. 29, 2017. (AP/APTV)
CHILE (ANALYSIS) — Separated by thousands of miles and embroiled in ostensibly unique conflicts – a “civil war” and a “political crisis,” respectively – the troubling situations in both Syria and Venezuela share more similarities than differences. These similarities owe largely to the fact that the ultimate end game for both crises is a change in national leadership or regime change.

(ANTIMEDIA) Following the Trump administration’s decision to strike the Syrian government (in what was, by all accounts, a quite ineffective strike), a new report is raising serious concerns, claiming ISIS would be a prime benefactor of the fall of the Assad government.

A new study from IHS Jane’s is cautioning that moves to undermine and ultimately oust the Assad government in Syria would greatly benefit ISIS since a large portion of ISIS’ fighting in Syria is against the Syrian government and its allies.

(ANTIMEDIA) Nicky Hager is a ground-breaking investigative journalist and best-selling author. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh once said of him: “Nicky Hager has more knowledge and understanding of the American intelligence world in Afghanistan — both its good and its very bad points — than any reporter I know.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson listens, right, to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, back to a camera, during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. Tillerson’s Moscow talks hinge on new US leverage over Syria. (AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
While it wouldn’t be unusual for Syria to bomb targets belonging to al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in the Idlib Province with airstrikes, a big hole in the US-backed allegations of a “chemical weapons attack” by the Syrian military is that there was no reason for such a strike.

Israeli military medics treat wounded Syrian fighters.  Syrian fighters are receiving free medical care through an Israeli military program operating since 2013.  (AP/Dusan Vranic)

President Donald Trump listens to a question during a town hall with business leaders in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, April 4, 2017. (AP/Evan Vucci)

This frame grab from video provided on Tuesday April 4, 2017, by the Syrian anti-government group, the Edlib Media Center, shows an alleged victim of a suspected chemical attack as he receives treatment at a makeshift hospital, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. (Edlib Media Center, via AP)

(ANTIWAR) Last week, US officials suggested what was seemingly a major policy change, insisting that the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad was up to the Syrian people, and that the US was accepting “reality” in moving away from demands for Assad’s ouster.

Syrian rebels walk in an alley in Idlib, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012. (AP Photo)
DAMASCUS —(Editorial) During the past six years, a country that was previously absent from mainstream media coverage has taken center stage in the news. One needs only to turn on the TV, read a newspaper or hop online to hear about the ongoing conflict in Syria – a conflict that has been described as this decade’s most brutal humanitarian crisis.