Turkey and Iran face off in a new battle in Syria 2/21/2018 9:18:31 PM   facebook Google+ ► Print The regime units appeared to be reinforcing Syrian Kurdish factions that have controlled the area near the Turkish border The Washington Post February 21, 2018  - Syria's messy war is becoming even messier. On Tuesday, pro-regime militias reportedly moved into the embattled enclave of Afrin, which is under siege from Turkish forces who invaded Syria last month. The regime units appeared to be reinforcing Syrian Kurdish factions that have controlled the area near the Turkish border, much to the frustration of Ankara. As I wrote during the early days of the Turkish incursion, the battles in Afrin risk a wider conflagration. The main Syrian Kurdish armed group, known as the YPG, is seen by Turkey as a direct proxy of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, which operates inside Turkey and is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara an...

U.S. to fight Islamic State in Syria 'as long as they want to fight': Mattis U.S. Secretary for Defense, Jim Mattis, before a meeting at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in central London, Britain November 10, 2017 WASHINGTON, Reuters, November 14, 2017 - The U.S. military will fight Islamic State in Syria “as long as they want to fight,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, describing a longer-term role for U.S. troops long after the insurgents lose all of the territories they control. As U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces battle to retake the remaining pockets of Islamic State-held terrain, Mattis said the U.S. military’s longer-term objective would be to prevent the return of an “ISIS 2.0.” “The enemy hasn’t declared that they’re done with the area yet, so we’ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight,” Mattis said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon about the future of U.S. operations in Syria. He also stressed the importance of ...