Author: Peter Beaumont

Benjamin Netanyahu has flown to Washington for Donald Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader since his return to office. The pair are due to meet on Tuesday, amid widespread uncertainty about the parameters of the encounter. The Israeli prime minister will arrive at a potentially pivotal moment, with negotiations on the second phase of…

Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel. The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with…

Bombing raids have hit sites across Syria as regional actors in the Middle East scrambled to defend their interests in Syria after the sudden fall of the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Moscow on Sunday. As rebels led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) freed regime prisoners, including from the notorious Sednaya…

The fate and whereabouts of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad remained unclear on Sunday as his ally Russia, which had long sustained him in office, said he had resigned and departed the country. “As a result of negotiations between B. Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict on the territory of the…