Ain Issa/ AFP A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed closer to Raqa and Iraqi forces seized a key town near Mosul as offensives advanced on Monday against the two IS group strongholds. After announcing the start of the long-awaited offensive on Raqa on Sunday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance said it had moved south towards the city despite fierce extremist ...

  Ankara /AFP Turkey on Monday warned the United States not to allow demographic changes in the Syrian city of Raqa after Kurdish-Arab forces launched a US-backed operation to capture the extremist bastion. Turkish forces are conspicuously absent from the operation, even though they are present in northern Syria in their own incursion in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels against ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia on Monday said its air force was continuing to hold off on strikes against war-ravaged Aleppo, after rebels snubbed Moscow’s offer to quit Syria’s second city. “The ceasefire in the operation of the Russian air force is continuing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. Russia has halted air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo since October 18, ...