The tragic loss of a Russian military aircraft with 15 personnel onboard, off the Syrian coast, has to be seen in the context of the Arab country being attacked. Attacked by the Israeli air force and facing an unprecedented buildup of NATO warships. Yet, Syria – the victim of aggression – is the one being blamed. [...]

Russian military police have been deployed to de-escalation zones across Syria since late 2016 to help maintain security in the war-torn country amid the ongoing operations by the Syrian military and its allies to clear Syria of a collection of mostly jihadist militants. [...]

TEL AVIV - Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin is in Moscow following Monday's crash of a Russian Il-20 aircraft in Syria, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Sputnik. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he sent Air Force Commander Amikam Norkin to Moscow after the incident with a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance plane in order to prese [...]

Israel doesn’t want to allow the public to witness what’s happening in Gaza, the head of an EU Parliament delegation told RT, after being barred from entering the enclave. He called Israel’s actions there “a war crime.” The group from the European Parliament was scheduled to arrive in Gaza on Thursday but was denied access. [...]

ST.PETERSBURG Israel is unlikely to freely use Syrian airspace in the wake of the crash of a Russian Il-20 military aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, Yakov Kedmi, a former high-ranking Israeli intelligence official, told Sputnik. "There was an agreement between Israel and Russia that the actions of Israel in Syria's airspace would not endanger lives of Russian troops. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Iran is seeking to extend or renew a $1 billion oil deal with the Swiss giant Vitol Group ahead of the promised return in November of crippling US sanctions, media reported. The US administration in May withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which eased sanctions on the Islamic Republic. [...]

The Russian military says an Israeli raid on Syria triggered a chain of events that led to its Il-20 plane being shot down by a Syrian S-200 surface-to-air missile. Moscow reserves the right to respond accordingly. On Monday evening, four Israeli F-16 fighter jets attacked targets in Syria’s Latakia after approaching from the Mediterranean, a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tue [...]

A Russian military Il-20 aircraft with 14 service members on board went off the radars during an attack by four Israeli jets on Syria’s Latakia province, the Russian Defense Ministry said. [...]

With Al-Qaeda’s last major foothold in Syria now under threat, the US has suddenly become deeply concerned about civilians that could be caught in the crossfire – even as the US military loosens its own rules of engagement. [...]

Russia, Turkey and Iran need to team up in the face of the pressure exerted on them by Washington, Iranian analysts told Sputnik, commenting on the September trilateral meeting in Tehran. According to them, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara could work out a joint strategy to resist the US sanctions policy. [...]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has discussed a possible replacement of the US dollar by national currencies in trade transactions with Turkish and Russian representatives at the recent trilateral summit of the Syrian ceasefire guarantor states, local media reported. [...]

The book says the Trump administration was seriously concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah dragging the US into a “catastrophic” Middle East war. The recently-published book entitled "Fear: Trump in the White House" says that in February 2017, early in the Trump administration, top US officials were seriously worried that Israel could not defend itself against a possible attack from Hez [...]

Seventeen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government and media outlets have decided that Al-Qaeda is now a rebel group worthy of our sympathy. The cynical narrative change is par for the course, experts told RT. As somber newspaper headlines mark the anniversary of the devastating attacks, some commentators have pointed out that the terrorist group accused of murdering 3,000 America [...]

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), voiced on Tuesday his intention to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the backdrop of the United States' recent decision to close the PLO office in Washington over its concerns of the organization's course of action. [...]

The Netherlands will end its support for Syrian militants, since the program did not yield the “expected” results. Earlier, journalists found one of the groups had been labeled ‘terrorist’ by the Dutch justice department. “The opportunity to quickly change the situation [in Syria] is extremely small,” reads the letter the lower house of the parliament by Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blo [...]

Footage, meant to serve as proof that the Syrian government has conducted a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, is to be handed to global news outlets by the end of Tuesday, the Russian military claims. Several Middle East TV channels and a US news channel have been sent to Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib Governorate to produce the footage needed for the provocation, a statement by the Rus [...]

New Delhi is maintaining an independent foreign policy course with regard to Latin American countries, Indian political analysts told Sputnik. They stressed that Donald Trump's pressure on Cuba and Venezuela would unlikely affect India's ties with these countries and explained how New Delhi avoids a clash of interests with China in the region. [...]

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused US President Donald Trump of flipping the script on destruction across the Middle East by blaming Iran instead of looking at US policies that have delivered “horrors” in the region. [...]

Last week the US warned of military strikes on Syria "if" government forces use chemical weapons (CW). This week, Trump comes clean by dropping any mention of a CW pretext – simply warning Syria not to attack terrorists. Trump tweeted his warning to Syria, as well as its allied Russian and Iranian forces, to not launch a military offensive to retake control of the northwest province of Idlib. [...]