Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have agreed to defeat the Islamic State group in Syria, the Kremlin said.

The UN in Syria says it has delivered emergency food assistance to 40,000 people trapped in a government siege in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

Russia's military has said its air strikes in eastern Syria this week killed more than 300 Islamic State militants.

A Russian-built plane used by the Syrian air force conducted a sarin gas attack in the spring that killed at least 83 civilians and sparked a retaliatory US strike, a UN investigation has found.

Renowned former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte is resigning from the UN's Syria panel, saying in five years it has had no success at all.

The United States will respond by September 1 to Russia's attempt to force a major reduction in American diplomatic staff, Rex Tillerson has said.

Donald Trump has announced legislation aimed at significantly reducing immigration to the United States.

Donald Trump has hinted he could change his mind on the US pulling out of the international Paris climate change deal.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it is "obvious and indispensable" to have exchanges with US President Donald Trump as the two leaders were set to try to find common ground on security, defence and other issues.

Russian bombers have targeted the Islamic State group in Syria with cruise missiles, the military said.

The US State Department said that it believes about 50 detainees are being hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison

A deal hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held parts of Syria has gone into effect.

Analysis of samples taken from a deadly sarin gas attack in Syria earlier this month "bears the signature" of President Bashar Assad's government and shows it was responsible for the deadly assault, France's foreign minister has said.

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The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed a day after a deadly blast killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.

Russia has been told it must choose between aligning itself with the US and like-minded countries or embracing Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran and militant group Hezbollah.

The US missile attack caused heavy damage to one of Syria's biggest and most strategic air bases - but the impact on President Bashar Assad's military capabilities is limited.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned on Wednesday that US President's Trump administration will take action against chemical attacks in Syria - if the UN Security Council fails to act.

A suspected government chemical attack in an opposition-held town in northern Syria has killed dozens of people.

Syrian government warplanes have pounded a rebel-held neighbourhood in the central city of Homs, killing at least three people and wounding dozens, opposition activists said.

Syrian army experts are dismantling explosives and booby-traps left behind by rebels before they left the last neighbourhoods they held in the northern city of Aleppo, according to state TV.

A deal to evacuate trapped civilians and fighters in war-ravaged east Aleppo and two Syrian villages has been thrown into doubt after assailants torched six buses assigned to the operation.

An agreement has been reached to allow "humanitarian cases" to leave two besieged government-held Shiite villages in north-western Syria, a step which would allow the evacuations of civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo to resume, Hezbollah's media arm and a monitoring group have said.

A ceasefire deal between rebels and the Syrian government in the city of Aleppo has broken down, threatening plans to evacuate the remaining fighters and tens of thousands of civilians.

The pullout of Syrian rebels and civilians from their last holdout in the city of Aleppo has been delayed today, though the cause was not immediately known.

A ceasefire "surrender deal" allowing civilians and opposition fighters to be evacuated from eastern Aleppo has begun as Russia declared all military action had stopped and the Syrian government assumed control of the former rebel enclave.

A group of lawyers are seeking to launch a criminal case in Germany against Syrian President Bashar Assad over alleged war crimes committed in the city of Aleppo.

Russia and Iran will be guilty of war crimes if they do not put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to stop escalating violence in the country, says France's foreign minister.

At least 13 people have been killed in a string of bomb attacks inside government territory in Syria, according to state media.

More than 17,000 people have died in Syrian government detention facilities since the start of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad, Amnesty International has said.

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The Syrian al Qaida branch and allied fighters from ultraconservative rebel factions have seized a village of President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect in central Syria.

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US and Russia succeed in having fragile ceasefire extended to city

A wave of air strikes and shelling have killed more than 60 people in less than 24 hours in the Syrian city of Aleppo, monitors and activists said.

Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood actress and special envoy for the UN’s refugee agency, said that the international community must address the root causes of the global refugee crisis.

Convoys are delivering aid for the second time this week to three besieged communities in Syria in an effort to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas.

A home-made explosive device brought down a Russian passenger plane over Egypt last month, the head of Russia’s FSB security service has said.

Claims by the so-called 'Islamic State' group that it caused a Russian passenger plane to crash, killing all 224 people on board, are “propaganda” aimed at damaging Egypt’s image, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has said.