Evidence suggests Assad was behind this week’s chemical weapons attack. Leaders are saying it is a redline issue but Western powers are at a loss to respond, says Peter Apps

Angela Merkel is telling Germans that their country is stronger than terrorism and the government will do everything to ensure "security in freedom".

Your letters, your views.

At least 11 police officers have died and 78 other people are injured after Kurdish militants attacked a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey with an explosives-laden truck.

Turkey’s president has apologised to Moscow after a Russian jet was shot down at the Syrian border, Russian and Turkish officials said yesterday, a move that could open the way for easing a bitter strain in Russia-Turkey ties.

Three test cases are being brought before the High Court in an attempt to force the Government to ensure that people serving in the Defence Forces can carry over all their annual leave entitlements from one year to the next.

Government had prohibited help for opposition-held Daraya.

EU struggles to understand what drives people to join terror cells, writes Sorcha Ní Coileain

Warplanes have unleashed air strikes on the suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus and near the rebel-held city of Aleppo, hours before a ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia was due to go into effect.

In Syria, at least 71 people have died in blasts near a key shrine close to the capital Damascus.

Turkish police have arrested five people suspected of direct links to the suicide bombing that killed 10 Germans in Istanbul's main tourist area.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked the Syrian government for permission to send mobile clinics and medical teams to the besieged town of Madaya to assess the extent of malnutrition and evacuate the worst cases, its representative said.

At least 32 people were killed and 90 wounded in two bomb explosions in the Syrian city of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A Russian destroyer has used small arms fire to ward off a Turkish fishing ship and prevent a collision in the Aegean Sea, the Defence Ministry said.

US President Barack Obama has urged Turkey to reduce tensions with Russia, which are hampering efforts to fight Islamic State militants in Syria.

In a move raising the potential threat of a Russia-NATO conflict, Russia says it will deploy long-range air defence missiles to its base in Syria and destroy any target that may threaten its warplanes after the downing of its military jet by Turkey.

Investors sought safety in low-risk government debt yesterday after Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border, while European tourism-linked stocks fell after a US travel warning due to “increased terrorist threats”.

Hungary sent refugees by special trains direct to the Austrian border, trying to offload record numbers streaming into the country before a crackdown by the right-wing government.

A 29-year-old Syrian refugee who escaped to Ireland 18 months ago has made an impassioned plea to the Irish and European governments to help his fellow country people.

Europe has not, will not, and cannot stop the flow of humans seeking a better life. So they should deal with the situation humanely, legally and quickly, writes Robert Young.

Turkey has announced that its fighter jets have carried out their first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.

Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State (IS) targets across the border in Syria, government officials said, a day after IS militants fired at a Turkish military outpost, killing a soldier.

Iraq’s military needs more intelligence and action from international allies against Islamic State (IS) extremists, the prime minister has said.

A group monitoring the Syrian civil war said government forces had carried out a poison gas attack that killed six people in the northwest, and medics posted videos of children suffering what they said was suffocation.

IT WAS STILL snowing hard in Turkey -— Istanbul on the Bosphorus was trying to come to terms with the unexpectedly heavy fall. 

A Derry man charged with receiving weapons training from opposition forces in the Syrian civil war has told police he was involved in battles against both Islamic State and the government regime, a court has heard.

Fiji has sent mixed messages on whether its 45 United Nations peacekeepers that are being held captive by Syrian insurgents will be freed soon.

A proud father who took a short leave from UN duties in the Golan Heights to see his son commissioned as a Naval Service officer said he had no fears going back to join his comrades in that troubled region.

Iraq’s new prime minister-designate yesterday won swift endorsements from uneasy mutual allies the US and Iran as he called on political leaders to end crippling feuds that have let jihadists seize a third of the country.

US air strikes continued in Iraq yesterday as US Central Command said drones and jet aircraft hit Islamic State armed trucks and mortar positions near Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region.

A cut in water supplies in the Syrian city of Aleppo has been condemned by the head of the United Nations.

A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden car has targeted a Lebanese army checkpoint near the Syrian border, killing and wounding several soldiers.

Israeli war planes have unleashed airstrikes against Syrian army targets in response to a roadside bombing in the Golan Heights that wounded four soldiers.

It is three years to the day that the war in Syria began. Sophie Magennis argues that Ireland has a role to play in alleviating the growing human cost of the conflict.

A car bomb has struck a Lebanese town close to the Syrian border during rush hour, killing at least two people and wounding 15, security officials said.