Author: Bassem Mroue
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Macron promises help, Beirut residents vent fury at leaders
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BEIRUT • Residents of Beirut vented their fury at Lebanon’s leaders Thursday during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, blaming them for the deadly explosion that ravaged the capital. Shouting, “Revolution!” they crowded around the visiting leader who promised to press the politicians for reform. A military judge leading the investigation into Tuesday’s blast…
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Massive Beirut blast kills more than 70, injures thousands
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BEIRUT • A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, flattening much of the city’s port, damaging buildings across the capital and sending a giant mushroom cloud into the sky. More than 70 people were killed and 3,000 injured, with bodies buried in the rubble, officials said. The blast struck with the force of a 3.5…
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Rebels shoot down Syrian helicopter as fighting intensifies
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BEIRUT • Rebels shot down a Syrian military helicopter in northern Syria on Tuesday, killing its crew members in a fiery crash, while the government kept up its relentless bombing campaign on the opposition-held region, with an airstrike in which seven civilians died, activists and news reports said. The violence in Idlib province came as…
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Lebanese Cabinet faces multiple challenges, growing unrest
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BEIRUT • Lebanon’s new government made of appointees nominated by the Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies got down to business Wednesday, a day after it was formed. Questions arose immediately about its ability to halt spiraling violence and economic and financial collapse. As the government headed by Hassan Diab held its first meeting, protesters…
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Syria says Turkish-led forces attacked its troops
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BEIRUT • Turkish forces and their allies attacked Syrian government troops in northeastern Syria on Thursday, killing some of them, and they also clashed with Kurdish-led fighters, the state news agency in Damascus and a war monitoring group said. The fighting underscored the risks of violence as multiple and often opposing armed forces jostle for…
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IS group attacks U.S.-Kurd convoy in Syria
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BEIRUT • An Islamic State suicide bomber targeted a joint convoy of U.S. and allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria on Monday, marking the second attack against U.S. troops in less than a week and further highlighting the dangers surrounding U.S. plans to withdraw forces after a declaration that the extremist group had been defeated.…
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Report: Israeli attack wounds 3 near Damascus
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BEIRUT • Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon fired missiles toward areas near the Syrian capital of Damascus late Tuesday, hitting an arms depot and wounding three soldiers, Syrian state media reported, saying that most of the missiles were shot down by air defense units. The TV, quoting an unnamed military official, identified the warplanes as…
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Explosions rock Syrian capital as Trump announces strikes
DAMASCUS, Syria— Loud explosions ripped through Syria’s capital early Saturday and the sky turned orange as Syrian air defense units fired surface-to-air missiles in response to joint airstrikes by the United States, France and Britain. Associated Press reporters saw smoke rising from east Damascus and a huge fire to the east. From a distance, U.S.…
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More than 100 killed in Syria assault on Damascus suburb
BEIRUT — Intense Syrian government shelling and airstrikes on rebel-held Damascus suburbs killed nearly 130 people in two days, marking some of the deadliest bombardment of the rebellious region in three years, a monitoring group and paramedics said Tuesday. Retaliatory shells rained down on Damascus, killing at least eight people and causing panic among residents…
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Russia verifying whether it killed IS leader in airstrike
BEIRUT — Russia said Friday it was verifying whether it had killed the leader of the Islamic State group in an airstrike targeting a meeting of IS leaders just outside the group’s de facto capital in Syria, dealing a potentially severe blow to the extremist group as it fights to hang on to its strongholds…