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AFP: in Russian newspaper interview President Bashar al-Assad warns U.S. of "failure" if it attacks Syria. http://rt.com/news/iran-warns-us-red-line-961/ "US media reports that four US Navy Destroyers

Airbus 320 operated by Cham Wing Airlines carrying 176 passengers flying from Najaf, Iraq to Damascus, Syria had to make an emergency landing at Khmeimim air base in Syria. From BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51411860 Flightpath of the plane from Najaf (right of pic) to Damascus , divert back and then north. Note: SIA does not overfly Syria. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/sia-does-not-overfly-syria-while-cathay-pacific-re-routes-flights-to-avoid

LONDON: Shamima Begum, a teenager who left London when she was aged 15 to join Islamic State in Syria, has had her British citizenship revoked, according to a letter sent to her family published by ITV News on Tuesday (Feb 19). Begum, who gave birth to a son at the weekend, was discovered in a refugee camp in Syria by a London Times journalist earlier this month. Now aged 19, she has told reporters she wants to return to Britain. A debate has broken out about whether Ms Begum, who travelled to Syria in 2015 aged 15, should be allowed to return to Britain having joined Isis, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks on the UK. The Manchester Arena attack in May 2017 killed 22 people after a suicide bomber detonated a device packed with shrapnel at the end of a pop concert. In the latest of a series of interviews she has given while in the camp, Ms Begum told the BBC she had regrets about the Manchester attack: “I do feel that is wrong. Innocent people did get killed,” she said. “It’s one thing to kill a soldier – it’s fine, it’s self-defence. But to kill people like women and children – just like the women and children in Baghuz who are being killed right now unjustly by the bombings – it’s a two-way thing, really.” She continued: “This is kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it was retaliation so I thought that is a fair justification.” “That was unfair on them … They weren’t fighting anyone. They weren’t causing any harm. But neither was I and neither [were the] other women who are being killed right now back in Baghuz.” if you have been following the news, you'd be aware of all interviews the girl had done showing no remorse or whatsoever. She has even gone on to say that if her first baby had survived, she would have wanted him to become a ISIS fighter too. now the QN is, if one day a fellow brother or sister from Sg joins a terrorist group too but years later,regrets doing so and wish to return to sg, what would we do? what would our government do? do we let him/her return? should we risk it all? we dont know how damaged their minds would be then. should we let them return, jail them for an un-determined no of yearS? How many years is enough? how do we determine they are safe to be integrated bk to our society again after that? lets leave all sensitive matters pertaining religion out of this discussion. this is a fight against terrorist and not against our muslim brothers and sisters. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/teenager-who-joined-islamic-state-group-in-syria-to-lose-uk-11260642?cid=FBcna&fbclid=IwAR1qrf4Uhy4FG7Lt1Q1caTnbVaH8ceVDViV6TOiArCGYYQfGsMC4ODJVQWA

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37116349 A photograph of a dazed and bloodied Syrian boy rescued from a destroyed building in Aleppo after an air strike has caused outrage around the world. Images of the boy sitting in an ambulance were released by activists and have since been shared widely on social media. He was identified as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, who was treated for head wounds on Wednesday, doctors said.

Mar 2016 - Russian Hero Who Died Liberating Palmyra http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160329/1037166120/russian-hero-palmyra-named-father.html The Russian Special Forces officer who was killed during the operation to liberate Palmyra, Syria from the Daesh (ISIS) terrorist group has been named as 25-year-old Alexander Prokhorenko. He ordered air forces to strike his position after he was surrounded by IS fighters. An unconfirmed radio comm transcript captured the final moment from his request: http://www.worldinwar.eu/russian-special-forces-commando-last-words-transcript-the-offensive-on-palmyra-25-03-2016 "I am surrounded, they are outside, I don’t want them to take me and parade me, conduct the airstrike, they will make a mockery of me and this uniform. I want to die with dignity and take all these b**tards with me. please my last wish, conduct the airstrike, they will kill me either way..." His wife of 18 months, who is now pregnant, thought her husband had die in a military accident. "...I am surrounded, they are outside, I don’t want them to take me and parade me, conduct the airstrike..." The operation remain secret until his body was recovered by Kurdish forces on request from the Russian gov.

We are living in such a sad world.... The horrors of the civil war in Syria are captured in this poignant photo of a frightened 4-year-old girl raising her hands in surrender — thinking that the long-lens camera pointed at her is a gun. Turkish photographer Osman Sagirli snapped the picture of little Adi Hudea in December at the Atmen refugee camp on Syria’s border with Turkey. Gaza-based photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban last week tweeted the heart-rending picture of Adi — her eyes conveying a mixture of sadness and fear as she pursed her lips tightly. “Thought he has a weapon not a camera so she gave up!” Abu Shaban wrote. The posting has been retweeted 18,000 times, eliciting an emotional outpouring across the globe. “I’m actually weeping seeing this. We’ve made this planet a horrible place, haven’t we?” tweeted user @cosmetopia. Adi has been living with her traumatized mom and three siblings at the camp since 2012, when her dad died in the Hama province massacre that claimed about 200 lives. At first, some Twitter users believed the lost-innocence photo may have been staged. But a user on the Imgur photo-sharing site traced it back to the Turkiye newspaper, where it was published in January, the BBCreported. The photographer insisted it was authentic. “I was using a telephoto lens, and she thought it was a weapon,” Sagirli told the BBC. He explained that normally, a child who is unaccustomed to having a photo taken will either “run away, hide their faces or smile when they see a camera.” It wasn’t until after he examined the picture, said Sagirli, that he realized his subject was terrified because she had seen so many weapons in her young life that the cameras became a weapon in her mind. The UN has called Syria’s five-year civil war the “world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe,” with an estimated 220,000 killed and more than 12 million in need of aid. About 5.6 million are children.

The Syrian crisis has raised the threat of terrorism in Singapore. Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean gave a sobering picture in Parliament today (July 9) on the impact of the crisis to the country and why the developments go beyond security concerns and threatens social cohesion. The Syrian conflict is into its third year and is a security concern for many countries including Singapore. As many as 12,000 foreigners may have already gone to fight in Syria, and the number is growing. Mr Teo, who is also Home Affairs Minister, revealed that a handful of Singaporeans have also gone to Syria to take part in the conflict. “The Government knows of a handful of Singaporeans who have gone to Syria to take part in the conflict. One of them is Haja Fakkurudeen Usman Ali (Haja), a naturalised Singapore citizen of Indian origin. He brought his wife and three children then aged between two and 11 with him,” he said. “Another female Singaporean is believed to have gone to Syria with her foreign husband and two teenaged children. The whole family is taking part in the conflict in various ways, either joining the terrorist groups to fight, or providing aid and support to the fighters.” Source: http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/handful-singaporeans-went-syria-join-conflict-dpm-teo