Even with hopes running high, so much can go wrong when a country ousts a longtime dictator and tries to start anew.

For the world, 2024 was riven by conflict on two fronts.

The deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Program has been on whirlwind visits to hotspots in the Middle East and Sudan to assess dire humanitarian situations and escalating demands for food from millions of people trapped or fleeing conflicts.

An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 12 Lebanese rescue workers inside a civil defense center in the eastern city of Baalbek.

U.S. Central Command says the U.S. military has struck a number of Islamic State group camps in central Syria, killing as many as 35 militants.

The U.N. envoy to Western Sahara is suggesting that dividing the territory between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front could be one way to settle the decades-long conflict.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed to toughen knife laws and step up deportations of rejected asylum-seekers as he visited the scene of the knife attack in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.

As the 10th anniversary of the Islamic State group's atrocities against Iraq's Yazidis approaches, a traumatized community is still in many ways convulsed by the legacy of the militants' onslaught.

The U.S. military said an airstrike in Syria in May 2023 that was targeting an al-Qaida leader killed an innocent civilian instead.

Syria's activists and pro-government media say Islamic State militants have killed at least 18 people in an attack on villagers collecting truffles in eastern Syria.

A year after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, a massive rebuilding effort is still trudging along.

The United States has attributed the drone attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes the militant group Kataib Hezbollah.

President Joe Biden has made it clear the U.S. will strike back after a deadly drone attack killed three service members and wounded more than 40 at a small base in Jordan over the weekend.

An enemy drone that killed three American troops and wounded dozens of others in Jordan may have been confused with an American drone returning to the U.S. installation.

The Biden administration has had notable success in the past couple of years in bringing home Americans who are wrongfully detained by foreign governments.

Iraqi airline Fly Baghdad is denying U.S. allegations that have resulted in it being hit with sanctions from the Treasury Department.

Iran says it fired missiles at what it claimed were Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria.

Iran has held a funeral for a high-ranking general of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who was killed by an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say a rocket attack at the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has caused minor damage but no casualties.

When Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched missiles and hit three commercial ships in the Red Sea, it triggered an immediate question: Will the U.S. military strike back.

The annual meeting of members of the global chemical weapons watchdog has called on countries to prevent the sale or transfer to Syria of raw materials and equipment that could be used to create poison gas and nerve agents.

The Biden administration is balancing efforts to deter militants in the Middle East without triggering a broader regional conflict.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on six people affiliated with the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah, which is accused of being behind a spate of recent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel.

The Pentagon and U.S. officials say U.S. fighter aircraft have conducted airstrikes on locations in eastern Syria involving Iranian-backed groups, likely causing casualties and destroying weapons stored at the two targets struck — a training location and a safe house.

The Pentagon says the U.S. has carried out an airstrike on a weapons warehouse in eastern Syria.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has met with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials.

Iran’s supplying of bomb-carrying drones to Russia could see Moscow help Tehran’s program become more lethal, raising risks across the wider Middle East.

The head of a Russian mercenary group who launched a rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership in June is presumed dead after a mysterious plane crash.

The European Union’s judicial cooperation agency says the Netherlands and Belgium have joined an international investigation into atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority in Syria and Iraq.

A California man has been found guilty of illegally importing an ancient mosaic from Syria.

The Pentagon says an additional six troops were injured in attacks last week in northeastern Syria that U.S. officials have blamed on Iranian-backed militants.

Qatar says it has sent 4,000 cabins built to house fans at last year’s World Cup to earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria.

Australia said it’s planning to buy up to 220 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States after the U.S. State Department approved the sale Friday.

The head of Syria's civil aviation says flights at the international airport in Aleppo have resumed, three days after it was put out of service by a suspected Israeli airstrike.

More than 45,000 people in Turkey and Syria have lost their lives after an earthquake two weeks ago

The United Nations has launched a funding appeal for $1 billion to help humanitarian agencies in Turkey assist millions of people affected by last week's earthquakes.

Gleaning for the World is accepting donations to help the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria.

Qatar plans to send 10,000 cabins and caravans from last year’s World Cup to provide shelter for survivors of the Turkish earthquakes.

Organizations in our region are providing relief to those in need in Turkey and Syria, following Monday’s devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake.

A devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has raised questions about how long people can survive in the rubble.

The search for survivors of the earthquake that toppled thousands of buildings in Turkey and Syria has reached a critical stretch, with rescue teams from two dozen countries helping locals sift through the rubble and experts warning that the realistic window to find any in the frigid temperatures is quickly closing.

While the death toll rises in Turkey and Syria, a local natural hazards expert shares more about why this earthquake was so deadly.

Zeliha Hisir tried to speak, but could barely move after her hourslong rescue Tuesday near the epicenter of Turkey’s earthquake.

Rescuers called out, “Slowly, slowly,” as they lifted a man inch by inch from between slabs of collapsed concrete Monday in the Turkish province that was the epicenter of a devastating earthquake.

Many governments have rushed to dispatch aid, personnel and equipment to help the rescue efforts in quake-stricken areas of Turkey and Syria.

A major 7.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Turkey has caused widespread damage across the region.

The ongoing trial of a U.S. citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Islamic State group is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq.

The U.N. refugee agency says it’s giving its highest award to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her efforts to accept more than 1 million refugees — mostly from Syria — into Germany, despite some criticism both at home and abroad.

The Spanish charity Open Arms has rescued 372 people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean Sea to Europe in unseaworthy boats in three operations.

Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon's Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is threatening to launch a new military operation in Syria to secure Turkey's southern border.

A senior U.S. official and other members of the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group have warned that the African continent is now the main target of the extremist group.

The U.S. announced Monday it is imposing financial penalties on five people accused of fundraising for the Islamic State group and using the funds to help traffic children to serve as fighters for the organization.

A bomb scare set off scenes of panic at Israel’s airport after an American family showed up with an unexploded artillery shell they had found in the Golan Heights.

The U.S. military says explosions earlier this month on a base in eastern Syria that injured several U.S. service members were not, as it originally reported, caused by artillery or another form of indirect fire.

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East says the exchange of missile strikes by Iran and Israel in Iraq and Syria puts U.S. forces at risk.

The U.N. migration agency estimates that nearly 6.5 million people have now been displaced inside Ukraine, on top of the 3.2 million refugees who have already fled the country.

Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard.

Officials say the U.S. led-coalition in Syria struck several launch sites for short-range rockets believed to be intended for attacks on an installation used by U.S. troops in eastern Syria.

Indiana congressman Greg Pence watched the Jan. 6 insurrection unfold from an extraordinary perch.

Former French President François Hollande has testified at the trial of 14 men accused of helping in the 2015 Islamic State attacks on Paris.

Coronavirus cases are surging to the worst levels of the pandemic in a rebel stronghold in Syria.

The United Nations chief is warning that a “hurricane of humanitarian crises” around the world has left civilians in conflict areas paying the highest price and is compounded by a relentless wave of attacks on humanitarian and medical workers.

The leader of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia has vowed to retaliate against America for the deaths of four of his men in a U.S. airstrike along the Iraq-Syria border last month.

The Dutch Defense Ministry says Russian fighter jets repeatedly flew low over a Dutch navy frigate in the Black Sea last week and carried out “mock attacks.”.

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East says finding better ways to counter attacks by small drones across the region is a top priority and that the U.S. is still behind the curve on solutions.

The Iraq government for the first time is expected to bring home about 100 Iraqi families from a sprawling camp in Syria next week.

A dog smells pieces of tar from an oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea, on a beach in the Gdor Nature Reserve near Michmoret, Israel, Monday, March 1, 2021. The cleanup from the disastrous oil spill that has blackened most of the country's shoreline is expected to take months. Over 90% of Israel’s 195 kilometer (120-mile) Mediterranean coastline was covered in more than 1,000 tons of black tar, the result of the mysterious oil spill in international waters. Iranian oil tankers increasingly have been accused of smuggling oil out of the country and selling the lucrative crude abroad after then-President Donald Trump withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers nearly three years ago. Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry had kept the particulars of its investigation into the incident under close guard and obtained a court issued gag-order on all details about the case.

ROANOKE, Va – Sen. Tim Kaine is criticizing the Biden administration for its airstrike on Syria. Kaine says congress should have been notified before the strike, and that the American people deserve an explanation. “Look, you owe the American public an explanation of why you attempt to strike and what was your legal rationale. We know you didn’t come to Congress for approval, that doesn’t mean they may not have looked at some members of Congress, but they certainly didn’t let the relevant committees know,” Kaine said. The operation was the first known use of military force by the Biden administration.

The U.S. military conducted airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, that the Pentagon said were used by Iran-backed militia groups, in response to recent attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)WASHINGTON – The United States launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops. Officials have noted that in the past, Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have been responsible for numerous rocket attacks that targeted U.S. personnel or facilities in Iraq. A week later, a rocket attack in Baghdad's Green Zone appeared to target the U.S. Embassy compound, but no one was hurt.

Migrants from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Sudan, rest on board the Spanish NGO Open Arms vessel after having been rescued in the Mediterranean sea, about 110 miles north of Libya, on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)ROME – Italy allowed a Spanish-flagged charity ship with 265 rescued migrants aboard to anchor off Sicily on Monday. The Open Arms vessel had brought the migrants safely aboard in separate rescues last week in the central Mediterranean. Open Arms said 96 of those rescued had been adrift two days in a wooden boat without life vests in international waters. In an earlier, separate operation, Open Arms had taken aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based.

Migrants from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Sudan, are assisted by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, after fleeing Libya on board a precarious wooden boat in the Mediterranean sea, about 110 miles north of Libya, on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)ROME – A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday was seeking a port of safety for 265 migrants its crew rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in the last few days. The Open Arms charity tweeted that its vessel on Saturday had safely brought aboard 96 migrants who had been adrift in a wooden boat with without life vests in international waters. In a separate operation two days before that rescue, Open Arms took aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based. The traffickers launch vessels, many of them flimsy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats, crowded with migrants who hope to reach European shores to seek asylum.

Tunisian authorities say 20 African migrants have been found dead after their boat, which was trying to reach Europe, sank in the Mediterranean Sea. Five survivors were rescued Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020 and authorities are searching for up to 20 others believed missing. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios, File)TUNIS – About 20 African migrants were found dead Thursday after their smuggling boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach Europe, Tunisian authorities said. Five survivors were rescued and the Tunisian navy is searching for up to 20 others still believed missing. According to survivors, the migrant smuggling boat was carrying about 40 or 50 people heading toward Italy, Ben Zekri said.

(AP Photo, File)PARIS – A French court on Thursday convicted an Islamic State operative over a train attack five years ago that was foiled with the dramatic intervention of three American passengers. The special terrorism court sentenced Morocco-born Ayoub El Khazzani to life in prison, with 22 years guaranteed behind bars. The train attack was allegedly organized by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, portrayed as the coordinator of the November 2015 attacks in Paris. He told the court that Abaaoud concocted the plan for the train attack and he followed it to the letter — until he changed his mind. The court convicted Bilal Chatra and Mohamed Bakkali of complicity and sentenced them to prison terms of 27 years and 25 years, respectively.

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2015, file photo, an injured person is transported to an ambulance after a shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris, France. Three of the 14 fled to Syria just ahead of the Jan. 7-9, 2015 attacks in Paris, which left 17 dead along with the three gunmen — who claimed the killings in the name of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. One gambled day and night during the three-day period, learning what happened only after emerging blearily from the casino. Authorities didn’t link the shooting to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo immediately. Prosecutors said the Kouachis essentially self-financed their attack, while Coulibaly and his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, took out fraudulent loans.

He said a solution must come from a joint effort by diplomatic, security and humanitarian organizations. The U.S. also has about 3,000 troops still in Iraq; on Tuesday the Pentagon announced that Trump had ordered a drawdown to 2,500 in Iraq with no change for Syria. Trump has pushed for the repatriation of foreign fighters in Syria, but their home countries have largely refused to take them back. In the short run, McKenzie said, IS is in no position to pose a major security threat to the United States. The al-Qaida extremist group and like-minded militants also are severely hobbled but not eliminated, he said.

ANKARA – Turkey’s parliament on Tuesday granted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government permission to deploy peacekeepers to Azerbaijan to monitor a cease-fire deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia that aims to end the conflict in the region. Last week, the defense ministers of Russia and Turkey signed a memorandum to create a joint monitoring center in Azerbaijan, although technical details of the mission are still being worked out. Russian officials have said that Ankara’s involvement will be limited to the work of the monitoring center on Azerbaijani soil, and Turkish peacekeepers wouldn't go to Nagorno-Karabakh. The motion for the deployment in Azerbaijan was backed by four out of five parties in Turkey's parliament. Erdogan's government said the Turkish peacekeepers were crucial for the region's peace and welfare and for Turkey's national interests.

DUBAI – President Donald Trump's national security adviser promised a “very professional transition” to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden in an interview broadcast Monday, even as Trump continues to falsely claim he won the November election. “If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner — obviously things look that way now — we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also says: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”O'Brien, Trump's fourth national security adviser, previously served as his special envoy on hostage affairs. A top Lebanese security official said Saturday that he visited Syria for two days to speak with officials there about Tice. However, there's been no public sign of tensions easing between Doha and Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The heavily-armed and bare-chested El Khazzani wounded a French-American who managed to briefly yank a Kalashnikov from his hands before the three vacationing Americans took him down. Their probe showed that Abaaoud and El Khazzani traveled together from Syria to Belgium and holed up with Chatra in a Brussels apartment. The alleged train attack plot went awry when passengers moved in on El Khazzani. Once aboard the train, El Khazzani lingered in a restroom between cars and emerged bare-chested with the Kalashnikov. He jumped in after a French banker, who has asked to remain anonymous, wrestled unsuccessfully with El Khazzani.

LYON – A Paris criminal court sentenced a 29-year-old Algerian man Thursday to life in prison for killing a woman and trying to bomb a church near the French capital in a failed 2015 attack that investigators said was plotted by Islamic State group extremists in Syria. He expressed regret over choosing that path, but denied killing the woman outside the church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. Seven other defendants found to have helped him in the attack were sentenced to between three and 30 years in prison. The Paris court also convicted in absentia two operatives who were accused of orchestrating the attack, Abdelnasser Benyoucef and Samir Nouad, and sentenced them to life in prison. Another French terrorist trial is opening later this month, involving an attempted IS attack on a high-speed Amsterdam-to-Paris train.

This image taken from a video shows amphetamines pills that were seized at the Salerno harbor, southern Italy, Wednesday, July 1, 2020.Italian police have seized 14 tons of amphetamines, allegedly produced in Syria by Islamic State group to fund terrorist activities and destined for the European illegal drug market. Customs Police Col. Domenico Napolitano on Wednesday called the discovery of three shipping containers crammed with some 85 million pills, in the southern port of Salerno, the biggest amphetamine seizure ever made worldwide. (Guardia di Finanza via AP)ROME Italian police have seized 14 tons of amphetamines, allegedly produced in Syria by the Islamic State group to fund extremist activities and destined for the European illegal drug market. The amphetamines were labeled captagon, the street name for a drug whose chemical base is fenethylline. The 14 tons of amphetamines would have raked in about 1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) in street sales had they ultimately made it to consumers, customs police said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell waits for the start of a meeting, Supporting the future of Syria and the Region, in videoconference format at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, June 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, Pool)

Getty Images(CNN) - The House passed two measures Tuesday aimed at sending a strong message to the Turkish government amid deteriorating relations between American lawmakers and the country. As a standalone House resolution, it does not need approval from the White House. The sanctions bill, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel alongside GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, passed on a vote of 403-16. Despite its bipartisan support, the sanctions bill is unlikely to advance in the Republican-held Senate. He also called the sanctions bill a "direct contradiction to the spirit of strategic alliance."

A picture taken on November 5, 2012 in Aleppo shows US freelance reporter James Foley, who was kidnapped in war-torn Syria. "I'm hopeful that his demise will be a huge blow to the regrouping of ISIS. On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead after a US military raid in northwest Syria. Baghdadi had been at the helm of the organization that would later become ISIS since 2010, two years before James Foley was abducted by the group. Foley also said she hopes the US military can locate American hostages held abroad and bring them back home.

(CNN) - President Donald Trump declared Sunday morning that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead after a US military raid in northwest Syria over the weekend. "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead," Trump said at the White House, calling the ISIS leader's removal "the top national security priority of my administration." Trump described the situation, saying the ISIS leader "spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him." Esper described the death of the ISIS leader as a "devastating blow" to ISIS. The CIA assisted in locating the ISIS leader, the defense official said.

President Donald Trump answers questions before boarding Marine One while departing the White House on October 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)(CNN) - President Donald Trump admitted on Sunday the White House did not inform some key Democrats about the daring raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff called the raid an "operational success," but also said he was not informed about the raid before it took place. "I applaud President Trump's announcement that U.S. special forces have eliminated ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Boehner countered that he was briefed multiple times by the Obama administration about the raid that took down Osama bin Laden.

Read the full poll resultsOverall, three-quarters of the country (75%) is concerned about the situation in Syria, including 43% who are very concerned. Concern, too, is highly divided along partisan lines -- 65% of Democrats say they're very concerned. Around two-in-five (42%) Americans approved of Trump's decision to withdraw all US troops from Syria, while half (50%) disapproved. Many say that the change in US policy in Syria will likely result in a reemergence of ISIS -- 69% say it's likely, 23% not so likely. Three-in-ten (31%) say leaders from other countries have respect for Trump, 61% that they don't.

President Trump will make a statement on Syria at approximately 11am and NBC News will offer a special report. Copyright 2019 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a weekly news conference with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Oct. 2, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (CNN) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan high-level congressional delegation to Jordan this weekend where they discussed Middle East peace and Syria with members of the country's royal family, her office announced late Saturday. The nine-member delegation included House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson and Rep. Mac Thornberry, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. "Our bipartisan delegation is visiting Jordan at a critical time for the security and stability of the region," Pelosi said in the statement. The delegation received briefings from US diplomatic and military officials at the US embassy in Jordan during the trip.

(CNN) - A GOP congressman and Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan said Friday President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria puts the US in a "far weaker" position in the region. "We ceded, effectively, Syria over to Russia and Turkey. So when they get together, are they going to basically carve out Syria for themselves? "I think over the next decade especially, but even the next few years, the impact to when we need allies now and in the future, is going to be felt," Kinzinger continued. Trump's decision to abruptly pull US troops out of Syria, thus exposing Kurdish allies to attacks by Turkey, was fiercely opposed on Capitol Hill by members of both parties.

A high-profile delegation from the U.S. meets with Turkish officials in an attempt to bring about a ceasefire in Syria. Distributed by LAKANA. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The White HouseWASHINGTON (CNN) - Members of President Donald Trump's own party are privately alarmed at his demeanor this week and his apparent lack of understanding of the consequences of his Syria policy, according to a Republican source familiar with a recent White House meeting. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on this description. But publicly, the top House Republican offered a different assessment. The California Republican criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to leave the meeting, saying that the speaker had opted to politicize the event. The President's Syria policy has opened a rare rift between Republicans and the White House that comes at a critical time for Trump's presidency as he faces down a House Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.

Copyright 2019 CNN(CNN) - US Vice President Mike Pence announced Thursday that he and President Erdogan of Turkey agreed to a ceasefire halting Turkey's incursion into northern Syria. Speaking in Ankara, Turkey, Pence said the "Turkish side will pause Operation Peace Spring in order to allow for the withdrawal of YPG forces from the safe zone for 120 hours." Pence said the Turkish operation would end when the Kurdish YPG forces complete their withdrawal. There has been no public statement from Kurdish YPG forces that they have agreed to withdraw, although Pence said he had spoken with YPG leadership. Once a permanent ceasefire is achieved, Pence said the President would withdraw the sanctions that were placed on Turkey in the last week.

(CNN) - Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the United States and Turkey have agreed to a ceasefire in Syria. The high-level US delegation includes Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser Robert O'Brien. Before meeting with the larger delegation, Pence and Erdogan are expected to sit down one-on-one. It's also unclear whether the delegation can get Turkey to reach a ceasefire. We will never declare a ceasefire," Erdogan said.

(CNN) - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's decision to pull US troops from Syria, said Thursday he wants the Senate to pass a resolution condemning the move that is "even stronger" than the one that passed the House Wednesday with a broad bipartisan vote. "My preference would be for something even stronger than the resolution the House passed yesterday, which has some serious weaknesses," McConnell said. "It is so narrowly drafted that it fails to address the plight of imperiled Sunni Arab and minority Christian communities in Syria. "The greatest ability to make him reverse is an overwhelming message for the Republican side -- House and Senate -- that this is wrong. It's unclear how soon the Senate might act on the type of resolution McConnell is contemplating or the sanctions legislation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday deflected when asked whether there was a broader strategy behind President Donald Trump's actions in the ongoing conflict in Syria, saying Trump "makes decisions and then absorbs data and facts." "Is there any reason to believe that there's a strategy beyond what we see here in terms of hitting back at Turkey?" Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked Pompeo, saying later: "Is there any reason to believe the President would ... leave these couple thousand troops on the ground (in Syria)?" "The President (is) always very focused on what's the objective, what is it that we're really, truly trying to achieve. Last week, Turkey's military began an offensive after Trump announced his decision to pull troops out of northeastern Syria.

(CNN) - Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and at times a close ally of President Donald Trump, sharply criticized the President on Wednesday over Trump's decision to remove US troops from northern Syria. He added, "I blame the terrorists, I blame (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan for the violence, but I do look to President Trump to fix it." "He's making the biggest mistake of his presidency by assuming the Kurds are better off today than they were yesterday. Bernie Sanders is no better," Graham said. Shortly after Trump's comments, Graham responded on social media in a series of tweets.

President Trump's decision to pull American forces from Syria has spawned a political rift in Washington sparking his allies to challenge his decision. Distributed by LAKANA. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

(CNN) - President Donald Trump appeared to confirm Wednesday that US nuclear weapons are being housed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, making him the first US official to publicly acknowledge what has been considered an open secret for years. "We're confident, and we have a great -- a great air base there, a very powerful air base. It's a large, powerful air base," Trump responded, apparently acknowledging that US nuclear weapons are being stored in Turkey. "And, you know, Turkey -- just so people remember -- Turkey is a NATO member. We're supposed to get along with our NATO members, and Turkey is a NATO member.

(CNN) - President Donald Trump slammed one of his key allies on Capitol Hill, Sen. Lindsey Graham, over his approach to Turkey's incursion in Syria. "The people of South Carolina don't want us to get into a war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with Syria. Graham and Trump have been closely aligned on many issues, with their relationship growing warm enough that they're often spotted together on the golf links. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that Turkey's incursion of northern Syria "has nothing to do with us" and added that the former U.S. allies that U.S. forces left behind in Syria -- the Kurds -- are "not angels." "However, I firmly believe that if President Trump continues to make such statements this will be a disaster worse than President (Barack) Obama's decision to leave Iraq."