erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for the ouster of President Bashar Assad . There was meant to be a halt to the fighting around Aleppo , beginning on September 13 . Despite several alleged breaches , the truce had led to calm in the city , and last week , the Syrian army announced that it would observe a freeze on fighting until midnight on September 19 .
[ 10 wars that could be unleashed as a result of the one against ISIS ] But in a series of internal meetings over the past week , the administration has found no alternative that has not already been considered , and previously discarded as unworkable or too risky in terms of broadening the Syrian conflict . President Obama is said to be no more willing to involve U.S. forces , air or ground , in the conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlethan he was when it began five years ago . The prospect of flooding the opposition with more , and better , arms is still seen as hazardous . “ Anything we do in the near term could lead to additional ” expansion of the war , a second senior administration official said .
Twitter Embed FROM JUNE 13 , 2013 : White House Says Syria ' Red Line ' Has Been Crossed autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog More than 250,000 people have died in the conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattle, though the U.N. stopped keeping track of the toll . Efforts to negotiate peace have failed and cease - fires have broken down . Six years later Assad is still in power and stronger than ever — but not crowing about outplaying Obama .
US suspends bilateral relations with Russia over Syria Turkish deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said : " If this proxy war continues , after this , let me be clear , America and Russia will come to a point of war , " the Daily Mail reports . He suggested the Syrian conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlecould be the beginning of World War Three , saying it had put the world " on the brink of the beginning of a large regional or global war " . Earlier this month a Russian newspaper warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing an " astonishingly risky game " in the Syrian conflict that could lead to a Third World War . Popular tabloid , Moskovsky Komsomolets , ran an article that suggested hostilities in Syria could spark a “ direct military confrontation " between the nations of a similar scale to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis .
US diplomats criticise Obama 's Syria policy in memo “ It is a murderous regime that violates human rights ; that has violated international law ; used chemical weapons against his own people ; has killed hundreds of thousands of people , including tens of thousands of children . ” Barack Obama , David Cameron and international allies were vocal with their criticism of the Syrian government ’s human rights abuses and war crimes at the start of the conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlein 2011 and the UK almost launched an intervention against Assad two years later . But following the rise of the so - called Islamic State and links between its Syrian bases and attacks in France and Belgium , calls for the President ’s removal have been drowned out by a move towards co - operation in the fight against global terrorism . In a mark of decreasing hostility , the US and Russia – Assad ’s staunch ally – were drawing up an agreement on bombing Jabhat al - Nusra , which has since attempted a re - brand disassociating itself from al - Qaeda .
Russian soldiers , who according to Ukraine 's state security service ( SBU ) are named Alexander Alexandrov ( R ) and Yevgeny Yerofeyev , and were detained on May 16 by Ukrainian forces , look on from a defendants ' cage as they attend a court hearing in Kiev , Ukraine , September 29 , 2015 . REUTERS / Valentyn Ogirenko Yevgeny Yerofeyev ( R ) , a Russian soldier arrested last May on terrorism charges related to the separatist conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlein eastern Ukraine , talks to his lawyer Yuriy Grabovsky from a glass - walled cage as he attends a court hearing in Kiev , Ukraine , November 17 , 2015 . REUTERS / Stringer KIEV The body of a lawyer of two Russian servicemen on trial in Ukraine has been discovered on the grounds of a former farming collective , prosecutor Anatoly Matios said on Friday , saying two men were in custody in connection with the lawyer 's death .
Because the odds of success for any individual are much higher in the aggregate than they ’ve ever been . Rice ’s support for this theory was a series of rattled - off metrics . " More people are free of poverty than ever before , conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlebetween states is less than ever before , technology is providing extraordinary opportunities for advancement , and health and agriculture and well - being , " Rice says . " Compare the era we ’re living in today to the losses we suffered in World War II or even in the Vietnam War , or compare the economic challenges we face now to the Great Depression . " Rice is right on the evidence .
The Syrian conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlehas now become a “ proxy war ” between the two Cold War superpowers , believes Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey , Numan Kurtulmus , who warned that that the conflict could escalate beyond the Middle East . “ If this proxy war continues , after this , let me be clear , America and Russia will come to a point of war , ” Kurtulmus told the state ’s Anadolu news agency , adding that the world was “ on the brink of the beginning of a large regional or global war . ” Read more
The relative calm that dawn brings seems a lifetime away . All are at the mercy of the darkness . This is eastern Ukraine 28 months after the start of a conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlethat once seemed unthinkable , and a year and a half after the signing of a second cease - fire deal , known as Minsk 2 , that was supposed to bring lasting peace to this war - torn edge of Europe and reintegrate it with the rest of Ukraine . But the armistice is unraveling fast as fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia - backed separatists has escalated to levels not seen since more furious phases of the conflict in the Donbas -- where the separatists hold parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions -- in 2014 and 2015 . Casualties , both civilian and military , are mounting .
The most recent spate of negotiations led by the US collapsed in April 2014 . Israel claimed the process failed because the Palestinians refused to accept a US framework document outlining the way forward , while Palestinians pointed to Israel ’s ongoing settlement building and the government ’s refusal to release veteran prisoners . While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli - Palestinian conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattleon the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two - state solution , a number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two - state solution as improbable , unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace , proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians .
This is just a mess . First off , he dodges a question on Afghanistan by offering a very bad answer on a totally unrelated topic , ISIS . He once again calls that conflictconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlea " war for the soul of Islam " — this is false , and it is both worrying reductive and cringe - inducingly tasteless to make it about Islam . He repeats his bizarre praise for the authoritarian monarch for Jordan . He says that a " Muslim army , " which he often brings up as his magical unicorn solution for ISIS , should fix it .