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Peshmerga troops start entering Syrian border town

By Elena Becatoros - Associated Press

This Friday, Sept. 19, 2014 photo, provided by Edlib News Network (ENN), an anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows an anti-Syrian government protester holding a placard during a demonstration against the U.S.-led coalition airtstrikes, at the village of Kfar Derian, Idlib province, northern Syria. The U.S. is struggling to counter anger among the Syrian opposition, where many believe that the air campaign against extremists in the country is only helping President Bashar Assad and that Washington is coordinating with Damascus, despite American insistence it backs the rebel cause. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN)

Syrian rebels Obama needs to defeat Islamic State accuse U.S. of working with Assad

By Bassem Mroue - Associated Press

This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows fighters from the Islamic State group marching in Raqqa, Syria. (AP Photo/Militant Website, File)

Syria says Washington informed it before strikes

By Albert Aji and Bassem Mroue - Associated Press

In this photo released by an official website of the Iranian supreme leader's office, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. (AP Photo/Office of the Supreme Leader) ** FILE **

LOPEZ: Obama pledges additional support for Iranian puppet regimes

By Clare Lopez

President Barack Obama speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House in Washington, Monday, Aug. 18, 2014. Taking a two-day break from summer vacation, Obama met with top advisers at the White House to review developments in Iraq and in racially charged Ferguson, Mo., two trouble spots where Obama has ordered his administration to intervene. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Obama to go it alone vs. ISIL in Syria; won’t seek congressional approval

By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem speaks during a press conference, giving the first public comments by a senior Assad official on the threat posed by the Islamic State group, in Damascus, Syria on Monday, August 25, 2014. Al-Moallem warned the U.S. not to conduct airstrikes inside Syria against the Islamic State group without Damascus’ consent, saying any such attack would be considered an aggression. Al-Moallem also said that Syria is ready to work with regional states and the international community amid the onslaught of Islamic militants there and in Iraq, adding that the Syrian government is a crucial partner in the war on terror. (AP Photo/SANA)

Syrian official warns US: No unilateral airstrikes

By ZEINA KARAM - Associated Press

FILE -- In this August 26, 2013, file Photo, a U.N. team, that is scheduled to investigate an alleged chemical attack that killed hundreds last week in a Damascus suburb, leaves their hotel in a convoy, in Damascus, Syria. In a statement issued Tuesday, May 27, 2014, by the chemical weapons watchdog that is overseeing the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons program, said a convoy of its inspectors has come under attack, but all are safe. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that the inspectors had been traveling to the site of an alleged chlorine gas attack site when they were attacked. (AP Photo, File)

Chemical weapons inspectors attacked in Syria

By ALBERT AJI and TOBY STERLING - Associated Press

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a general view shows Aleppo prison in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, May 22, 2014. Syrian troops backed by airstrikes broke a yearlong rebel siege of a prison in the northern city of Aleppo Thursday, allowing President Bashar Assad's forces to close in on a nearby command center of a coalition of Islamist rebel groups, opposition activists said. (AP Photo/SANA)

Mortar attack on Assad gathering in Syria kills 21

By Barbara Surk - Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2014 file photo, U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi listens during a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Brahimi will resign as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy on Syria after a nearly two-year effort that failed to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, the U.N. chief announced Tuesday, May 13, 2014. He will step down May 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

Syrian official welcomes UN mediator’s resignation

By ALBERT AJI - Associated Press

Dangerous Syrian chemicals in inaccessible area

By EDITH M. LEDERER - Associated Press

In this Sunday, May 4, 2014 photo, Syrian National Symphony Orchestra conductor Missak Baghboudarian, right, talks to a singer during a practice at art school which adjoins the Damascus Opera House in Damascus Syria. Two students were killed and five others were wounded when a mortar landed outside the Opera building in April 2014. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)

Damascus opera suffers under mortar strikes

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC - Associated Press

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 29, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by the Local Committee of Arbeen which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, members of the UN investigation team take samples from the ground in the Damascus countryside of Zamalka, Syria. Syrian opposition activists and other witnesses tell The Associated Press that Syrian government forces have attacked rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas in recent months. They say the attacks left scores of men, women and children coughing, choking and gasping for breath. The reports have been denied by the Syrian government and have yet to be confirmed by any foreign country or international organization. But if true, they highlight the limitations of the global effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. (AP Photo/Local Committee of Arbeen, File)

Watchdog says Syria must destroy toxic chemicals

By ALBERT AJI and BARBARA SURK - Associated Press

FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2014 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, hold up his portraits as they march during a demonstration is solidarity with government forces, in the al-Inshaat neighborhood of Homs, Syria. A Syrian lawmaker on Wednesday registered his candidacy for the June 3 presidential election, becoming the first contender in the June 3 vote that will held in the midst of the country’s civil war and has already been dismissed by the West as a farce. President Bashar Assad has suggested he would seek another term in office but has not yet announced his candidacy. (AP Photo/SANA, File)

Activists say Syrian airstrikes in north kill 30

By BARBARA SURK - Associated Press

In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, posted on April 18, 2014, an anti-Bashar Assad activist group, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, two women and a young girl are treated by a medic in Kfar Zeita, a rebel-held village in Hama province some 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Damascus. Syrian opposition activists and other witnesses tell The Associated Press that Syrian government forces have attacked rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas in recent months. They say the attacks left scores of men, women and children coughing, choking and gasping for breath. The reports have been denied by the Syrian government and have yet to be confirmed by any foreign country or international organization. But if true, they highlight the limitations of the global effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network)

Syrian activists accuse Assad of new gas attacks

By ZEINA KARAM and DIAA HADID - Associated Press

In this photo taken on Sunday, April 20, 2014 and released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, speaks with Syrian citizens during his visit to Ain al-Tineh village, near Damascus, Syria. Assad visited on Sunday a historic Christian village his forces recently captured from rebels, state media said, as the country's Greek Orthodox Patriarch vowed that Christians in the war-ravaged country "will not submit and yield" to extremists. The rebels, including fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, took Maaloula several times late last year. (AP Photo/SANA)

Syria to hold presidential election on June 3

By Albert Aji and Diaa Hadid - Associated Press

This photo provided by the anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man carrying the body of a child killed by a government forces airstrike in the Al-Ansari neighborhood, in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, April 15, 2014. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center, AMC)

Jordanian jets strike vehicles on Syrian border

By OMAR AKOUR and ALBERT AJI - Associated Press

Syrian youth soccer player killed in mortar attack

Associated Press

Syrian youth footballer killed in mortar attack

Associated Press

In this photo released on Sunday, April 13, 2014 by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Syrian forces tank arrives to take position during clashes with Syrian rebels, near the town of Rankous, Syria. The seizure of the villages comes a day after Syrian troops backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite militant Hezbollah group captured the nearby town of Rankous. (AP Photo/SANA)

Syrian troops choke off rebels north of Damascus

By ALBERT AJI - Associated Press