By bnm Gulf bureau Iraq has suspended crude oil exports to Syria, citing regional instability, in a move that threatens to deepen Syria's fuel crisis, Iraqi officials said on December 22. The decision to halt shipments of approximately 120,

Will he walk the walk and not just talk the talk? And if he doesn’t win in the elections, will he peacefully stand aside for whoever does win?” one analyst said.

Amid the end of the nearly 14 years of civil war in Syria, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is set to rekindle a new war in northern Syria against America’s main ally, the Syrian Kurds.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Iraq Friday to meet with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as the international community grapples with the implications of the Syrian government’s collapse.

The Syrian regime’s collapse came more quickly than the rebels had dreamed — the circumstances were both serendipitous and part of a larger global realignment.

Iraq started on Thursday to send Syrian soldiers of deposed former leader Bashar al-Assad's army back to their homeland, according to an Iraqi official body responsible for disseminating security information.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein warned that ISIS was reorganising its ranks and exploiting the political vacuum and chaos in Syria where rebels led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham toppled president Bashar Al Assad's regime.

A Pentagon spokesman said the increase was unrelated to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad to rebel forces in early December.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his years-long regime have fallen, but the country remains a battleground for an array of actors seeking to secure interests in what may emerge to be a dangerous power vacuum.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has more than doubled the number of its forces in Syria to fight the Islamic State group — a dramatic increase that the Pentagon revealed Thursday, acknowledging that the added troops have been there for months or even more than a year.

Blinken said he spoke to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani about the situation in Syria after the Assad regime's fall.

"Perhaps Islamic rule will come … and the regime will become totalitarian again," SDC adviser Riad Darar told Newsweek.