Syrian Flag

One of the boys in the seven-member Syrian family due to arrive in suburban Washington this week would have slept under a duvet dyed in the red, white and blue of the US flag, a centerpiece for the room in which he was to start his new life.

Yusra Mardini, who survived a dangerous sea crossing a year ago and is now among 10 refugees competing under the Olympic flag in Rio

Syrian special forces launched an operation "behind enemy lines" to rescue the surviving crew member of a Russian warplane downed by Turkey, Syria's Al-Watan newspaper reported today.

Thousands of Australians today joined rallies calling for the closure of Pacific island camps for asylum-seekers, just days after the government confirmed it was in talks with the Philippines to resettle detained refugees.

Cloaked in Kurdish flags, thousands of people lined the roads to cheer on a military convoy headed for what was -- until recently -- an obscure Syrian border town, now the focus of a global war against the militants of Islamic State.

Islamic State militants raised their flag on a building on the eastern outskirts of the Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after an assault of almost three weeks, but the town's Kurdish defenders said they had not reached the city centre.

Waving photos of President Bashar Assad and dancing with flags, tens of thousands of Syrians pledged renewed allegiance to President Bashar Assad as they voted Tuesday in a presidential election that excluded a vast swath of the pre-war population and was decried by the opposition as a charade.

Atop the hill of Tel Ahmar just a few kilometres from Israeli forces on the Golan Heights, Syrian Islamist fighters hoist the al Qaeda flag and praise their mentor Osama bin Laden.

Rebels tore down a Syrian flag at a border gate on the Turkish frontier on Wednesday as they fought for control of the crossing, and schools on the Turkish side shut as bullets flew into Syria's northern neighbour.

Syrian activists and Lebanese journalists burned the Russian flag at a rally in downtown Beirut on Wednesday evening, in protest over the deaths earlier in the day of two foreign journalists in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.

One of the boys in the seven-member Syrian family due to arrive in suburban Washington this week would have slept under a duvet dyed in the red, white and blue of the US flag, a centerpiece for the room in which he was to start his new life.

Yusra Mardini, who survived a dangerous sea crossing a year ago and is now among 10 refugees competing under the Olympic flag in Rio

Syrian special forces launched an operation "behind enemy lines" to rescue the surviving crew member of a Russian warplane downed by Turkey, Syria's Al-Watan newspaper reported today.

Thousands of Australians today joined rallies calling for the closure of Pacific island camps for asylum-seekers, just days after the government confirmed it was in talks with the Philippines to resettle detained refugees.

Cloaked in Kurdish flags, thousands of people lined the roads to cheer on a military convoy headed for what was -- until recently -- an obscure Syrian border town, now the focus of a global war against the militants of Islamic State.

Islamic State militants raised their flag on a building on the eastern outskirts of the Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after an assault of almost three weeks, but the town's Kurdish defenders said they had not reached the city centre.

Waving photos of President Bashar Assad and dancing with flags, tens of thousands of Syrians pledged renewed allegiance to President Bashar Assad as they voted Tuesday in a presidential election that excluded a vast swath of the pre-war population and was decried by the opposition as a charade.

Atop the hill of Tel Ahmar just a few kilometres from Israeli forces on the Golan Heights, Syrian Islamist fighters hoist the al Qaeda flag and praise their mentor Osama bin Laden.

Rebels tore down a Syrian flag at a border gate on the Turkish frontier on Wednesday as they fought for control of the crossing, and schools on the Turkish side shut as bullets flew into Syria's northern neighbour.

Syrian activists and Lebanese journalists burned the Russian flag at a rally in downtown Beirut on Wednesday evening, in protest over the deaths earlier in the day of two foreign journalists in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.