APRNEWS - Russia emerged as a crucial power broker in the crisis in far-away Venezuela this week when Washington accused Moscow of convincing President Nicolas Maduro not to flee to Cuba.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Maduro had a plane on the tarmac ready to fly to Havana when "the Russians indicated that he should stay".

APRNEWS - An Israeli air strike in central Syria wounded three combatants early Saturday, the official SANA news agency reported.

A Britain-based war monitor said the strike killed several Iranian fighters and wounded 17 Syrian troops and their allies.

APRNEWS - Qatar's foreign minister ruled out on Monday the possibility of re-opening an embassy in Damascus, in line with some other Gulf countries, calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a war criminal.

APRNEWS - Syria's information ministry says the United Arab Emirates will reopen its embassy in Damascus for the first time in seven years.

The ministry gave no further details other than inviting journalists to cover the event at the embassy in central Damascus later on Thursday.

REUTERS - Russia’s military spies are being mocked abroad as bunglers but the army’s influence over Kremlin foreign policy is growing and there is little likelihood it will halt its “black operations”.

Reuters - Iran said the missile attack it launched in Syria on Monday had killed 40 “top leaders” of Islamic State, and that intelligence for the operation had been provided by its elite Quds Force.

APRNEWS - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday Israel will defend itself against Iran, after a friendly fire incident in Syria this week linked to Israeli strikes on Iranian targets there.

Syria accidentally downed a Russian plane late Monday, killing all 15 people on board, the same evening Israel launched strikes in the war-torn country.

REUTERS - Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Thursday it would hold a major naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea from Sept. 1 to Sept. 8, the TASS news agency reported, a move that coincides with rising tensions between Moscow and Washington over Syria.

APRNEWS - Several years after fleeing Syria, a group of wide-eyed refugees stare through the tinted windows of their bus to see the homecoming committee the government has organised for them.

REUTERS - A “National Army” being set up by Syrian rebels with Turkey’s help could become a long-term obstacle to President Bashar al-Assad’s recovery of the northwest - if they can end factional rivalries that have long blighted the opposition.