U.S.-backed Syrian forces have pushed deep into the last major urban stronghold held by Islamic State on the eastern banks of the Euphrates, a spokesman for the fighters and a former resident said on Thursday.

Mohammad Shasho's family left Aleppo in 2013, telling their children they were taking a prolonged vacation. That "vacation" was an evacuation prompted by Syria's eight-year-old civil war, and it became a permanent exile. In a film produced by BYkids, we see the Syrian crisis through the eyes of a young refugee filmmaker.

THE PENTAGON said yesterday that any unilateral action in northeast Syria would be “unacceptable”, after Turkey announced it would launch a new military operation in the area.

Turkey will launch a new military operation in northern Syria within days, targeting Kurdish militia fighters who are supported by U.S. troops east of the Euphrates river, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that any unilateral action into northeast Syria was of grave concern and "unacceptable," after Turkey announced that it would launch a new military operation in the region within days to target Kurdish militia fighters.

Turkey will launch a new military operation in northern Syria within days, targeting Kurdish militia fighters who are supported by U.S. troops east of the Euphrates river, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Syria state media says hundreds of bodies "subjected to torture" were found in a former IS area.

The move could strain Turkey's ties to the US, who back the Kurdish militias likely to be targeted.

Turkey will start a new military operation in Syria east of the Euphrates river "in a few days", President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, a move that could further complicate relations with the United States.

AL-HOL, Syria: Faraj was born in the pouring rain on a nondescript stretch of desert road in eastern Syria as his family fled escalating fighting over the Daesh group’s last bastion. His family was part of a group of around 200 civilians who managed to escape from a pocket of territory in Deir Ezzor province that is still held by the jihadists. “I had to resist hunger, cold and rain,” the newborn’s mother Kamela Fadel tells AFP in a camp for displaced people in the northeastern region of Al-Hol. Main category: Middle-East Tags: Syria Syrian refugee syrian civil war ......