Greg Myre

The rapid advance by rebel fighters in Syria seemed to come out of nowhere. Yet this development is linked to a series of combustible events in the Middle East over the past year.

In a matter of days, Syrian rebels captured the major city of Aleppo, seized additional territory in the surrounding countryside, and refocused international attention on what was the mostly dormant Syrian civil war.

Every time a presidential transition takes place, a familiar phrase crops up: "the U.S. has one president at a time." But Trump is already declaring foreign policy plans that differ from Biden's.

In this photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Syrian President Bashar Assad listens during the Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023.

President Biden said the U.S. is prepared to work with Syrians as they try to create a new government. But President-elect Trump is sounding a different note.

The swift downfall of Bashar al-Assad is reverberating in Syria and throughout the Middle East. Some changes are already apparent.

After more than 50 years in power, the Assad regime has fallen in Syria. How does the situation in Syria affect the United States, and the foreign policy ambitions of the incoming Trump administration?

The U.S. still has troops in Syria, where they've been for a decade. Yet during the same period, the U.S. Embassy has been shuttered, complicating the work of U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers.

Tulsi Gabbard doesn't have the typical background for a director of national intelligence, but the former Hawaii congresswoman has made a name for

As Syria's economy collapsed during the civil war, the country became something of narco-state. The now-ousted regime was estimated to earn billions annually from trafficking a drug known as Captagon.