Meanwhile, in Syria: Another attempt to end the devastating war (LIVE BLOG)

Hezbollah says Assad's allies have right to respond to Israeli attacks in Syria

Reuters — Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that Israeli strikes inside Syria were also an aggression against Syria's regional allies and they had the right to retaliate.

"The frequent attacks on different sites in Syria is a major breach. We consider (those) hostilities (to be) against all the resistance axis," he told the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV.

"(Retaliation) is an open issue … It is not only Syria's right to respond but also it is the right of the axis of resistance to respond. When this right will be executed is subject to certain criteria … it could happen any time." Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and some Palestinian factions consider themselves an "axis of resistance" against Israel.

Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and has sent hundreds of combatants to fight alongside his forces in the nearly four-year civil war.

Aid for Al-Waer residents

Al Jazeera's Diana Al Rifai reports that food aid has reached Al-Waer:

Abu Ahmed, waiting for bread in freezing temperatures, told Al Jazeera that several food trucks had arrived. He and his friends used bits and pieces of paper and waste to light a fire to stay warm.

"We have been without any electricity, diesel or gas for heaters for too long now," he said. "Children are really cold, we live in extreme cold."

Read the story here.

For an in-depth background on the Syrian conflict

Check out GlobalPost's Polk Award-winning series Inside Syria.

US-led forces launch 22 airstrikes against IS militants in Iraq and Syria

Reuters — US-led forces launched 11 airstrikes each in Syria and Iraq since Wednesday, targeting Islamic State fighters, equipment and buildings, the US military said.

Five of the strikes in Syria were in the contested city of Kobani near the Turkish border, where they destroyed four fighting positions, a building and a tactical unit, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Thursday.

US and partner nations launched strikes near seven Iraqi cities including Mosul, Baiji and al Qaim, destroying a shipping container, tactical units, buildings, boats and land vehicles, it said.

Some Syrian refugees would rather face bombs at home than endure Lebanon's harsh winter anymore

The winter storms have worsened the suffering of Syrian refugees. GlobalPost Middle East/Africa editor and senior correspondent Richard Hall visited Syrian refugee camps in Chekka, Lebanon. Hall reports:

This will be the fourth winter many of them have endured since fleeing the devastating war in Syria, and their predicament has grown progressively worse as the conflict has dragged on.

The influx has put a strain on the local population as they now have to compete for jobs and resources with a greater number of people. Some local authorities have imposed curfews for Syrians, while violence towards refugees has been increasing.

Fearful of not being able to cope with any more refugees, the Lebanese government recently imposed new restrictions on Syrian refugees crossing its border.

In the meantime, the ones that have already made it here are worried for the future. Even before the storm, some families were struggling to survive.

 

This is Maria, a grandmother and a widow from Qamlishi in Syria. The roof of her home, made of wood and tin, was blown off during a huge storm in the middle of the night. All the men in the tented camp where she lives rushed to repair it in the darkness. 

A photo posted by Richard Hall (@_richardhall) on Jan 8, 2015 at 1:47am PST

 

A young boy walks through an informal settlement of Syrian refugees in Chekka, north Lebanon.

A photo posted by Richard Hall (@_richardhall) on Jan 8, 2015 at 9:31am PST

More on the Al-Waer truce

Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, The Associated Press' Diaa Hadid spells out the specifics of the truce between Syrian rebels and government forces in Al-Waer that went into effect today.

"Activist Beibars al-Tilawi said officials promised to allow the UN to deliver more food while the two sides discussed how to end the standoff," Hadid writes. "The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the truce. Al-Tilawi, who spoke from al-Waar via Skype, said the rebels were outgunned, and that the experience of fighters once holed up Homs' Old City was instructive: the area was destroyed, thousands of civilians were killed or forced to flee, and ultimately rebels negotiated their surrender in May 2014."

Kerry backs peace talks

The New York Times reported that US Secretary of State John Kerry is on board with Russia's attempt to broker peace between the Syrian government and the opposition. Here's an excerpt from the story:

Mr. Kerry’s support for the Russian and United Nations initiatives comes as the American-led push to negotiate a solution to the bloody Syria conflict, the so-called Geneva process, has faltered. The United States has not withdrawn its public insistence that no enduring political settlement is possible as long as President Bashar al-Assad is in power.

Will this last?

According to this tweet by Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, a truce has reportedly been agreed to in Al-Waer, a suburb of Homs. 

Syrian opposition will lose out if boycotts Moscow talks, Russia says

Reuters — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Syrian opposition representatives would risk losing influence in peace efforts if they do not attend planned talks in Moscow.

The refusal of prominent opposition figures to attend the Jan. 26-29 meeting, intended to bring together representatives of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian opposition groups, has dealt a blow to Russian efforts to seek solution to the Syrian conflict.

"Those who decide not to take part in this event, they will lose in terms of their positions in the peace talks process as a whole," Lavrov told a news conference.

Moscow, Assad's key ally, says it still hopes the Western-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces will be represented at the talks.

Some 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria, which started with street protests against Assad in March, 2011, and then descended into a civil war. Radical Islamist groups have gained an upper hand in the insurgency.