US authorised some foreign investment in areas of northern Syria that are outside government control in areas such as agriculture, construction and finance, in what it said was a strategy designed to defeat the Islamic State through economic stabilisation

The United States removed the $10 million bounty it had placed on the capture of Ahmed al Sharaa, or Abu Mohammed al Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham

An offensive by Syrian armed groups that started in Idlib province in the north of the country prompted other groups and individual civilians to rebel against Bashar al Assad's dictatorship, toppling it in just 11 days

The city of Palmyra was bombed by Israel, most likely to hit positions of pro-Iranian militias in the area, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent international organisation, among other sources