Instead of serious political advice, the West, especially the US and their proxy Arab allies in the Gulf, then poured weapons into Syria – enough arms to destroy Syria but not enough to overthrow the regime, as one ex-rebel told me

It may be a jolly idea that the cultist murderers of Isis – however unwittingly – could create Spanish unity on the eve of Catalonia’s independence vote, but the idea that this potentially catastrophic moment in Spanish history played no part in the aftermath of the massacre is ridiculous

One Syrian told me, ‘These Kurdish groups are liars. We gave them weapons to fight the terrorists – now we no longer give them weapons to protect themselves. We did not give them weapons so that they could make states. Now they are fully supplied by the Americans’

Islamists are now facing total defeat in Qalamoun, and the Syrian army – in Lebanon – Hezbollah and the Lebanese army earnestly wish to bring this about

The survivors of this army, and their families will expect their sacrifice to be respected and, indeed, rewarded

Two officers tell me a creepy story, which might – given the nature of the Isis mind – have some pathetic truth. Several suicide bombers, they say, were found with women’s underclothes in their pockets, for the virgins they would meet in paradise

While Gulen looks like a rather cuddly imam, spending his twilight years in American retirement, he has built up an extraordinary system of Islamic schools and charities in the US, UK and Turkey worth billions of dollars. His own movement has withdrawn a book where he justifies wife-beating ‘albeit as a last resort’, describes Christianity as '‘perverted’ and refers to America as ‘our merciless enemy’

It is about taming the one Gulf nation which has the potential to outshine the Saudi kingdom and dictate the outcome of the Syria war

Exclusive: Documents recovered from a 'Sharia' court in the town of Deir Hafar show even minor disputes were brought before religious judges

While lives are lost every day, it is destruction of cities and monuments that drives home the vicious nature of conflict throughout history

Analysis: Tiny emirate has found who its real friends are after it was so casually abandoned by US President. But in Qatari business circles, there are fears the move was not so casual after all

Only Shakespeare’s plays could come close to describing such treachery – the comedies, that is

The Prime Minister is going to have her ‘embarrassing conversations’ with Britain’s Muslims, who have no power to switch off the evil ideology which Wahhabism represents. She does have that power – but she won’t use it

In April, I entered Deir Hafer. Isis had just fled for their lives, leaving their infamous black flags, crucifixion posts, arms factories and black-painted Islamic courtrooms still intact. And yet Washington still maintains that the Syrians don’t fight Isis