Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face questions on her 2017 visit to Syria at her confirmation hearing for director of national intelligence Thursday.

Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face tough questions about her past comments about Russia, Syria and a key government surveillance program as lawmakers vet her to lead the nation’s intelligence service

The leader of Syria’s former rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the country’s interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents also cancelled the existing constitution,

The new leadership of the country said the rebel coalition leader, Ahmed al-Shara, would serve as president during a transitional period.

Assad last month was named the country's interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents cancelled the existing constitution, saying a new charter would be drafted soon.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visited Damascus on Thursday, the first visit by a head of state to the Syrian capital since the Dec. 8 fall of President Bashar al-Assad to an Islamist rebel offensive.

A delegation of Russian officials is in Damascus, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. It is the first such visit to Syria since the fall in December of former President Bashar Assad, an ally of Moscow.

The first Russian official delegation to visit Syria since the toppling of long-term Moscow ally Bashar al-Assad has arrived in Damascus, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday. The visit comes with Moscow keen to secure the fate of two military bases there and after Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that Moscow had suffered a strategic "defeat" in the Middle East following the fall of Assad.