March 2, 2017 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Syrian Civil War
- Palmyra offensive (2017)
- The Syrian Army and its allies recapture the ancient city of Palmyra from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (Reuters) (Al-Masdar News)
- East Aleppo offensive (February 2017)
- The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces' Manbij Military Council, "after reaching a new alliance with Russia," hands over a vast expanse of territory west of Manbij to the Syrian Army to create a buffer zone between the SDF and Turkish-backed rebels. (BBC) (Al-Masdar News) (Rudaw)
- Palmyra offensive (2017)
- War in North-West Pakistan
- A United States drone strike kills two alleged militants in the Kurram district of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Disasters and accidents
- A methane gas explosion occurs at a coal mine in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine, killing at least eight miners, with another 20 unaccounted for. (Al Jazeera)
- An avalanche near the northern Italian town of Courmayeur, kills at least three people and injures another three, while two others are believed missing. (BBC)
Law and crime
- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is acquitted of involvement in the deaths of hundreds of anti-government protesters during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. (The Guardian)
Politics and elections
- Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2017
- Northern Irish voters go to the polls to elect their new MLA representatives after a snap election was called following the resignation of Deputy First minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin over the mishandling by Democratic Unionist Party over the recent Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. (BBC News)
- The government of Sweden submits a bill to the Riksdag to reintroduce conscription this summer in response to new global security challenges. (Al Jazeera)
- Political appointments of Donald Trump
- The U.S. Senate confirms Donald Trump's appointment of his former opponents in the presidential primaries, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Governor of Texas Rick Perry, as Secretaries of Housing and Urban Development and Energy respectively, with the support of all Republicans and some Democrats. (CNN)