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The scenes of joy and vengeance in Damascus recall the outpouring in Baghdad in 2003 when Saddam Hussein, and his statues, were toppled after years of rule by the same bloody political Ba’athist ideology that has held sway in the region for 77 years. But beware the risks of De-Ba’athification like in Iraq.
We must first recognize the joy of the Syrian people at the fall of a brutal regime that ruled for more than half a century. Yet, there’s also major geopolitical stakes in this highly sensitive region, with its losers — Russia and Iran — and its winners, foremost among them Erdogan’s Turkey. And a ton of uncertainty.
Following the successful toppling of the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad by rebels led by Islamist extremist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), there should be much trepidation of just how the nation will be ruled in the coming transition of power.
The surprise attack by rebel groups on Syrian government forces in Aleppo has raised many questions since it coincided with the ceasefire deal in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel. With so many forces and interests around Syria, don’t expect the reignited conflict to end anytime soon.
The Syrian rebels’ surprise offensive allowed them to capture Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in just three days. Already in crisis since Oct. 7, 2023, the Middle East is now facing a whole new level of turmoil.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, use of the term “evil” has increased. The more heinous and public the murder, the more the evil of the murderer would be revealed and “the world” would be pushed to intervene. Yet in both Syria and Gaza, that world has been satisfied with symbolic responses.
The Israeli Prime Minister has been clear: The ceasefire in Lebanon will allow him to focus on Iran and on Syria, through which Hezbollah’s weapons are transported. But the underlying factors are Iran’s nuclear program and Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
One might think that the rush to announce the completion of the deal refers to its preemptive failure with each party blaming the other for this failure. But there are many moving parts in the negotiations, like there are in the region.
After recovering from a series of crises in recent years — Lebanon’s economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic — the country’s national basketball team is playing qualifiers for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup to be held in Saudi Arabia. With their country embroiled in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, the team’s players have infused social importance in their matches.
Last month saw a sudden uptick in violence on Syrian territory, either carried out by Israel, or by the Assad government and its Russian and Iranian allies. Once again, innocent Syrians, including too many children, are paying the price.
In the Middle East and North Africa, divisions are as stark as they can be. War-torn nations stand side-by-side with wealthy oil-rich countries where the elites feel disconnected from the rest of the region. But, as Yemeni freelance journalist and a human rights defender Afrah Nasser, warns, these inequalities breed monsters, and wealth will not prevent oil-rich countries from experiencing chaos and destruction.
At a recent festival honoring Syria’s pistachio production, officials made promises about returning pistachio lands to their owners. Yet activists and displaced farmers say their lands are being auctioned off to Ba’ath Party elites, regime forces and their militias.
As Israel continued its strikes in several parts of the country, more than 30,000 Lebanese and Syrians living in Lebanon set out for the Syrian border. It’s an improbable turn of events, after years of Syrians fleeing into Lebanon.
Nearly a year into the war in Gaza, the people of Lebanon are paying a price for both a failing of Hezbollah security, and more broadly for a support war so ambiguous that it’s impossible to understand its cause, purpose, or if anything has been achieved.
Even if the exploding Hezbollah pagers was not the first supply chain attack, having thousands of remote, hand-held devices raised terrifying questions that hadn’t been widely considered before, marking a potential turning point in the public’s trust in their electronic devices, and in governments’ ability to protect them.
Scenes of violence against Syrian refugees are no longer unusual in Turkey, a country marked by rising nationalism amid a deepening economic crisis.
Luna al-Shibl, a media advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was killed in a car crash in Damascus. But many didn’t believe the official account of her death given the Syrian regime’s long history of targeting opponents inside and outside Syria.
The production of wheat, a staple food in Syria, fell dramatically this year due to the effects of climate change. The poor harvest has left wheat farmers, already suffering from decades of conflict, struggling to rebuild their lives.
The author was from one of the rare families in Damascus who were not direct victims of Syria’s long civil war. But she hardly emerged unscathed.
Under pressure from Arab states and Russia, which calls the shots in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is tiptoeing away from the Iranian regime, a troublesome ally that has nevertheless spent billions of dollars to help keep him in power.
While the whole world was shocked by Iranian drones attacking Israel, which caused no casualties, nobody pays much attaention to the attacks being carried out by the same Iranian drones in northwestern Syria, where they regularly kill civilians.
After more than a decade of war in Syria, where some 90% of the population now lives in poverty, children are working as fighters for the armed factions to help feed their families.
For decades Iran’s leaders have promoted the vision of martyrdom as a precept of the regime, but appear to have carefully weighed how much damage to try to inflict on Israel after its attack against its top military leaders in Syria on April 1. What does this say about the state and stability of the regime?
Recent changes in Syria’s security apparatus are yet another step in President Bashar al-Assad’s years-long effort to escape the shadow of his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, more than two decades after his death.
The arrest and trial of a female associate of the Islamic, one of many stories of women that have never been told, how the militant group employed them in various forms during its rule and even after its defeat and its transformation into separate but active cells.
The strikes this month between Iran and Pakistan have brought the Baloch issue back to the forefront. The countries have long accused each other of harboring Baloch militant groups who are fighting for more regional autonomy.
Now in its third month, the Israel-Hamas war has led to an increase in Israeli strikes on Iranian posts in Syria. At the same time, the pace of drug smuggling from Syria to Jordan has increased, prompting the latter to launch airstrikes inside Syria.
Syria is positioned to return to the geopolitical fold in the Arab world, but the political structure inside the country is still fractured, facing protests from its citizens and the need to call in the Russian air force and Iranian backers.
Two pressing factors have weighed on the Arab League to reintegrate the accused war criminal: refugees and narcotics. But it speaks to a larger weakness of the international community to see that justice is carried out.
The Arab League has readmitted Syria, ending the regime’s ten-year isolation. This is a defeat for the West — and an admission by the Arab states that there is no way around Assad.
After a decade of conflict, once-popular Syrian comedies have lost their shine. New shows are trying to revive the country’s golden era of TV, but comedy is a tough sell in a country still living under a brutal dictatorship.
The shoddy homes that collapse on their inhabitants in Turkey’s recent earthquake were badly, and hastily, built as part of a worldwide real-estate fever typically fueled by greedy governments indifferent to safety norms and common sense.
Across the border from the epicenter in Turkey, the Syrian region of Idlib is home to millions of people displaced by the 12-year-long civil war. The victims there risk not getting assistance because of the interests of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, reminding the world of one of the great unresolved conflicts of our times.
As the leaders of Turkey, Iran and Russia meet to discuss the situation in Syria, the West is closely watching Turkish President Erdoğan’s moves on Kurdish separatists in northern Syria, now that Moscow is focused on Ukraine.
Six years ago, when ISIS attacked Kobanî, in Syria, the Kurds put up a heroic resistance, as the Ukrainians are doing now. But the city was only saved because the West supported the Kurdish fighters – support that is not forthcoming for Ukraine today.
As people open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, some in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are criticizing the lack of a similar welcome for Syrians in 2015. Do we have a responsibility to offer the same level of help to all those in need — and are we even capable of that? The answer might just be found in philosophy.
Putin is increasing his attacks on Ukrainian civilians and may be preparing to use chemical weapons. But these horrific tactics are not new — they were perfected by the Russian army during a brutal war in Syria.
The economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, coupled with COVID-19 travel restrictions, are causing the already war-ravished nation to drown in even greater misery.
The camera pans across families waiting around with their luggage and children. Men stand with rifles slung over their shoulders, ready to board the evacuation buses north. Migrating birds pass overhead. “Where are they going, do you know?” asks a voice, from the man holding the camera. “Every year, they go to their homes and […]
An 18-year-old prisoner recounts his departure from Roubaix, his life in a country at war, and his detention with no way out.