As Islamic terrorists press forward in Syria, female fighters and commanders now make up a third of Kurdish forces. “Women can fight better than men,” one says.
country: Syria
Stay updated with comprehensive news on Syria from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Syrian politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Damascus, Syrian history, and cultural events.
DAMASCUS — As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, in the face of the ongoing war that has destroyed her local schools. Her father was killed in the violence and she now lives with distant relatives in the capital. Earlier installments can be read here and here. He is a handsome man in his 50s, […]
The jihadist movement is not only reshaping the situation in Syria — it might completely shift alliances across the region. Will Assad ally with Turkey, Iraq and even the West against ISIS?
Four years into Syria’s conflict, cannabis has become an unlikely key source of financing for a number of groups in the opposition-held north. It’s used mostly to buy weapons. Jabal al-Zawiya in the province of Idlib is a mountainous area close to the Turkish border. Once famous for growing olives, it is now used to grow pot. Farmers here say the plant grows quickly, and yields higher revenues than olives. Most villages in Idlib province are living off the spoils of goods smuggled between Syria and Turkey, and many basic commodities available for purchase here now come from Turkey, too. […]
Radicalized Islamic men aren’t the only ones punishing non-compliant civilians in Syria. Now women zero in on other women for not following the group’s strict brand of Sharia law.
Children as young as four are the main breadwinners for some families in the Syrian capital.
In rural Idlib, marriage offices are fixing people up, but some say they’re exploiting the lonely during wartime by selling desperate women to overseas men.
Rebel fighters are no match for Bashar al-Assad’s superior military might. But underground, they use tunnels to travel safely and plant bombs close to the president’s seats of power.
DAMASCUS — In Syria, it’s business as usual. Despite the desolate landscape of destruction that loyalist troops leave behind and the sanctions imposed by Western countries, a few entrepreneurs in the power’s sphere of influence are still amassing profits, say experts of the Syrian regime. They are lifting the veil on part of this occult […]
The trafficking of young men as soldiers is on the rise in Syria. One mother thought her 16-year-old was being taken to find medical treatment, until she saw a photo of him in uniform.
The Islamist radical group’s conquests in Iraq could help it take control of parts of eastern and northern Syria it had been forced to abandon.
-OpEd- PARIS — Let’s be honest, Syria’s June 3 presidential election was nothing but a giant government-orchestrated masquerade. Bashar al-Assad will remain president of Syria, a country whose population has been largely decimated, as the three-year-long conflict has turned the country into a battleground for international jihadists from Shia and Sunni Islam, with the direct […]
DOUMA — Thousands of Syrians have lost limbs during the country’s three-year war. Here in the Damascus suburbs, two men have opened a workshop where functioning prosthetics are fashioned out of found materials. When Omar al-Ahmad celebrated his 13th birthday this year, he didn’t mark the milestone by shopping for new clothes with his father in downtown Damascus, coveting — as he would have done before the war — the uniform of his favorite soccer team on a mannequin in a shop window. Instead, his gift was the right arm of a mannequin, fished out of rubble by his father […]
DAMASCUS — Across the country, an increasing number of would-be soldiers are ducking Syria’s mandatory 18-month military service requirement. In most cases, the young men are either hiding out — or taking up arms for the opposition. Hossam, a 26-year-old from Hama, has been summoned by the Syrian army to fulfill the compulsory 18-month service required of all young men here. But three years into a conflict that has killed more than 62,800 fighters from all sides, he is refusing to comply. “The Syrian army is no longer the nation’s army, and nothing motivates me to join it,” he says. […]
Many Syrian children are forced to leave school and work as child laborers for employers who ofter mistreat them. New statistics shows a 30% drop in school attendance since the war began.
DAMASCUS — Despite relative calm after months of heavy fighting, Syrians returning home to the Damascus suburb of Barzeh are finding their homes in need of repairs that are often too pricey to take on alone. At the beginning of the year, in besieged suburbs of Damascus and in rural villages within the province, local opposition officials signed temporary cease-fire agreements with the Syrian government. Rebel fighters put down their weapons and, slowly, civilians were allowed to return to the long-embattled neighborhoods. Barzeh, a northwest suburb of the Syrian capital, was one of the first communities to recognize a cease-fire […]
An Aleppo ear-nose-and-throat specialist had to suddenly face the treating of war’s horrific injuries, especially after a government barrel-bomb offensive began there in December.
A teenage girl living in one of Syria’s besieged cities shares her stories of life in a time of war. She dreams of getting an education, but the ongoing violence has destroyed local schools.
As war upends the economy in Damascus, a few brave souls are launching small business projects that provide jobs for those desperate to work.
As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, as she’s chosen to be known, lives in a city under siege. She was 15 years old when the uprising began. This is the first in her series of articles. My city was once magnificent. In spring, it bloomed. We used to wake up to the sound of birds chirping and to the fragrant scent of flowers. Today, spring is here again. But what kind of spring is this? We now wake up to […]
With power outages and deep shortages, some civilians are finding new ways to heat homes and cook meals, by using the natural resources around them — and even bomb craters.
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Treating Cancer In War-Torn Syria
DAMASCUS — Syria’s medical infrastructure has crumbled, making traditional treatments hard to come by for patients still living in the country. That has left raditional herbal and medicinal druggists, known as Attareen, as the only real alternative to cancer patients and other long-term care patients trapped in Syria. Jawad, who has lung cancer, often visits Damascus’ Shaalan Market in search of tropical fruits. Readily available and costing between $8 and $14, Jawad and many of his friends who are also cancer patients have included these fruits in their daily diet. “During my online research for alternative cancer treatments, I found […]
PARIS — Will Syrians pay for the Ukrainians? Will the millions of victims of a protracted and bloody conflict in Syria suffer the backlashes of the situation playing out in Ukraine? Sadly, the answer is yes. Posed in these simplistic terms, the question might seem odd. But in reality, the growing hostility between Moscow and […]
Evidence is piling up that the Damascus regime has used rape – of daughters in front of fathers, wives in front of husbands – as a targeted weapon.
ALEPPO – It’s been three months since the Syrian government launched its offensive on this city’s opposition neighborhoods, using barrels packed with explosives. After a two-week lull during harsh winter weather, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have reportedly resumed – and even increased the intensity – of the raids. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that more than 400 people have been killed in the country’s largest city by these makeshift “barrel bombs” since the beginning of February, even as Geneva II peace talks were under way. Most rebel-held areas in Aleppo have turned into a no-man’s land as residents […]
Syria’s longtime foreign minister has shown no sign of opening during the Geneva peace talks, which resumed this week. But Walid Muallem may be the world’s last best hope.
The inside story of the Syrian army photographer assigned to log images of the victims of torture. One day, he’d seen enough, and joined the opposition – photos in hand.
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Tough Labor For Syria’s Refugee Students
GAZIANTEP — Syrian university students unable to complete their degrees due to the country’s ongoing conflict and displaced to Turkey are now jobless, or scraping by as day laborers. Fares, a 29-year-old from Kfar Nabal in the Idlib province, was studying for his final university exams when the security situation in the country made traveling to campus impossible. After years in medical school, he had just completed his training at the Ibn Rashed Hospital in Aleppo. He planned to specialize in the cardiovascular system, but was forced to drop those plans when it became impossible to travel to Aleppo for […]
The Syrian conflict and the surrounding chaos are allowing al-Qaeda to reinforce its presence in the region, starting with Iraq and Lebanon.
When the Syrian regime drops bombs on the country’s largest city the other target is the negotiating table in Geneva.
ALEPPO — The toll in what was once Syria’s thriving capital of commerce is also being measured by low temperatures and record snowfall. Activists say the people of Aleppo risk dying every day in unheated homes. The Syrian Network for Human Rights said that no fewer than 22 people died in Syria last week, including nine children, from sub-zero temperatures as lengthy power shortages were recorded. In Aleppo, once the country’s economic capital, electricity has been scarce since continued shelling took out power lines. The exorbitant prices of oil and diesel fuel, and even wood, prevented many from being able […]
A writer in Damascus says Assad’s regime is trying every tactic to reduce its adversaries to something subhuman. “Kneel,” his soldiers laugh, “or you will go hungry …”
Life is about to get even bleaker in Homs, as the third winter arrives since the city fell into the center of the Syrian civil war.
DEIR EZ-ZOR — On a pitch-black night, we wait in our taxi on the embankment. A fighter informs us there are wounded on the bridge, and that his comrades are trying to reach them. The official name of this deadly crossing — Siyasiyeh Bridge — has been discarded in favor of something much more apt: the bridge of death. Syria’s eastern city of Deir ez-Zor is effectively divided, split between government-run and opposition-held areas. The rebels briefly gained an upper hand when they captured the Siyasiyeh Bridge in late January, effectively cutting off regime supplies to the adjoining province of […]
HAMA — Most young women in Syria probably grew up dreaming of someday having a beautiful, magical wedding. But in wartime, many women, assuming they are able to wed at all, are settling for ceremonies that are a far cry from what they imagined. “My biggest fear was that we would book a restaurant and no one would show up,” says Sarah, a newlywed from Hama. She had planned to get married at the end of the summer. But plans are hard to make in Syria these days. Roads are so dangerous that chances are slim a mailed invitation will […]
There are many victims in the civil war in Syria. One woman in the capital, whose husband and children have managed to flee to Egpyt, suffers a particular kind of fear and solitude.
Syria is an apocalypse: dozens of disparate armed groups clash, alliances change weekly, the death toll has reached 100,000, and some two million Syrians have fled the country. Meanwhile, all sides are trying to gain an edge before the second round of Geneva talks to be held next month. Indeed, a recent increase in the […]
HOMS — I still remember April 18, 2011, when it seemed all of Homs turned out for the funeral of 12 people. Tens of thousands of men and youths exited the grand mosque of Homs, the coffins held aloft amid the multitudes. The procession headed to al-Kateeb cemetery, one of the most revered burial grounds for Muslims in the city. Twenty years ago, Homs residents were forbidden from burying their dead in al-Kateeb cemetery; it was running out of space and the final few places were reserved for only the most prominent sheikhs. They would be the lucky few accorded […]
HOMS — Five hundred and ten days have passed since the siege began in Homs, taking a toll on civilians and fighters alike. Homs, dubbed “the capital of the revolution” by activists for its early role in the revolt, has since been two-thirds destroyed by air raids and shelling. The mass protests that broke out in March 2011 were met with deadly military force, prompting the formation of local units of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Regime forces have worked since to quell the local rebellion; for the past year and a half, 14 neighborhoods have lived under a grinding […]
IDLIB – On my trip to northern Syria a week ago, I asked my hosts lots of questions. Will the Syrian regime be able to recapture the liberated areas inside Syria? Are you better off with the regime returning to your area, or with the rule of the others, including those run by civilians, the Free Syrian Army or the al-Qaida-backed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? After all, many changes had taken place since my last visit in early July. The elected president of Egypt, a patron of Syrian refugees in that country, was removed from power by […]