Nujeen Mustafa didn’t realize fleeing from Syria to Europe in a wheelchair would be considered extraordinary. Now in Germany, she has written a book about her journey.
Category: Syria Crisis
This Aleppo neighborhood divides government and rebel forces, and the only things the two sides exchange are hostages and dead bodies.
The failure of the Western allies to weigh on the situation in Syria is a humanitarian disaster. It’s also a sign for Putin that he can also have his way elsewhere.
The Syrian government’s recent tourism videos of beautiful scenery and nightlife look ludicrous to Westerners who know the brutal truth about Aleppo, but the West isn’t the intended audience for this publicity blitz.
His beloved hometown grows more dangerous every day, but he can’t kiss her goodbye.
The worst fear in the capital is a lasting truce between Russia and the United States, which they believe would halt the Assad regime’s offensive and delay the total victory.
JAKARTA — Teuku Akbar Maulana, 17, is from the westernmost Indonesian province of Aceh. He was a brilliant student and was offered a scholarship to study in Turkey. Akbar left for the Turkish city of Kayseri in 2013 to attend the International Imam Khatip High School but grew tired of it after a few months. “We were studying something that I had learned before so I wasn’t getting what I wanted,” he says. Bored, Akbar, who was 15 at the time, started to spend more time on social media, including Facebook. His feed was flooded with brutal videos of what […]
There is an economic explanation for why more Syrian refugee families in Jordan were able to make it to Mecca this year.
The humanitarian drama of the besieged city deepens. The people are simply not able to trust the alliance between Assad, Russia and Iran. And the West just looks on.
Spread between Syria and Iraq, the Saudi-financed tribal army engages the Islamic State head-on.
An estimated 4,500 Westerners have joined ISIS so far — leaving behind devastated parents who never saw the signs of radicalization. Here’s one story from Canada.
ISTANBUL — Since Turkey made conciliatory moves towards Russia and Israel last week, critics have pointed to the inconsistencies between what has been said before and what is being said now. But that is not the real issue here: The real issue is about the roots, the true nature and the costs of these changes […]
-Analysis- The “caliphate” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not last. His self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS), announced two years ago, is on the defensive. It will vanish as quickly as the morning mist on the Euphrates River. But what about jihadism, Islamist terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Syria — all factors that feed this Middle […]
Exclusive details on how three terrorists launched their bloody attack that killed more than 40 people — and how two police officers helped avert an even higher death toll.
As battlefield losses pile up for the Islamic State terror group, al-Qaeda eyes both the Sinai and Cairo for new attacks — and new recruits.
How a former fighter lost both his brothers: one to Bashar Al-Assad’s forces and the other to the Islamic State
TURIN — Refugees have come to Italy from all across war-torn Iraq and Syria, from the monasteries of Mosul to the Assyrian villages of the Khabur valley and the Christian churches of the Nineveh plains. Among the millions now languishing in refugee camps are people from all walks of life, including government bureaucrats, university professors, […]
Violence, poverty and displacement have affected millions of Syrian children. In the besieged Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, many are foregoing their education and turning to selling wares in the streets to help support their families.
Already swamped by refugees from across the Syrian border, Kilis is now also having to contend with constant rocket attacks.
SAO PAULO — João left Brazil to study abroad and expand his horizons thanks to the national program Science Without Borders. He intended to return home afterwards, but something unexpected changed the script: While he was studying in Europe, his dreams, his ambitions and his beliefs changed as Islamic militants tried to recruit him for […]
Following the plan by the EU and Turkey to turn back refugees, many are looking for alternative ways to reach Europe. A new path to the continent starts on the other side of the Atlantic — in South America — and continues through far-flung French terr
For psychiatrists at Munich’s Heckscher Clinic, underage migrants who have fled war and violence, often alone, represent a difficult new group of patients.
Ahmad Derwish, an ISIS soldier imprisoned in Syria, offers a rare glimpse into the realities on the ground for the jihadist organization.
Who is behind the smuggling of refugees from Turkey to the Greek islands? How are these potentially deadly trips planned and organized? Syria Deeply speaks with a human smuggler in Izmir, himself a Syrian refugee.
Many refugee families after World War II took generations to get on their feet. A new German study finds today’s influx of refugees face the same risk, and new ones too.
After gains by regime troops, with Russian air support, calm and nightlife have returned to the capital. And locals are back to betting on Assad’s survival.
Joachim Gerhard’s two sons joined the terror group ISIS, severed ties with home and may very well be dead. None of that will stop this German father’s quest to bring his boys home.
The dangerous sea and land crossings that Syrian refugees are making to Europe have been well-documented. Less well known are the equally perilous journeys people take to leave Syria itself.
Syria Deeply looks back at some of the history and evolution of the country’s revolutionary art over the past five years of war, including political graffiti, digital art and other mediums that have become part of the uprising’s language and culture.
PARIS — Our usual spot at Parc Sainte-Périne to plop our blanket and sports equipment for a few hours of recreational escape was already taken when we arrived on Saturday. A group of about 10 young men were sprawled out on the patch, enjoying the sunshine and talking among themselves — in Arabic, I noticed. […]
–Analysis – MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin’s decision to withdraw the lion’s share of Russia“s troops from Syria might have come as a surprise, but insiders in Moscow say the timing makes perfect sense. Many factors can explain why now. “Putin promised this operation would be limited in time and wouldn’t lead to an Afghanistan-like stalemate,” […]
Moscow is quietly working toward a federal future for war-torn Syria, with a central government but the nation divided into three different ethnic zones. It’s a nod to Kurdish ambitions and lessons from the Balkans.
The internationally brokered ceasefire had a rocky start. While the first 24 hours passed relatively quietly, Russian and Syrian government air strikes picked up again on Sunday, with airplanes targeting towns and villages controlled by the Free Syrian Ar
Many locals in Lebanon’s capital are firm Hezbollah and Assad loyalists, seeing the Islamist militia that supports the Syrian regime and fights ISIS on the ground as their ultimate protector against the civil war raging across the border.
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
The siege of Madaya began in July, but global pressure on the Syrian government to allow humanitarian access didn’t begin to build until nearly 30 people had died of starvation. Why did it take so long?
GENEVA — War is reshaping Syria, causing massive displacements of populations that, even more than the rising casualty numbers, have shifted the roles played by the country’s principal ethnic and religious communities. Some groups have emerged strengthened, others weakened, now and perhaps forever. These demographic gains and losses will carry more weight in the long […]
Turkey is supposed to guard our borders against more refugees and receive financial aid for its services. But refugees fleeing to Europe across the Mediterranean keep coming.
The Muslim majority Balkan nation, liberated from Serbia with the help of Western forces in 1999, is no longer immune to the worldwide nexus of radical Islamic forces.