Nearly one in five people in Lebanon is a Syrian national who fled the war, the world’s highest per capita refugee population. Like on the borders of Europe, they are largely unwelcome.
Category: Syria Crisis
A volunteer who led a writing workshop for Syrian child refugees of the war did what he could to offer the aspiring writers some hope. His heart was touched in return.
ALEPPO — With Syria’s civil war now its fifth year and showing no sign of ending, virtually all sides have been recruiting and training children to kill. Situated in the opposition-controlled outskirts of Aleppo, the Abdul Razzaq Military Academy is one of the most organized programs for preparing youngsters for the battlefield. Established by Sergeant Abdul Razzaq, a Syrian army defector, the academy’s instructors train some 150 children from surrounding areas on the grounds of an abandoned school in the village of Ehtemlat for two hours a day. Other than saying that the academy is “the achievement of his lifetime,” […]
A Turkish journalist travels with an Alawite fixer to Damascus to understand what life is like in the Syrian capital as war in the country rages. Life goes on, but it’s not all grim.
Locals in the Syrian city of Idlib were happy when rebel forces overturned regime forces. But now the rebels are enforcing their own version of military rule.
TIKRIT — A line of vehicles has formed in front of the checkpoint at the southern entrance to Tikrit. The nine members of the Mouslah family, their personal goods and some food are stuffed into their overcrowded car. As policemen give instructions, the father, Nasser, fills out a form on the hood of the car […]
Among the families in war-ravaged Syria are many being held together by women alone, as their husbands have left to try to cross into Europe and prepare a life for their families. The wait is long, and often futile.
Governments around the world — democracies and dictatorships alike — often change school textbooks and courses to fit their own agendas. From US history to Syrian schoolchildren, here are some textbook controversies in the news recently: EGYPT: TEXTBOOK REVOLUTION Egyptian news site Mada Masr reports that the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and […]
QAMISHLI — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad“s smiling face beams down from a large billboard on the central artery of Qamishli, a city in northeast Syria. But further down the road towards the city’s eastern suburbs, what looks imposingly over the avenue is a portrait of a triumphant-looking Abdullah Ocalan, the anointed leader of Turkey’s Kurdish […]
Locals in the city of Palmyra speak out as ISIS threatens the treasured ancient ruins of their city, after destroying its notorious Assad regime prison that scarred so many.
MAJDAL AL-SHAMS — Anger is boiling over in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where local Syrian Druze on Monday attacked an ambulance and killed a wounded Syrian opposition fighter seeking medical treatment from the Israeli military. The fighter was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) in Quneitra and the Golan, according to that group’s Facebook page. The RCC is a coalition of different armed factions in Syria, many of which are hardline Islamist groups. The Druze, an offshoot sect of Shia Islam, are spread across the map of the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. In the […]
President Erdogan is raising the tone about a “buffer zone” needed along the Turkish-Syrian border to halt a supposed Kurdish push for independence.
As the conflict between Assad’s military and Syrian opposition forces escalates around the southern city of Daraa, religious minorities fear persecution from all sides.
A chronicle of one organization’s determination to point Syrian refugees toward a better future through innovative education.
-OpEd- Caliphate, Islamic State, ISIS, Sunnistan, Jihadistan … Whatever name we give it, an entity is emerging in the heart of the Middle East, a sprawling swath of territory located between Mosul and Baghdad (Iraq) in the east, and Aleppo and Damascus (Syria) in the west. Inside this zone, as borders are disappearing and populations […]
Kos is one of the Greek islands closest to the Turkish coast and receives hundreds of Syrian and Afghan refugees every day, a heavy burden for a country already ravaged by economic crisis.
DEIR EZ-ZOR — As soon as ISIS fighters fully seized Deir ez-Zor, they made a number of draconian changes, one of which was to close schools. After a lengthy period, during which teachers were required to attend training courses in Islamic education, the schools reopened. The city’s schools are no longer housed in public buildings. Residents instead have volunteered their houses as classrooms and supplies, such as desks and boards, have been moved there from the schools. The curriculum has been modified — many subjects were omitted, while others were added — and the number of schools is limited, as […]
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Why I Married An ISIS Fighter
An Eastern European woman who wanted to be the wife of an ISIS fighter in Raqqa speaks to Syria Deeply about her motivations and experience.
Kurdish commanders have broken earlier pledges to stop the forced recruitment of children, saying it is necessary to protect individual homes.
When Islamic terror groups arrived in their Syrian hometown of Al-Hasakah, Assyrian Christians were systematically victimized. The lucky managed to flee.
“We were exposed to hunger, electrocution, beating and insults. We got sick, we got lice and scabies, and were often strip searched, which was the worst part.”
Led by new Saudi King Salman, an alliance of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey is aiding rebels, including jihadists, in new victories against Syrian President Assad’s regime.
War has compromised the mental health of millions of Syrians. The problem is also transcending borders, following people as they seek safety abroad.
By satellite phone and email, people living in ISIS-controlled Raqqa, Syria, say fighters have stolen their houses, killed family members and even forced them to pay rent on properties they already own.
A growing number of Syrians have been trying to escape to Europe over the past year, some meeting their tragic ends after paying smugglers to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats.
Syria Deeply met with some young Syrians who have recently made it to Europe to seek asylum. With so much at stake, no two viewpoints are quite the same.
Kurdish fighters and the forces loyal to the Syrian regime have settled into a delicate coexistence against jihadists in this city marked by chaos and competing interests.
RAS BAALBEK — There’s a 140-kilometer strip of land on top of the mountains just north of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley that marks the border with Syria. It’s here that ISIS has dug in, appropriating a remote corner of Lebanon where the terror group has accumulated militants, resources and hostages to gear up for an impending […]
To gauge the ways the civil war has affected all of Syria, a look at seven cities on the fourth anniversary of the first uprising against the regime. A chronicle of death and life going on.
Recent beheadings highlight an ongoing exodus of Christians from territories targeted by ISIS. Some have taken refuge in Lebanon.
Despite death threats, three young Syrians are fighting the jihadists terrorizing their country with the only weapon they have: pure mockery.
Countless displaced by the war in Syria include those forced to move from one part of the country to another. Misery tends to follow.
Khaled walked into an ISIS recruiting office and volunteered to fight — for $30 a month. Now he’s a refugee in Turkey. Here’s how he got from there to here.
Syria’s tangled web grows even more intricate. Hezbollah is key to Assad’s strategy, moderate rebels avoid ISIS and al-Nusra at all cost, and Israel helps the Free Syrian Army.
Just a few months before the Paris terror attacks, and arguably late to the game, France launched a “disindoctrination” program for Islamist radicals that relies on social and religious approaches.
Despite lacking basic amenities, residents of a small Syrian village persist in their quest for education. But to keep the children warm in shelled-out buildings, they must bring wood to school.
ISIS imposes harsh morality codes on women and girls in Raqqa, Syria. Now females under 45 are not allowed to leave, and one mother of a teenaged daughter says she knows why.
SAFED — Two unarmed UN peacekeepers stand beside a rusty telescope observing the Syrian border from the Golan Heights on the Israeli side of the 1974 ceasefire line. The air is cold and wintery. Nearby, in the Coffee Anan store (anan, meaning cloud in Hebrew), an Israeli intelligence officer points down towards the bottom of […]
Damascus regime’s counter-insurrection chief has become a cult hero for his battlefield prowess. But Bashar al-Assad is unlikely to stand for long for worship of anyone else but himself.
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Syria, Making Love And War
As Syria’s civil war rages on, soldiers and supporters manage to finding coves of intimacy amidst the violence around them.