Worldcrunch
The various forms of death Syrians have endured in recent years have not led traditional segments of society to reconsider the idea of “cleansing dishonor.” Instead, technology has been used to reinforce it — with perpetrators recording these acts on mobile phones, proudly broadcasting their violence for all to see. While some viewers watch in sorrow, others look on with disturbing pride or morbid curiosity.
Journalists Daham Al-Assad and Guillaume Perrier visited French jihadist Omar Diaby, also known as “Omsen,” in Harem, Syria, where he resides with a small community of foreign-born jihadists (muhajireen), and condemns the action of Syria’s current leader who broke with his radical roots.
With the downfall of the Assad regime, Algeria lost a strong ally in the Arab region. Algiers is now seeking to establish relations with the new leadership in Damascus, hoping to maintain its old alliance despite the change of regime.
Al-Sharaa has surprised many with his openness to dialogue after a past linked to al-Qaeda. He represents a complex model that embodies the transformation of Syria since the beginning of the revolution in 2011.
As the Assad regime was crumbling, the sight of the prisoners being freed had its own impact on so many people, including exiled Syrian writer Ruqayyah Al-Abbadi, who knew them from the inside.
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.
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.
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 missile attacks this week on Ukrainian cities will not scare Kyiv into submission. It’s the latest and gravest sign that Vladimir Putin may be bound to face an even grimmer tactical choice: the nuclear option.
For millennia, Aleppo was a city of riches, a significant stop on the Silk Road. Sadly, many parts of the Ancient City — including its famous souks — have now been destroyed in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
If you wanted to take a break from wandering the streets of Aleppo, in a then peaceful Syria, you could buy tea from this colorful vendor about to set up shop.
Ammar Abd Rabbo covered two Assad presidencies from the inside, but his view changed when the Syrian civil war started.
Some 31,000 Syrians have returned to their war-torn country from abroad this year and many are struggling to survive in a country they call home.
Abu al Fadl devoted the final months of his life to clearing al-Bab of improvised explosives left behind by ISIS in everything from washing machines to cooking pots. The 60-year-old disabled several thousand mines before one took his life.
A Syrian family granted asylum in Argentina has opted to go back home in spite of its calamitous state of their hometown of Aleppo. But things seemed even worse in Cordoba.
Before it became the Syrian rebellion stronghold, Aleppo was the heart of ancient civilizations.
GAZIANTEP — “The nightmares only started when I left Aleppo,” says 30-year-old Mahmoud, a Syrian activist and journalist now living as a refugee in Turkey. “Before — even after my best friend was killed next to me when we were filming a battle against the regime — I felt sad but I never had nightmares,” he said, speaking in late September in a southern Turkish border town. Mahmoud lost a finger that day in 2013, and his friend’s skull was shattered. Over years of reporting in Syria, Mahmoud faced much danger and personal loss. But it wasn’t until six months […]
The numbers are impressive, terrifying, bone-chilling. At least 20,000 people have fled their homes in Aleppo this week alone, according to the International Red Cross, as the Syrian army and its allies make significant, and perhaps crucial, gains in the eastern part of the city, controlled mostly by jihadist fighters. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for […]
-OpEd- NEW YORK — I’m almost certain I saw Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Strand bookstore in Manhattan today. I wanted to walk over and call him a war criminal and a monster, and tell everyone around us that he was the man butchering unarmed civilians in Aleppo. But after half an hour of stalking him through the fiction and film stacks, I still couldn’t determine if it was really him. I pulled up a Wikipedia page with his photo as a reference. I read that during his university days Lavrov was active in drama. This was quite […]
His beloved hometown grows more dangerous every day, but he can’t kiss her goodbye.
This summer, I was arrested in Turkey. It was the wrong time, and I was in the wrong place — visiting the predominantly Kurdish eastern regions of the country. For the first four days I was held in a cell in a police station, before being transferred to a deportation center. I had come as an activist, trying to document the Turkish military’s actions on the eastern part of the country, where a veritable war has been waged on the Kurdish population. My own story of the events leading to the detainment is, however, for another day. Now, I want […]
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.
SPOTLIGHT: AUSTRALIA’S REFUGEE PROBLEM While Europe’s migrant crisis has made headlines over the past year, another continent’s treatment of refugees has received far less scrutiny — until now. In a joint report published yesterday, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch took the Australian government to task over what they describe as the “appalling abuse” and […]
For Syrians able to escape the horrors of war, Europe is the preferred destination. But some have ventured farther afield. One 22-year-old refugee landed on Jeju island, a popular honeymoon spot off the coast of South Korea.
SPOTLIGHT: MIGRANT RISKS Whether fleeing war or poverty, migrants from Africa and the Middle East continue to risk their lives to reach Europe for what’s been advertised as just one dangerous leap away from a much better life. The latest grim report comes this morning from Morocco where one migrant died attempting to reach the […]
TWO SURVIVORS FOUND AMID TAIWAN RUBBLE Photo: Zhang Guojun/Xinhua Taiwan rescuers have found two survivors in the rubble after Saturday’s magnitude 6.7 quake in which at least 37 people were killed, Xinhua reports. The two rescued victims were both found today, the beginning of the Chinese New Year. One of them, a woman, was found […]
JAPAN THREATENS NORTH KOREA TO SHOOT DOWN ROCKET Japan deployed destroyers in the Sea of Japan and missile batteries on land today, warning it would shoot down a satellite set to be launched soon by North Korea, The Japan Times reports. Pyongyang told United Nations agencies yesterday it would launch an “earth observation satellite” some […]
SYRIAN ARMY TAKES BACK KEY AIR BASE FROM ISIS The Syrian army has regained control of the Kwairis military airbase, near the northern city of Aleppo, ending a siege that started in April 2013 and was reinforced by ISIS in the spring of 2014, the Syrian Arab News Agency reports. According to experts quoted by […]
As students return to school this month in the rebel-held areas of Aleppo, they won’t be heading back to the same classrooms they left last year. Instead, they’ll be studying in basements and other “secure areas” across the devas
BRUSSELS — Moved by the dramatic situation of the Christian population in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, a group of Belgian activists, with support from the government, orchestrated a remarkable rescue operation to save nearly 250 Syrian Christians. In Aleppo, the Christians were under continuous assault by ISIS, the al-Qaeda-aligned al-Nusra front and the Assad regime. […]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
We stop for a moment by the side of the road, 40 kilometers from Aleppo, and enjoy a chat with local Bedouins — intrigued by our French car, with which we drove… from France!
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 […]
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 […]