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.
Tag: syria
SWEDEN — Stockholm-based daily Aftonbladet has identified and mapped an extensive list of Swedish citizens who have traveled abroad to support the terror group ISIS. “The Swedes Who Wanted To Die For Terror,” reads the front page of Scandinavia’s most read daily. Aftonbladet said it chose to publish the list, complete with names and photos […]
The Turkmen minority of Syria have been forced from their homes after Moscow airstrikes. With ethnic links to Turkey, Ankara wants to help, though the border remains sealed shut.
COLLEAGUE KILLS 10 AFGHAN POLICE A rogue Afghan police officer drugged and shot dead 10 of his colleagues early today at a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s central province of Uruzgan, Al Jazeera reports. The man collaborated with Taliban insurgents, who joined him in shooting the officers. Weapons and ammunition were missing from the checkpoint after the […]
-Analysis- ISTANBUL — The Geneva process for the Syrian crisis was launched with a stated commitment from Russia and the United States to find a political solution. But it will go nowhere if it can’t overcome the clashing desires of the various fighting interests. Certain international actors penned a temporary road map in Vienna back […]
-Essay- NEW YORK — In searching for an image that could help to illustrate the dreadful, complex and totally out-of-control situation in Syria, I stumbled upon an article in the Marginal Revolution that compares the events in Syria to the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Since Yugoslavia and Syria were both multinational countries, and […]
While residents in Madaya may have no way out, other besieged areas under government control are finding creative ways to carry on. In Eastern Ghouta, a well-known rebel-held area in rural Damascus, residents can access a network of tunnels to escape or t
Local organizations have been working day and night over the past two months to prepare Syrians for the winter cold. Nearly a dozen people died there last January due to a fatal combination of inadequate shelter and freezing weather.
Northeastern Syria’s autonomous Kurdish leadership has informed schools in the area that they must teach core subjects in Kurdish. While proud to embrace their ethnic heritage, some worry that the change could create new conflicts.
Thousands of Syrian women face not just grief but also fear and poverty after losing their husbands to war. They often endure strict control from their remaining family and are forbidden to work. Some make the heartbreaking decision to remarry.
ISIS has banned the use of newly pressed 500 and 1,000 Syrian pound notes. Some fear its the start of a currency switch, though others say it’s a way for some to profit on money exchanges.
LONDON — What’s a politician most afraid of? British Premier Harold Macmillan’s famous answer to the journalist’s question is more relevant than ever: “Events, dear boy, events.” If you add the Paris death toll to the number of victims who died after ISIS bombed a Russian plane over the Sinai, that’s 353. And the previous […]
Monica Maggioni, head of Italy’s Rai news service, recounts her meeting this week with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad inside his private Damascus villa: “He looks nothing like the defeated leaders of this era.”
-OpEd- PARIS — A majority of historians describe the Spanish Civil War, fought from 1936 to 1939, as a dress rehearsal for what came next, World War II. Will historians of the future be saying the same about the Syrian civil war? All you need to do is replace Nazi Germany and the Italian fascists […]
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 […]
The strongest armed group in Douma, Syria, paraded caged detainees, including Syrian army officers and women and children, for several hours to try to deter future government attacks. Syria Deeply spoke with residents to get their reactions.
Where the Russian leader lacks any real strategy, his American counterpart is short on nerve. They’re playing two different games and following very different rules.
BEIRUT — An Italian diplomat once said that “the darkest corners of a crisis can be the most illuminating in understanding geopolitical dynamics.” This is where Lebanon finds itself: One of the few Middle Eastern countries that is not at war, yet one suffering in the trenches nonetheless. These days Lebanon is far from the […]
ALEPPO — Like many boys his age, Muhammad loves to draw. Already known for his artistic talents in his hometown of Aleppo, the largest and probably hardest-hit city in Syria, the 14-year-old boy now has something to show the world. When the armed conflict intensified in Aleppo in 2012, Muhammad, then a sixth-grader, was forced to quit school. After the Syrian government began to bomb his neighborhood in the city’s Salah al-Din district, Muhammad and his family moved into the cramped student dorms of Aleppo University. Seven months later they were able to return home, but unfortunately for children like […]
The terror group has made its Syrian headquarters in the northern city of Raqqa, where those doing business with it report mounting ISIS financial difficulties and flagging morale.
Hundreds of Syrian university degrees are reportedly being forged every day, putting the reputation of Syrian academics at serious risk. But counterfeiters say their only concern is helping their countrymen find a “safe way out.”
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
An exclusive look at the evolution of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade through the words of members and locals in the Yarmouk Valley in southwestern Deraa.
China’s state-run People’s Daily has accused the United States and Russia of using the conflict in Syria as a proxy for reigniting a Cold War. In a commentary signed “Zhong Sheng” (“Voice of China”), the daily called for a peaceful diplomatic settlement to the crisis. “The United States and the Soviet Union employed a variety […]
BEIRUT — American antitank missiles supplied to Syrian rebels are playing an unexpectedly prominent role in shaping the Syrian battlefield, giving the conflict the semblance of a proxy war between the United States and Russia, despite President Barack Obama’s express desire to avoid one. The U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW missiles were delivered under a two-year-old covert program coordinated between the United States and its allies to help vetted Free Syrian Army groups in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad. Now that Russia has entered the war in support of Assad, they are taking on a greater significance than was originally intended. […]
Moscow’s decision to enter the Syrian conflict with bombing raids may bring smiles to the Assad regime. On the ground, ordinary Syrians are paying the price.
Russia’s decision to send troops into Syria in defense of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, is now at the center of a major diplomatic standoff between Moscow and the West. But the move by Russian President Vladimir Putin to send military support to combat ISIS insurgents is also a sign of concerns at the military […]
-OpEd- PARIS — It’s a thorny issue that has experts divided. For some, a ground war is a trap and should not even be considered; only well-targeted, reinforced airstrikes will do the job. For others, it’s impossible to slay ISIS without hunting down its jihadists one by one, from street to street, hideout after hideout, […]
The bloody Syrian stalemate unites Russia and the West, in a shared urgency to defeat ISIS. But the Syrian dictator, also an ISIS foe, should not be seen as a lesser evil.
The staple crop is so strategic that it has been targeted from all sides in the Syrian Civil War.
SIDI ALI BEN AOUN — Ali Chadli opens his eyes wide, incredulous even now. No, he had no idea his sons were planning to leave for Syria, where they eventually died. “They were praying as usual,” he says. “I hadn’t noticed anything particular.” The aging man invites us to take a seat next to the […]
BODRUM — When the photograph of Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body spread around the world, the plight of Syrian refugees suddenly came into focus like never before. Yet Kurdi was just one of many who have died making the perilous journey to Europe, where they hope to attain asylum as the ongoing Syria civil war in their homeland continues to claim countless civilian lives. Turkey, which currently hosts some 1.8 million exiled Syrians, has increasingly become a departure point for a perilous sea journey toward Greece in flimsy rafts and ill-equipped boats to get inside European territory. Sayeed, a construction worker […]
A new virtual reality video of a war-ravaged Syrian city offers an unprecedented 360° interactive view of the destruction left by the country’s ongoing civil war. French daily Le Parisien reports that the video was filmed in the northwestern city of Jisr ash-Shughur with a six-camera system that allows the viewer to look in all […]
From local politics to the the battle against polio to a banned prostitution film, here’s a quick tour of what has been happening in Morocco in recent days.
The U.S. is actively trying to block new Russian military aid to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Moscow sees its best alternative is to team up with Tehran.
A French philosopher dissects the mix of reactions across society, and within our own individual psyches, when human misery arrives at our door.
-Essay- PARIS — There are times when it is necessary to compare things that are not comparable. There’s a chance at least that it will wake up some anesthetized minds. Between 1933 and 1940, several million refugees who had escaped from Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries and elsewhere, fleeing Nazism, were met with closed borders. […]
As radical Muslims from the West head to Syria to fight for Islamist forces, other foreigners are joining the Kurdish forces against them. But how useful are these volunteers?
New waves of migrants, including Syrian war refugees, seek to reach the gates of Europe at the Hungarian border.
CHINA STOCKS RESUME SLIDE AMID CRACKDOWN Chinese equities fell again today despite ending higher on Friday, following a devastating week for the country’s stock markets. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.8%, and although the Shenzhen CSI 300 ended up 0.7%, both fell by as much as 4% at one point, Reuters reports. This came […]