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On the opening day of peace talks in Switzerland, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry came out stronger than predicted against the Syrian government, calling for regime change. .
Earlier this month, rebel fighting groups led by the Islamic Front (IF) battled the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Raqqa, the first Syrian city to come under extremist control. The clash quickly spread to neighboring Aleppo and Idlib province.
Today, polling veteran Craig Charney launched a new report, Syrian Perspectives on Transitional Justice, looking at the views of Syrian civilians still living in the country. .
Mohammad, a jihadi rebel from northern Syria, is describing his wedding night. His family had insisted on a non-religious ceremony. At the reception, just as his relatives began to dance and celebrate, he went home.
As the second round of Geneva peace talks enter their first full week, the Syrian government agreed to let women and children leave the besieged old city of Homs, one of the country’s hardest-hit areas. .
After the long road to Geneva II came a small win: an agreement to deliver food, and release women and children from the besieged areas of Homs.
Rami Jarrah is one of Syria’s original media activists and organizers. In 2011, he spent time in Syrian government detention before fleeing to Cairo and then to the U.K., where he has continued to be one of the conflict’s most vocal activists.
In November, Buzzfeed correspondent Mike Giglio traveled to Syria’s Kurdish areas, reporting on what life was like for residents and Kurdish fighters as extremists moved into the area.
The Syrian government began to barrel bomb the southern province of Deraa last month, which had previously been overshadowed by attention on Aleppo and rebel infighting in Raqqa. .
Last week, Syrian women’s rights activists concluded a two-day conference in Geneva by demanding equal involvement in the war-torn country’s male-dominated peace-building process.
DAMASCUS – Last December, Alaa was laid down on an interrogator’s bed, her hands tied and her legs spread apart.
When Syrian peace talks known as “Geneva II” begin in Switzerland on Wednesday, they’ll revive a process that’s been on hold since June 2012.
This week’s U.N. donor conference in Kuwait aimed to raise $6.5 billion for Syrian humanitarian aid. So far only $2.4 billion has been pledged, with the U.S. making a $380 million promise.
On Jan. 22, representatives of global powers, the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition will gather in Switzerland for a second round of peace talks, known as Geneva II.
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.
Anesthesiologist Dr. Ben Gupta spent nearly three months on the Jordan-Syria border, working to treat patients from Daraa who made the journey to his field hospital, many with blast injuries and requiring multiple surgeries.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaida affiliate that’s dominating the fight in Syria, has imposed its own conservative rule of law in Raqqa and other eastern areas.
Yesterday, the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) released its latest report, “Syria’s Socially Mediated Civil War.”.
BASRA AL-SHAM, DARAA — Maan, a Syrian musician, was turned back at the Jordanian border in April 2011 after an arduous journey from his hometown of Basra al-Sham.
Rebels groups that have banded together against Al Qaida, led by the Syrian Islamic Front, made “sweeping advances” this week.
As the most intense rebel infighting since the start of the conflict raged between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic Front this week in Raqqa and Aleppo, fighters from all three groups continued to collaborate in their offensive against the PYD, a Kurdish militia group, near Qamishli.
ALEPPO — Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, activists have taken to Facebook to vote on a nickname for each weekly protest. Themes typically poked fun at the Assad regime, but now, the activists have a new enemy.
Liz Sly is the Washington Post’s Beirut bureau chief, and one of dozens of reporters whose work covering the country has been impacted by security issues that have made travel for Western journalists extremely dangerous.
The city of Amuda, in northeastern Syria, has become famous as the provenance of one of the Syrian conflict’s deadliest smuggling accidents: in September, 43 of its residents drowned while trying to reach the coast of Europe.
The violence unfolding in Iraq’s Anbar province has been called the eastern front of the Syrian crisis.
This week, the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) was largely kicked out of Raqqa, the first city to fall under its control, by fighters from the Islamic Front, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army.
With record snowfalls and rising fuel costs, Syrians in rebel-held areas are turning to dangerous, cheaper options like locally processed gas as a way to heat their homes and stores.
In the past three weeks the Assad government has escalated its aerial assault on Aleppo, dropping “barrel bombs” that have killed more than 500 people.
On Thursday a car bomb rocked Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs and a stronghold of Hezbollah.
This week the conflict in Syria lit up the map of the Middle East, sparking sectarian violence in neighboring Lebanon and Iraq.
The small town of Moadamiyeh, located west of Damascus, has been under siege for almost a year.
BEIRUT — When he was a fighter with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), waging war against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the northern economic hub of Aleppo, Abu Muhannad’s confidence verged on presumptuousness.
DAMASCUS — The child was very happy with where he lived and with the republic to which he belonged.
REYHANLI — The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), al-Qaida’s Syrian arm, has released a Free Syrian Army officer from detention, reportedly the first FSA prisoner to be set free by the extremist group.
DUBAI – In 2010, Jaber al-Azmeh was just another commercial photographer in Damascus, working mostly with local ad agencies. Now the 40-year-old is one of the best known of a group of Syrian artists working to chronicle their country’s conflict.
Syrian government air raids continued to pound Aleppo over the past week, killing more than 500 people, according to human rights groups.
DAMASCUS COUNTRYSIDE — “Why doesn’t Santa Claus come to our neighborhood and give us presents?” asks Sarah, a nine-year-old resident of Jdaidet Artouz in rural Damascus.
GAZIANTEP — The divisions between the Syrian regime and rebel factions are not only reflected on the battlefield, but also in the classroom, with school curricula ranging from Baathist textbooks to Quran classes.
DAMASCUS — The tobacco seller at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp here is used to the daily pranks of 10-year-old resident Nidal.
There’s continued concern over Islamist influence in Syria – powerful groups that have proven uninterested in dealing with the West.
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