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Welcome to the archives of Syria Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on May 15, 2018, and transitioned some of our coverage to Peacebuilding Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Syrian conflict. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.
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Saleem al-Omar is a freelance journalist who has written for Al Jazeera, Alquds Alarabi newspaper and Arabi 21.
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Syrian refugees in Turkey hoped the ruling AKP party would use their victory in last month’s constitutional referendum to grant citizenship and labor rights to more refugees. So far, they have been sorely disappointed, writes Saleem al-Omar for the Atlantic Council.
Syria’s coastal mountain region is challenging fighting terrain for the opposition groups in the area, made only more difficult by Russia’s intervention on behalf of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Although suffering setbacks elsewhere, rebel groups have launched an offensive in coastal Latakia in an attempt to regain Salma – a small village of huge strategic importance for targeting nearby government territories and linking supply routes to rebel-held areas.
Syrian women living in the government-controlled province of Latakia must decide between love and danger if they are to marry the men of their choosing – especially if those men live in opposition-held areas of Syria.
It may have been 16 years since the death of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, but his legacy still lives on in the war-torn country’s sectarian politics.
Jabal Turkman in northern Latakia has been a battlefield since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. But this past week, the last remaining villagers fled, leaving more than 20 villages abandoned. Turkmen villagers now worry the Assad government will attempt to repopulate the mountain with loyalists.
Pro-government forces, with Russian support, have retaken control of more than 35 villages in the northern Latakia countryside, pushing the opposition back to just a few miles from the Turkish border. If the gains continue, the government may be in position to move against rebel heartland in Idlib.
As frigid temperatures set in across northern Syria, displaced Turkmen worry about how they will manage to survive. Although Turkey has trucked in preemptive loads of blankets, heaters and tents, many of the 20,000 displaced Turkmen residents worry it won’t be enough.
Driven from their homes by fighting, often with children to care for and with no husband to provide protection, women bereaved by the civil war have severely limited choices in seeking security – especially when local tradition means that many Syrian men are opposed to marrying widows.
The lack of international support for any major armed coalition in western Syria has cleared the way for the Army of Conquest – an alliance of mainly Islamist and jihadist groups – to become the most powerful force in Syria in the future, argues Saleem al-Omar.
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