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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.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring the government in Syria, including the Baath Party and the Assad family’s inner circle, and the various foreign and domestic forces fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad.
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On the heels of victory in Yabroud, we look at how the offensive in Latakia is stretching Assad’s resources. Despite diverting manpower from Idlib and Hama, the government is assured.
Lama Fakih / Foreign Policy
Human Rights Watch’s Lama Fakih says the world must stop Bashar al-Assad from indiscriminately barrel bombing civilians.
As the government’s aerial bombardment of Aleppo continues, Human Rights Watch has been studying satellite imagery to figure out where the bombs are falling. We talk to Syria researcher Lama Fakih, who says this round is “different” than the last.
After the Turkish Army shoots down a Syrian fighter jet that strayed across its border, Turks worry both that the incident represents an escalation in fighting between the two, and that Prime Minister Erdogan will increase his war rhetoric the week before local elections.
To give you an overview of the latest news this week, we’ve organized the latest Syrian developments in a curated summary.
Analysts say Thursday’s nationwide outage was the largest since May of last year, and one of a handful of major web outages since 2011. We look at who or what might have been responsible, and how Syria’s internet functions three years into the war.
Just back from Damascus, Hersh discusses covering the conflict from the government perspective – the “other side” – and whether Assad’s attempt to create a pocket of normalcy in Damascus is paying off.
The Syrian government is reportedly set to hold a presidential election before July of this year. How will that reshape the conflict, and what message will it send to the opposition and the international community? Our experts weigh in.
We take a look at the aftermath of government forces’ March 16 declaration of victory in Yabroud, the long-contested village in Qalamoun that functions as a rebel supply line and borders the M5 highway, Assad’s main artery from Damascus to Latakia.
To give you an overview of the latest news this week, we’ve organized the latest Syrian developments in a curated summary.
Nigel Timmins
Nigel Timmins, who heads Oxfam’s Syria crisis response team, reflects on his encounters with Syrians during the course of the war, and how he would cope if he was in the same situation as the refugees.
Mona, a college graduate in a rebel-controlled area of Assad’s homeland, is working to get displaced students back into a classroom. But she’s facing obstacles – namely how to get a makeshift school up to international standards.
Maryam Saleh
In The National, Syrian activist Maryam Saleh argues that the return of infectious disease fears - and the continual crumbling of Syria’s medical infrastructure – is squarely the fault of the Assad government, a view that is popular with the opposition.
When Um Ahmad talks about her sons, she shows a resigned remorse. “I don’t see them anymore,” she says about Ahmad, who chose to fight on the side of the government, and Mohammed, who became an opposition activist.
DAMASCUS – The Syrian flag isn’t just waving over the neighborhoods of Damascus: now it’s also painted on their storefronts. In the Syrian capital, shopkeepers say that government officials are compelling them to paint the Syrian flag on all shop doors in the city of Damascus.
On Feb. 26, Syrian state media and activists reported that a Hezbollah-led offense in Ghouta, eastern Damascus, had killed 175 rebel fighters.
ISTANBUL – In a deserted neighborhood on the outskirts of this city, 40 Syrian families have taken shelter in what once was a refuge for packs of stray dogs. .
This weekend saw a breakthrough in diplomacy and practical action around Syria’s crisis, in the form of a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution on humanitarian aid.
18 Leading Humanitarian and Human Rights Organisations
Humanitarian, Human Rights and Peace Groups welcome unanimous Security Council Resolution demanding unhindered humanitarian access across conflict lines and borders, urge swift implementation.
Human Rights Watch said that Bashar al-Assad’s forces have resumed their use of cluster bombs in Hama.
Last week, more than 700 civilians were evacuated from Homs, an outcome of concessions between opposition and government delegations made during peace talks in Geneva.
Charles Lister and William McCants
The PYD, a Syrian Kurdish militant group, has established its own autonomous government in the largely Kurdish province of Hassakeh. .
Rebel infighting in Deir Ezzor province has reignited, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) struggling to displace its extremist rival, Jabhat al-Nusra.
Aaron David Miller
There are many reasons that President Barack Obama doesn’t want to get involved in Syria.
Today, Syrian government forces stepped up their offensive on Yabroud, a village near the Lebanese border, as part of its ongoing campaign to secure the mountainous, strategically important Qalamoun region.
As peace talks resumed this week in Geneva, the government escalated aerial bombardment of Aleppo in a continued siege of rebel-held areas.
On Monday, activists said 40 people had been killed in a weekend attack on the Alawite village of Maan, in central Hama province.
News Deeply Contributor
Each and every day that the barrel-bombing of Aleppo continues, the Asad regime reminds the world of its true colors.
Since 2005, Guardian correspondent Martin Chulov has covered crises across the Arab world, but none, he says, are as “emotionally exhausting” as the Syrian civil war.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has released a report on the regime’s campaign in Aleppo and Homs cities in 2013 and the military situation on the ground in each situation going into 2014. .
Aaron Y. Zelin and Phillip Smyth
As the conflict in Syria continues to spread throughout the Levant and adopt a broader sectarian tone – Sunni Salafis on one side and Iranian-backed, ideologically influenced Shiite Islamists on the other – it is important to know how the main actors have cast one another.
ALEPPO – While negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition inch forward in Geneva, little has changed for civilians on the ground.
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.
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.
Mike Giglio
(The following post first appeared at Buzzfeed. This is an excerpt; you can read the full piece, by Middle East Correspondent Mike Giglio, here.).
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.
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.
The small town of Moadamiyeh, located west of Damascus, has been under siege for almost a year.
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