The regions currently administered by the Kurds in Syria include the Kurdish-majority Qamishli and al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Arab-majority towns of Manbij to the west of the Euphrates River in northern Syria and Kobani to the east of the Euphrates River along the Turkish border. The oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate in eastern Syria has been[Read More…]

The Syrian army said it entered Manbij on Friday for the first time in years, after the Syrian Kurds urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of impending Turkish military offensive, though Turkish President Erdogan has termed the handover a “psyops” by the Kurds. If Turkey mounts an offensive in Manbij, it would be the third invasion by[Read More…]

Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Yes, there is rubble, in fact total destruction, in some of the neighborhoods of Homs, Aleppo, in the outskirts of Damascus, and elsewhere. Yes, there are terrorists and ‘foreign forces’ in Idlib and in several smaller pockets in some parts of the country. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and millions are[Read More…]

Elijah Magnier, one of the world’s most respected reporters in and about the Middle East, reported on Sunday, July 15th, that Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, has rejected a proposed offer from the U.S. Trump Administration. The offer was that U.S. forces will leave some of its key military bases in its military occupation of Syria, if all of Iran’s forces,[Read More…]

Recently, General Joseph Votel, the head of US Central Command, accused Kremlin of playing as both arsonist and firefighter in Syria. This projection is farthest from truth because in fact it’s Washington which kindled the fires of militancy in Syria and now it appears desperate to douse those fires. First, Washington nurtured militants against the Syrian government for the first[Read More…]

Are the Arab-Muslim leaders waiting for the unknown and unthinkable catastrophic end to their own life and time in history?  To inhabit the world of new political imagination beyond the obvious horizon, these leaders could encompass the same ending as happened to the Romans.  Would the estranged Arab leaders ever know and understand the cruelty of civilian bombardment, pains, destruction[Read More…]

Hama, Syria: Rather than the conventional wisdom of a “wrapping up,” of Syria’s seven years of civil war, this observer calculates that the conflict is on a trajectory to expand during 2018. Granted, over the past six monthsthere have been perhaps more than a dozen inflated declarations of “Victory.”  including 2 or 3 of the “Devine Victory” variety from three[Read More…]

 Idlib, Syria: George W. Bush’s  “Mission Accomplished!” boast takes its name from a banner that was displayed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during his May 1, 2003 televised address. It referred to his claimed victory in Iraq fourteen years ago. In a less publicized incident, US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld also declared an end to combat operations referring to “Mission Accomplished” in Afghanistan on May 1, 2003,[Read More…]

  Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his Iranian and Turkish counterparts have supported a proposal to hold a “Syrian people’s congress” that will bring together government and opposition figures. The Russian President on Wednesday (Nov 22) hosted Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just as some Syrian opposition groups met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, before United Nations-sponsored talks in Geneva.[Read More…]

  As many as a million children have been orphaned by the war in Syria which is in its sixth year, Aljazeera reported Sunday (Nov 19). The UN has warned against the dangers facing children without parents such as lack of education, trafficking and being indoctrinated by armed groups. Many children are living in orphanages being run by local charities[Read More…]

Israel, which has played a precarious role in the Syrian war since 2011, is furious to learn that the future of the conflict is not to its liking. The six-year-old Syria war is moving to a new stage, perhaps its final. The Syrian regime is consolidating its control over most of the populated centers, while ISIS is losing ground fast[Read More…]

To become enmeshed in a war of incalculable variables; to be at bloody bruised loggerheads – this is the Syrian nightmare, where there are more punters than odds. Savagely, Syria as a state is being ravaged and mauled to the point of non-recognition. It is now a mere terrain for heavily armed bullies, a smoky crusted ruin of dust and[Read More…]

In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target[Read More…]

In order to simplify the Syrian theater of proxy wars, it can be divided into three separate and distinct zones: that are, the Syrian government-controlled areas, the regions administered by the Syrian Kurds and the areas that have been occupied by the Syrian opposition. Excluding Idlib Governorate which has been occupied by the Syrian opposition, all the major population centers[Read More…]

  There’s a phrase that keeps popping up in discussions of Syria. It’s a string of words that always appear together, without variation, which is a tell for propaganda phrases and talking points. In the context of Libya, there was a line about “African Mercenaries”. The one I keep hearing about Syria is that Assad has “Afghan Shia militias” fighting[Read More…]

Ms. Yayoi Segiis based in Beirut, Lebanon, and she has worked in Syria for almost 3 years. She is extremely passionate about the country, which she admires and tries to support in her position as an accomplished specialist in national education development. She agreed to share her collection of personal photos from Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.

   The editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s prestigious al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, has revealed in his recent editorial [1] that Tulsi Gabbard, the United States Representative for Hawaii whose trip to Syria in January and meeting with Bashar al-Assad was widely reported in media, had conveyed President Trump’s offer of cooperation to Assad during the meeting. The editorial in Arabic is full[Read More…]

When journalist Rania Khalek’s lecture was cancelled on February 27, the group that invited her, Students for Justice in Palestine – University of North Carolina (SJP-UNC) issued a statement saying that the cancellation was because of Rania’s “views” on Syria, and that they believed “her invitation would mistakenly imply SJP to hold such views”. They also added that they “do[Read More…]

In the wake of Arab Spring uprisings in March 2011, protests began in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad. In the following months, violence between demonstrators and security forces led to a gradual militarization of conflict. Moreover, the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq was completed in December 2011. Thus, during the initial few months of the Syrian[Read More…]

If we were to draw parallels between the Soviet-Afghan jihad of the ‘80s and the Syrian civil war of today, the Western powers used the training camps located in the Af-Pak border regions to train and arm the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Similarly, the training camps located in the[Read More…]

  Syria’s peace-talks are about settling a horrific six-year-long war, but this is more of an international war that’s being waged on the battlefields of Syria, than it is a civil war within Syria itself. This fact is often ignored by the press, but the peace-talks are really more between the foreign powers than between their proxies who are killing[Read More…]

The Story of One Child’s Struggle to Survive: On 2/17/2017 ten year old Ghina Wadi, who has spent the past seven months often in unbearable pain, which for the first month was periodically relieved for only approximately 15 minutes at a time- by heavy injections of morphine, had another of what hopefully this time will be a leg saving operation.[Read More…]

Last month, the Islamic State recaptured Palmyra from where it was evicted by the Syrian army only in March; and this week, the Islamic State has launched a fierce assault in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, near Syria’s border with Iraq, and has successfully managed to surround the military airport, thus cutting off food supplies to the besieged city.[Read More…]

Outside of Madaya, Syria: It was this past July that ten year old Ghina and six year old Nagham, old sisters of four year old Manal and three year old Mohammad-Kamal, left their apartment near the main street in Madaya, Syria to collect some medicine from the nearby town’s clinic for their mother Sahar. As they left the clinic and[Read More…]

Yesterday, top Russian, Turkish, and Iranian officials met in Moscow and signed a declaration they billed as ending the US-instigated war in Syria. Coming after Russian-backed Syrian army units captured the key city of Aleppo from US-backed Islamist fighters, the deal shows that moves to improve ties between the three countries are continuing despite Monday’s assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov.

   Long before the conflict began, many Syrians complained about high unemployment, widespread corruption, a lack of political freedom, and a state repression under President Bashar al-Assad. Pro-democracy protests erupted in march 2011. Many teenagers painted revolutionary slogans on school walls with which we are quite familiar in Kashmir. What happened next was heartrending, the killing of these peaceful demonstrators.[Read More…]

  First, the context in which the issue of war against Russia is being raised: Syria’s government is allied with Russia’s government, and ‘The West’ is trying to overthrow Syria’s government and is bringing into Syria, and arming, tens of thousands of jihadists there, as the footsoldiers to do it. Syria and Russia are bombing the people that we are[Read More…]

“The United States has the power to decree the death of nations,” wrote Stephen Kinzer in the Boston Globe.  Kinzer’s article was entitled: “The media are misleading the public on Syria.” In his piece, the scholar at a Brown University Institute contested that his country’s media misinformation on Syria is leading to the kind of ignorance which is enabling the[Read More…]

Al-Moaddamiyeh, Damascus Countryside: September 8, 2016 was a long hot tense day at the border-crossing at al-Moaddamiyeh, at town roughly ten kilometers southwest of Damascus. Approximately 135 Syrian soldiers and 35 volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARCS) evacuated more than 300,  mainly civilians, who have spent the past more than four years trapped, two years in Daraya and[Read More…]

  On Friday, September 9th, America’s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first ‘cease-fire’, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired by America’s allies Saudi Arabia and[Read More…]

As the world is now well aware, Syria has been consumed by violence for years now. What people are less aware of, however, is why it has been raging for so long. According to the western narrative, the Syrian conflict — the deadliest conflict of the 21st century — started with Assad’s forces violently clamping down on peaceful oppositions and[Read More…]

Qalamoun Mountains, Syria: Reports continue nearly daily of yet more damage to our archeological treasures Syria. A few examples include the recent ISIS destruction at Tal Ajaja, one of Syria’s most important 2nd century AD Assyrianperiod. “More than 40 percent of Tal Ajaja was destroyed or has been ravaged by IS recently”has revealed Khaled Ahmo, the Director of Antiquities in Hasakeh.[Read More…]

Five Russian servicemen were killed Monday when US-backed Islamist opposition militias shot down a helicopter in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province. The downing of the helicopter took place as fighting raged in Aleppo between US-backed opposition militias and Russian and Syrian government forces. The helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb, halfway between Aleppo and Khmeimim air base, where many Russian aircraft[Read More…]

Jablah, North Syria: “Don’t cry for us Syria” has recently become a motto/logo of sorts for many physically and psychologically brutalized youth around this ancient land. They are the youngsters who represent a new generation of Syrians, many of whom were born in this century. It is into their patriotic hands that the Syria’s Torch has been passed. Amid all[Read More…]

Here is a brief update on the activities of the US Peace Council delegation in Syria. I could spend many words and hours debunking every lie you have been told about Syria and Syrians in the last 5 years, a Sisyphean task in today’s environment. Instead I will share some of my perceptions of recent events based on my experiences[Read More…]