Syria

Syria’s Empty Treasury Shifts Focus to Frozen Assets Abroad

A few days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Syrian pound made a dramatic recovery against the US dollar in local markets, trading between 13,000 and 15,000 pounds per dollar. This rebound followed months of sharp devaluation, with the exchange rate previously collapsing to nearly 60,000 pounds per dollar on the black ...

Russian Forces Begin Withdrawal From Bases in Syria

Russian forces in Syria are reportedly preparing to evacuate their bases, according to satellite images obtained Friday by AFP from Maxar Technologies, following the ousting of former president and Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad by Syrian rebels last week. Russia, which has been militarily involved in the Syrian conflict since 2015, maintains a ...

UN Envoy Warns Against Syria Collapse at Crisis Talks

A UN envoy on Saturday urged foreign powers to work to avoid a collapse of vital Syrian institutions following the downfall of Bashar al-Assad, as diplomats gathered in Jordan for a conference on the crisis. Geir Pedersen, the UN's special envoy for Syria, also backed a "credible and inclusive" political process to form the next government as he ...

SOHR Reports Israeli Strikes on Former Syrian Arab Army's Military Sites

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar al-Assad almost a week ago. "Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute" and other related military facilities in Barzeh, ...

Turkey Says Told Russia, Iran not to Intervene Militarily in Syria Rebel Push

Turkey said Friday it had urged Russia and Iran not to intervene militarily to support Bashar al-Assad's forces as Islamist-led rebels mounted their lightning advance on Damascus that ended with the Syrian strongman's ouster. "The most important thing was to talk to the Russians and Iranians to ensure that they didn't enter the equation ...

Syrian Rebels Took a Year to Plan Assad's Ouster

Syria's Islamist-led rebel alliance had been planning the surprise ouster of President Basher al-Assad for a year, an opposition military leader told the Guardian in an interview published Friday. The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group, which says it has moved away from its roots in Al-Qaeda, has long-controlled a part of northwest ...

Qatar Delegation to Visit Syria Sunday

A delegation from Qatar is due to visit Syria on Sunday for meetings with officials in its transitional government following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, a Qatari diplomat told AFP Friday. "The first Qatari delegation visit to Syria is expected to happen Sunday where they will take the necessary steps to reopen the embassy and ...

Lebanese Agriculture Lacks a Gateway

Lebanese farmers continue to endure substantial losses. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8, the movement of refrigerated and covered trucks between Lebanon and the Arab hinterland has become increasingly irregular. All Lebanese exports and imports sent overland to and from the Arab world are reliant on transit through ...

Unless the Syrian Regime Is Involved…

The fall of the tyrannical regime in Damascus has unleashed decades of repressed anger – anger we’ve been holding on to for fifty years, as we endured Syria’s constant interference in Lebanese politics, along with the vile assaults that accompanied it at all levels. The Assad regime, with its allies, worked tirelessly to thwart the ...

Syrian Prisons: Programmed Dehumanization

Tortured and broken in the prisons of the Syrian regime, detainees are stripped of their humanity. Devastating traumas and challenges in reintegration: psychoanalysis and the humanities shed light on the mechanisms of inevitable dehumanization and outline the difficult paths of reconstruction, at the crossroads of the personal and the ...

Blinken on ME Tour: Pledges to Work with Iraq Against IS Jihadists

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised Friday to work with Iraq to ensure no resurgence of the Islamic State group after Bashar al-Assad's overthrow in neighboring Syria. On a regional tour devoted to a suddenly-changed Syria, the top US diplomat flew to Baghdad from the Turkish capital Ankara and headed into talks with Iraqi Prime ...

Saydnaya: The Suffering of Families Who Still Have Hope

The human slaughterhouse at Saydnaya, the Assad clan's prison 30 kilometers from Damascus, is still torturing Syrians, despite the fall of the regime last Sunday. Hundreds of families have no news of their loved ones, in some cases for more than a decade. In spite of everything, some try to search for clues to obtain proof of life... or death.