[A joint piece with Beirut’s Deputy Bureau Chief Layal Abou Rahal, published here on October 1, 2018]
With a deadline for establishing a demilitarised zone around Syria’s Idlib inching closer, confusion and apprehension is rife among Turkish-backed rebels who fear it will cost them their last stronghold.
[Published here on September 23, 2018]
Beirut (AFP) – Pointing to a green screen as if presenting a weather forecast, Bilal Abdul Kareem analyses the Turkish-Russian deal over Syria’s Idlib, broadcasting in his native English from inside the war-torn country’s last rebel stronghold.
[Published here on September 10, 2018]
Hailing from far and wide, they flocked to Syria to wage “holy war”. Now foreign jihadists face a fight to the last to hold onto Idlib, their final bastion.
[Published here August 7, 2018]
The Islamic State group is looking to recapture lost power by reverting to the grisly tactics that first propelled it to global notoriety, analysts say, including executions and kidnapping minorities.
[Published here on July 24, 2018]
“That’s it? You’re sure he’s dead?” Seven years had passed with no news, but Salwa could hardly believe her nephew, a Syrian activist arrested in 2011, had been dead the last five.
[Published here on July 6, 2018]
From second city Aleppo all the way down to the border with Jordan, Syria’s longest highway cuts through fertile fields of green, buzzing industrial zones and four major cities.
[Published here June 20, 2018]
Beirut (AFP) – The external hard drive had been smuggled from Syrian regime territory through jihadist-held towns and into Turkey. When Ghazwan Koronful finally got his hands on it, he sighed in relief.
[Published here May 25, 2018]
Seven years of war and massive displacement have redrawn Syria’s demographic map, erecting borders between the country’s ethnic, religious, and political communities that will be hard to erase.
[Published here on May 23, 2018]
Beirut (AFP) – Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday called on Syria’s government to reverse its seven-year ban on the medical charity, issuing an urgent appeal for access to wounded people in regime-held territory.
[Published here May 4, 2018]
Beirut (AFP) – Rights groups and specialists are sounding the alarm over a new Syrian law on urban development, saying millions of displaced risk never returning home after losing claim to land left behind.
MAYA GEBEILY 