In the past two weeks, the U.S. and its allies have done just about everything short of getting down on their collective …
Bashar Assad
Syria’s Opposition Hopes to Win the War by Selling Oil
Given the many resolutions on Syria that have hit a brick wall at the U.N. Security Council, and the endless wrangling among Western leaders over how to end the calamitous two-year war, the April 22 decision by E.U. foreign …
Why Reports of Chemical Weapons Attacks in Syria May Never Be Confirmed
Updated April 13, 2013
One witness said he smelled chlorine. Another remembered the scent of rotting garbage. There were photos of dead farm animals in a yard, and video footage of survivors struggling to breathe. But of the …
Portrait of an Activist: Razan Ghazzawi, the Syrian Blogger Turned Exile
On July 18 Razan Ghazzawi, a Syrian blogger and media activist, was in the city of Douma, 45 minutes outside the capital, when she received a call: Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, dug in in the central Damascus neighborhood of …
The Destruction of a Nation: Syria’s War Revealed in Satellite Imagery
Two years ago, joining a crescendo of protest around the Arab world, Syrians launched a peaceful uprising against the autocratic rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad. That dissent—met by a brutal government crackdown—has …
Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion
The chief of the Syrian rebels’ new Military Command faces a tough task not simply coordinating a war against the Assad regime, but controlling the patchwork of militant groups and rebel outfits that make up his fighting force.
Portrait of a Lady: A Female Syrian Rebel Speaks to TIME
Em Joseph doesn’t really look like many of the women in this socially conservative stretch of Syria‘s Idlib province, and she certainly doesn’t act like them. Instead of the traditional hijab, or headscarf, worn by women in …
Assad’s Big Ally: How Deeply Entrenched Is Iran in Syria?
Though Syria will not be discussed when the West and Iran sit down for nuclear talks, it is likely to be part of the unresolved calculus of power in the region
Ground War: Syria’s Rebels Prepare to Take a Province from Assad
It was pomegranate season when the battle for Wadi Deif began in mid-October. Like so many rebel offensives, the fight for the Syrian military base, just east of the devastated city of Maaret Numan and one of the last major …
Democracy Comes to Syrians — in a Turkish Refugee Camp
The task of electing camp leaders is a novel experience for many displaced Syrians, who still remember the corrupt polling practices of the Assad regime
Dissent Among the Alawites: Syria’s Ruling Sect Does Not Speak with One Voice
Considered heretics by many mainstream Sunnis, the Alawites have long been perceived as a solid bloc of support for their co-religionists in the Assad dynasty. Not so now
The Alawite Towns That Support Syria’s Assad — in Turkey
Even as the regime’s Alawite support erodes, the President of Syria finds vocal support among his co-religionists in Turkey
The Making of a Syrian Rebel: The Saga of Abboud Barri
Abboud Barri’s callousness is more pronounced than most, but his story reflects the universal struggle to preserve humanity in the face of war
