Updated April 13, 2013
One witness said he smelled chlorine. Another remembered the scent of rotting garbage. There were …
Damascus
Must-Reads from Around the World
March is the deadliest month so far in Syria’s two-year conflict, Sudan orders the release of political prisoners, and Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party is planning to expand abroad
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 …
Must-Reads from Around the World
The U.N. will investigate whether Syria’s rebel forces used chemical weapons in a rocket attack, Brazilian lawmakers debate abortion reform, and Chad rebels threaten to restart rebellion against country’s government
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 …
France May Aid Syrian Rebels Unilaterally If EU Doesn’t Lift Arms Embargo
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said March 14 Paris may begin supplying arms to anti-Assad rebels if partners don’t respond to a Franco-British appeal to lift the embargo.
U.S. Steps Up Aid, but Syria’s Rebels Want Arms
It should come as no surprise that Syria’s rebels were underwhelmed by Thursday’s U.S. pledge of $60 million in direct aid: although the announcement by Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome marked Washington’s first direct …
As Bashar Assad Shows His Defiance, Syria Nears Its Existential Cliff
If the geological metaphor fashionable in Washington these days can be applied in Damascus, then Syria is moving perilously closer toward an existential cliff. President Bashar Assad on Sunday delivered a dramatic aria of …
Assad’s Roll of the Dice: Is Winter Coming for the Syrian Rebellion?
President Bashar Assad knows his regime can’t win Syria’s civil war — his foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, admitted as much in an interview published last week by a sympathetic newspaper. But nor does he believe he’s about …
Is Syria’s Civil War Entering Its Final Act, or Poised for a New Phase?
The stern warnings by President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials this week that Syria‘s President Bashar Assad would face “consequences” and be “held accountable” for any use of chemical weapons against his own people, has …
Syria’s Cease-Fire: A Peace Process for Pessimists
Few expect that the four-day truce in Syria’s civil war scheduled to take effect Friday will hold, much less serve as the prelude to a more sustained peace process.
The Damascus Double Bombing: Is the Syrian Capital Back in Play?
With Aleppo still being battled over, the rebels may just be signaling to Assad that he is well within their sights
Syria’s Secular and Islamist Rebels: Who Are the Saudis and the Qataris Arming?
Out of Istanbul, the two Gulf states play a game of conflicting favorites that is getting in the way creating a unified rebel force to topple the Assad regime
