ALEPPO THE ENCHANTED CITY Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it has been inhabited since perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC.[10] Excavations at Tell as-Sawda and Tell al-Ansari, just south of… Read More ›
Syria
Predictions for Syria in 2015 by Joshua Landis
Here is a year end wrap up and predictions for 2015 for Syria and no solution in sight. It is very sobering article from a US Syrian expert. Oil is more important than bombs in that area, and the rich… Read More ›
Syria death toll now exceeds 200,000
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 200,000 people in less than four years, a monitoring group told AFP on Tuesday, adding that most were fighters from the two sides. “We have documented the killing of 202,354 people since March… Read More ›
Syrian rebels prepare to defend ruined Aleppo as troops and militias close in
By Martin Chulov in Aleppo in The Guardian The last road into rebel-held east Aleppo carves though a mile-wide paddock between an abandoned village and a looming ridgeline. Behind each of them Syrian troops advance slowly, hidden from view. Trucks,… Read More ›
The Case Against Qatar
By Elizabeth Dickinson in Foreign Policy ABU DHABI and DOHA — Behind a glittering mall near Doha’s city center sits the quiet restaurant where Hossam used to run his Syrian rebel brigade. At the battalion’s peak in 2012 and 2013,… Read More ›
The Syrian Front: Waiting to Die in Aleppo
By Christoph Reuter in Der Spiegel Driving through the outer districts of the city, a ghostly wasteland begins. The streets and the half-destroyed residential buildings are empty and the only sounds come from shredded metal signs moving in the wind… Read More ›
An Army to Defeat Assad
How to Turn Syria’s Opposition Into a Real Fighting Force By Kenneth M. Pollack in Foreign Affairs Syria is a hard one. The arguments against the United States’ taking a more active role in ending the vicious three-year-old conflict there… Read More ›
The choices in Syria are narrowed
By Karen Leigh This weekend the Syrian government reportedly bombed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets in Raqqa, the group’s eastern stronghold and the base of operations for its summer offensives on Mosul and Iraqi Kurdistan. But ISIS… Read More ›
The Paper Tiger of the Tigris: How ISIS Took Tikrit Without a Fight
An Exclusive Report by Andrew Slater in The Daily Beast. Before a shot was fired, rumors of ISIS led Iraqi forces to flee Tikrit. As Baghdad fights to retake the city, they’re up against a force made more powerful by… Read More ›
