Middle East

The SOHR reported that the attacks spanned Aleppo, Damascus and Hama, with more than 60 taking place overnight between Monday and Tuesday alone. Reports say that many of the facilities hit have not merely been damaged, but completely destroyed. Rami Abdul Rahman, the founder of the SOHR, described the impact …

The Turkey-based Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) said in a 2022 report that the prison “effectively became a death camp” after the start of the conflict. It estimated that more than 30,000 detainees had either been executed or died as a result of torture, lack …

The statement announcing Assad’s arrival in Moscow also mentioned that Russian officials were in contact with representatives of “the Syrian armed opposition”. The state TV anchor said opposition leaders had guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions on the territory of Syria. Russia’s foreign ministry says the …

But some from the region in close contact with US officials see this approach as reductive, even cynical. They urge Washington to embrace a process of transition in Damascus taking account of the breadth of Syrian opposition. Mouaz Moustafa from the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force – which coordinates with …

But it was unable to stop the collapse of his government in the face of a lightning rebel offensive that took advantage of his other key allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, being distracted by other conflicts. Assad has not been pictured since he met the Iranian foreign minister in …

On Sunday, the IDF told residents of five Syrian villages inside the zone to stay in their homes until further notice. The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus. Israel seized the Golan from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War …

Hundreds of displaced Syrians are returning back to the country, after rebel groups seized Damascus on Sunday., Video shows queues gathering at the Mansaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, as people celebrate on the road back into the country. Source link

Some Syrians are hopeful that loved ones detained under Bashar al-Assad’s regime may still be alive. Those who expressed any form of dissent were disappeared, with tens of thousands being tortured or killed in the country’s notorious jails. Crowds have gathered at the capital’s notorious Saydnaya prison, in the hope …

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said on Monday that the Israeli military had conducted overnight strikes on multiple locations spanning coastal and southern Syria. “Since the initial hours after the announcement of the fall of the former regime, Israel began launching intensive air strikes, …

A 2017 report by Amnesty International citing ex-guards at the prison found that after the Syrian civil war began in 2011 the White Building was emptied of existing prisoners, and prepared instead to house those detained for taking part in protests opposing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. One former officer told …

When Ibesh visited there on Sunday, he saw several newly freed people clearly in a traumatised state, he told the BBC. A group of people surrounded two men who had just been released, trying to help them. “[They] had been held in the prison for several years and they were …

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has dropped that nom de guerre associated with his jihadist past, and been using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in official communiques issued since Thursday, ahead of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. This move is part of Jawlani’s effort to bolster his legitimacy …

There was a snarl of cars when we arrived. We could hear chanting. Someone was waving a rebel flag. Overnight news that Damascus had fallen and Syria’s president had fled spurred Syrians in Lebanon to rush to Masnaa, the border crossing closest to their capital. We’d been planning to spend …

“No-one slept in Syria last night… no Syrian abroad slept,” Rania Kataf, who runs the Humans of Damascus Facebook page, said. “The whole community was holding their phones waiting for the final news. “How do I feel? Overwhelmed.. We all feel like we’ve been under water, literally, for thirteen years, …

The end of the Assad family’s five-decade rule will reshape the balance of power in the region. Iran, again, is seeing its influence suffer a significant blow. Syria under Assad was part of the connection between the Iranians and Hezbollah, and it was key for the transfer of weapons and …

The whereabouts of the president are the subject of speculation, with suggestions he may have fled the country. His office has denied all such reports, saying Assad is still at work in Damascus – but there has been no sign of him. Reports that rebels have seized control of Homs …

His office has denied all such reports, saying he’s still at work in Damascus, but there has been no sign of him. Syria has remained a divided country, with the deep scars of the years of civil war unhealed, despite the apparent stalemate and status quo that had been in …

The UN has said it is withdrawing “non-critical” staff from Syria amid the evolving situation. HTS has pledged to protect international organisations operating in the country. The UN envoy to Syria has called for an orderly transition of power, as well as “urgent political talks” to implement a Security Council …

Protesters tear down a statue of President Bashar al- Assad’s father, the former president Hafez al-Assad, in a suburb of Damascus. Source link

“There is nothing yet in terms of allocation for reconstruction,” Nasser Yasin, the environment minister and head of the government’s crisis cell told the BBC on Wednesday. “We have some good indications, some pledges from friends of Lebanon,” he said. “But we estimate we are going to need billions of …