Syria

Al Jazeera+ reminds the world about the ongoing refugee crisis sparked by a mass exodus of peoples from Syria…

Iran Dragooning Thousands of Undocumented Afghans as Cannon Fodder in Syria

Human Rights Watch | – – (New York) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has recruited thousands of undocumented Afghans living there to fight in Syria since at least November 2013, Human Rights Watch said today, and a few have reported that Iranian authorities coerced them. Iran has urged the Afghans to defend Shia sacred […]

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ISIL kills 70 in bombing of Shiite Area, Damascus, in bid to derail Talks

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility Sunday for bomb attacks in the Syrian capital of Damascus that seem likely to have aimed at derailing the tentative talks in Geneva. First, a Daesh agent set off a car bomb next to a bus transporting Shiite fighters for the […]

Displaced and Refugees

Not just Madaya: A million people under Food Sieges in Mideast

contributors

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org) | – – Despite international laws prohibiting the use of starvation against civilians, forces on all sides preventing aid from reaching blockaded towns in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq As crises in the Middle East escalate, food has become a weapon of war. A new Associated Press analysis […]

Syria

World can Bomb Syria but Can’t negotiate end to War

contributors

By Simon Mabon | (The Conversation) | – – International talks meant to help resolve the Syrian Crisis are due to commence in Geneva, but a range of impossible problems still stand in the way. Now nearly five years old, the conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced around 11m people. Other […]

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Top 5 Ways Putin has won big in Syria and why Europe is embracing him

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russia is so far winning big in Syria, and making Moscow’s projection of force in the Middle East a reality that the other great powers have to recognize. As Russia has emerged as a major combatant against Syrian al-Qaeda and against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), it is […]

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Turkey-Russia Tensions Spike as Russia moves into Northern Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian air strikes in Syria are coming closer and closer to the Turkish border in Latakia in the northwest, and there are rumors that Russia is looking at establishing an airbase at Qamishli in the largely Kurdish northeast of Syria. Turkey risks having Russia as a […]

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Daesh/ ISIL carries off 400 Women & Children from Deir al-Zor to a fate worse than Death

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Sunday attacked an isolated outpost of the Syrian Arab Army in a few neighborhoods in the north of the city of Deir al-Zor, which are surrounded by Daesh from every side. The SAA also still controls a military airfield just north of […]

Displaced and Refugees

Once Auctioned, What to Do with Syrian Refugees?

contributors

By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Service) | – – MADRID, Jan 12 2016 (IPS) – Few months ago, an unprecedented “humanitarian auction” was opened in Brussels at the European Commission, shortly after watching the image of the three-year old Syrian child that the sea threw up on the Turkish shores. The “auction” was about […]