Many opposition communities embraced and sponsored the fighters, who represented at that time the local defenders of these communities. But then their goals seemed to change.
To Orwa Nyrabia and thousands of Syrians who are detained along with our hearts in the cells of the tyrant.
The middle-east’s power-balance is in flux amid state tensions and political conflicts. In a two-part article, Bill Park - who was recently in Ankara and Erbil - examines the impact of these changes on Turkey and its neighbours, especially the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq. In
The brutal response of Syria's authorities to an eruption of protest in early 2011 propelled the country into conflict. It was the latest and most catastrophic of a series of misjudgments by Bashar al-Assad's regime over the decade of his rule, says Carsten Wieland.
The civil war in Syria and unrest in Lebanon may have deeper roots than meets the eye. In fact, they may very well be the tragic result of centuries of colonisation and secularisation, as recently emphasised by Walid Jumblatt.
The destructive potential of Syria's conflict is creating alarm in Washington and a bare margin of hope for diplomatic progress.
It is no easy thing to let your best friend go. But Iran needs to change its attitude towards the Syrian regime if it wants to stay a relevant player in the Middle East.
Secularists and Islamists alike have long suffered under the shadow of autocratic rule. What is required now is the strength and courage to actively integrate and mix so that we can be rid of the corrosive prejudices which threaten what this revolution stands for
A Lebanon-based journalist examines the possibility of violence spreading from Syria to Lebanon. There are reasons enough to fear the worst, but also signs of real restraint.
Whatever genuine grievances and demands for political reform the Syrian people might have had a year and half ago were trodden underfoot by this stampeding sectarian drive that the Syrian opposition itself worked so hard to foster among its own supporters.
Why a widespread analogy is harmful to fragile post-Arab Spring states and civil societies.
The first and most important casualty of the militarization of the Syrian uprising is the non-violent movement.
