Bashar al-Assad's strategy of chaos
The hopes of liberalization raised at the start of Hafez al-Assad's son's rule were short-lived. Urged by his family, the ...
In Damascus, art re-emerges: 'We feel free and, at the same time, we're still afraid'
Assad's fall enabled the Zawaya Art Gallery to emerge from semi-secrecy. Filmmaker Oussama Mohammed returned from exile for a ...
Al-Monitor on MSN11d
At Damascus opera house, hopes for a better future
marking the first classical concert at the Damascus opera house since president Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. The concert was a ...
Al-Monitor on MSN1d
Drugs, weapons in Syria borderland where Hezbollah held sway
In a desolate area of Syria where Lebanese militant group Hezbollah once held sway, security forces shot open the gates to an ...
The New Yorker19d
A Witness in Assad’s Dungeons
A few days after the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled into exile, in December, an elderly woman sat on the sidewalk ...
Hosted on MSN4d
Syria’s stand-up comedians, censored under Assad, are now having the last laugh
Laughter fills the Zawaya Art Gallery in downtown Damascus. A packed crowd is chuckling uproariously at Syria’s first ...
Will classical music still have a place in Syria? First concert since Assad’s ousting held
Syria’s national symphony orchestra performed for free in an unheated hall, reflections of the dire economic toll of the ...
Middle East Eye13d
Massacres and resilience in Hama, Syria's insubordinate city
A painting by Mohammed Hisham Barazanko depicting ... By the early 80s, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, had staged a coup of his own within the Baath party and had led Syria for a decade.
In Syria, the fighting is over, but a resource-rich region is left in limbo
Zour, which remains divided between Syria's new government and a Kurdish-backed militia, is a hostage to competing ambitions.
The Art Newspaper14d
After the collapse of the Assad regime, Syrians are working to preserve their country's heritage
Local and international experts are filling a government void, and have begun the process of mapping and assessing sites ...
Arutz Sheva14d
Assad's cousin who led deadly 2011 crackdown arrested
Syria’s new leadership announced on Friday the arrest of Atif Najib, a cousin of ousted leader Bashar Al-Assad, who is accused ... were arrested for allegedly painting anti-government slogans ...