(Eqtsad)- Ismael, the young man who lives in the opposition-held areas in Aleppo northern countryside has been racing with time to get married during this summer which is traditionally the best season to enter the “golden cage” as the well-known proverb says. The main target of Ismael,...

 The few bullet-marked schools Islamic State did not flatten or booby trap around its former Syrian stronghold of Raqqa are buzzing for the first time in years with the sound of children learning. In the village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, teachers gave ad-hoc alphabet lessons to...

Hatf Saiful Rasul was 11 years old when he told his father, a convicted Islamic militant, that he wanted to leave school and go to Syria to fight for Islamic State. The boy was visiting his father in a maximum security prison during a break from Ibnu Mas‘ud, his Islamic boarding school,...

(Al Jazeera)- With its rows of identical cottages, country houses and immaculately trimmed lawns, the Oxford countryside is quintessentially English. Syrian writer Zakaria Tamer and his wife Nadia may have spent more than two decades here, but upon entering their house one is catapulted into...

( The Independent )- Zahira (not her real name) was 45 when she was arrested at her workplace in a suburb of Damascus in 2013. As soon as she arrived at Al Mezzeh Military Airport, she was strip searched, tied to a bed and gang raped by five soldiers.  For the next 14 days, she was...

By Faris Rifai (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian journalist Jaber Bakr is working on a documentary film entitled "The Last Exit from al-Waer", which monitors the bitterness of the siege and displacement, and the last scenes of the departure of the residents of al-Waer neighborhood west of the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- In a small garden inside Dar al-Arqam for the disabled in the city of Harem in the countryside Idlib, Tasnim, 5, is playing with her peers in the house to forget the sounds of explosions and shelling. Tasnim lost her hearing, was struck by a state of panic and her walk...

(Zaman Al Wasl) Tens of thousands of loyal fighters from the coastal region of Syria have become crippled and dependent on their families and society, after fighting to defend the al-Assad regime. Now that they are of no service to the regime, the regime offers them no support and they have no...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The security chaos, intensified impoverishment and the loss of the prestige of the state have contributed to the occurrence crimes and incidents in Latakia city.  Mohamed Saheli, media activist, documented information about several of the crimes by communicating...

(The Independent)- It was like hell. In the hospital it was very quiet despite all the people. Everyone was crying, crying from the gas, crying from looking at the bodies. It was so full, people were laid out on the floor. I almost stepped on the body of my friend. I didn’t even realise it...

(Eqtsad)- There are many currency exchange companies in neighboring countries and western countries which transfer money to Syria. The transfer is carried out through individuals and irregular companies that smuggle money from Syria abroad, and are placed in fake accounts or handed over to...

(Eqtsad)- From the time he learned he was going to be taken to the reserve army service in regime army, Imad, who is over thirty in stays inside a rented house in Jidaydat Artuz. Imad is not leaving his house at all for fear of detention and being taken to reserve army service. He also...

( The Guardian )- Islamic State closed the doors of Raqqa, its de facto capital in Syria, to civilians and blocked their escape from the city more than a year ago. Then some of their fighters began taking money from civilians in return for allowing them to leave – up to $800 per person. Many...

By Faris Rifai (Zaman Al Wasl)- Since the liberation of the city of Idlib the regime, arms stores started to spread selling all types of weapons and military equipment. Stores sell ordinary barrages, machine guns, bombs and even to individual weapons allocated for assassinations with...

(Eqtsad)- Few Syrians may have started depositing their money in banks prior to and after the revolution, but in liberated areas, there are no commercial banks or banks at all, so how are people saving their money? A few years before the revolution, Muayyad opened a carpet shop in...

( The Guardian )- In the early, heady days of the Syrian revolution, opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and advocates for human rights saw an opportunity. “Women were extremely active and present,” says writer and journalist Samar Yazbek. But as the war escalated, some of this hope was lost....

On a bustling street in northwest Syria, young restaurateur Abdulrahim Abulezz serves up juicy chicken wraps crafted according to a traditional recipe from his hometown Daraya, which he left last year. His restaurant Sultan Daraya sits in a row of shops and eateries run by Syrians who quit...

(Zaman al-Wasl)- After sharing the difficulties of the siege and its and joining forces on the fronts of fighting nearly three years since the start of the military campaign on Darya, they shared the joy at a wedding party Wednesday evening in Maret Misreen in rural Idlib sposnsored by...

( Eqtsad )- Abu Hassan, a janitor in the city of Douma northeast of the capital, was unable to escape the job opportunity he had found in the local council's municipal services office a year ago.  “Due to the blockade enforced by regime on Douma and the difficult economic...

(Zambian Al Wasl)- Razan Khaebbiya, aSyrian engineer,  has devoted herself to help the children of the Eastern Ghouta suburbs near the capital, especially those with special needs who got injured in the war.  A year ago, Khaebbiya set up a project called the...