( Al-Jazeera )- When Mahmoud Nowar was released from detention, doctors told his father that he was so withered and malnourished that he would only have survived a few more days of starvation and torture at the hands of Syrian government forces. The pro-democracy activist and former resident...

(The Washington Post )- They came from every corner of Syria: people who fled fighting but could not afford smugglers’ fees to go farther. Now nearly 1 million are packed into one province in Syria’s northwest, eyeing a weeks-old cease-fire there with trepidation, fear and mistrust....

( The Washington Post )- Back when he was still a candidate and not president of the United States, Donald Trump had a suggestion for winning the battle against the Islamic State: “Take out their families.” “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families,...

BY DAN DE LUCE, PAUL MCLEARY ( Foreign Policy )- A U.S. air raid against Iranian-backed fighters in southern Syria last week represents a volatile new phase of the conflict that could trigger a wider confrontation between the United States and Iran — and their allies on the ground....