At a police station in central Damascus, 30 HTS fighters have replaced the 100 officers who fled following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. “They regularly send us reinforcements to help, but we are still severely short-staffed,” said station chief Abu Riad. Crime is on the rise as people...

Syria’s new defense minister said on Sunday it would not be right for US-backed Kurdish fighters based in the country’s northeast to retain their own bloc within the broader integrated Syrian armed forces. Speaking to Reuters at the Defense Ministry in Damascus, Murhaf Abu Qasra said the...

The Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) is moving to deport minor asylum seekers more quickly if they have committed crimes, rather than treating them as juveniles. This law will come into effect within two weeks, and the IND can refuse or revoke permits on the basis of these...

Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since the fall of Bashar Al Assad in early December, the UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said ahead of a visit to the region. Between December 8 and January 16, some 195,200 Syrians returned home, according to figures published by Grandi on...