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How Omran, the dazed Aleppo boy who reappeared this week became a political pawn

By Samantha Schmidt ( The Washington Post )- For a few fleeting moments, scores of people worldwide knew the face and name of the young Syrian boy in the ambulance. They saw the gut-wrenching scene in Aleppo last August captured in a photograph and video that quickly circulated on...

Qatar and Syria’s seven priorities

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian revolution and Qatar have many intersections and Qatar preceded everyone in some of these intersections. Zaman al-Wasl presents 7 priorities for Qatar with the Syrian revolution: July 18, 2011: The Qatari Ambassador and the Qatari Diplomatic Mission...

Syria’s bloodiest battle is yet to come — and 1 million civilians are at risk

(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....

Trump said he would ‘take out’ the families of ISIS fighters. Did an airstrike in Syria do just that?

( 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,...

What Trump can learn from previous US presidents' Mideast visits

( The Middle East Eye )- US presidents tend to either sink or swim during forays to the Middle East. So when the current commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, boards Air Force One for his first foreign presidential venture to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, he may benefit from a recap of his...

If London were Aleppo – 4.3 million dead or displaced

The bombed-out buildings of Aleppo may bear little resemblance to London’s gleaming skyscrapers but the two cities once had much in common, something German artist Hans Hack has seized on to bring home the reality of war. Before Syria’s 6-year-old conflict, Aleppo, like London, was...

Key opposition group on brink of collapse, last chance talk

By Abdullah Ghadawi (Zaman Al Wasl)- The atmosphere of tension has returned to the corridors of the Syrian National Coalition after the recent election battle in which Riad Saif and his supporters wan the presidency. These elections have left a situation of political...

France: presidential candidates weight on Syria conflict

By Ethar Abdulhaq (Zaman Al Wasl)- The French debate between the presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen was almost a debate on the Syrian issue, or so it looked like when it came to discussing the file of security and terrorism as it is the most delicate file to play...

The organisation ridding the world of chemical weapons

( The New Arab )- Russia criticised the world's chemical weapons watchdog for not sending experts to the site of an alleged chemical attack in Syria, saying it was "unacceptable to analyse events from a distance". But the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is in a...

The Islamic State has tunnels everywhere. It’s making ISIS much harder to defeat

( Washington Post )- Yesterday, the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a network of Islamic State caves and tunnels in Afghanistan. The military said its spectacular use of force was necessary to destroy the underground terror hideout (though it's not clear that the MOAB was...

Susan Rice’s claim that Obama got Syria to ‘verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile’

( The Washington Post )- “We were able to find a solution that didn’t necessitate the use of force that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished. Our aim in contemplating the use of force following the use...

Are US strikes on Syria good or bad?

( Middle East Eye )- Analysts in the United States reacted cautiously to President Donald Trump’s decision to order a massive military strike on a Syrian airbase on Thursday in retaliation for a “barbaric” chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. Responses were...

A chemical weapons attack in Syria exposes Trump’s Assad problem

(The Washington Post)- Yet again, the world is watching gut-wrenching images emerge from the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria. Activists claim the Syrian government launched an airstrike on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the country's northwestern Idlib province. Scores of...

World Cup qualifying: How did Syria win 'most important match in their history'?

(BBC)- It was goalless after 90 minutes and Syria's dreams of qualifying for their first World Cup were fading fast. Then Omar Kharbin converted a bold, Panenka-style stoppage-time penalty to earn victory over Uzbekistan and make an appearance at Russia 2018 a realistic goal. Syria, in...

War loss reached 275 billion dollars in the revolution anniversary: reports

By Adnan Abdulrazq (Zaman Al Wasl)- Both Syrian and international reports confirm that Assad regime turned Syria to the tragedy of the century after GDP declined from 60 million dollars in 2010 to less than 27 million dollars’ end of 2016. The declared foreign debt increased more than...

Geneva 4 and the shifting shape of Syria diplomacy

(Al-Jazeera)- The fourth round of UN-led Syria talks, dubbed Geneva 4, wrapped up last week with a tentative agreement between warring sides on an agenda for future negotiations - but a problematic work plan coupled with shifting international priorities could draw out the already lengthy...

New Anti-IS Strategy May Mean Deeper US Involvement in Syria

(Bloomberg)- A new military strategy to meet President Donald Trump's demand to "obliterate" the Islamic State group is likely to deepen U.S. military involvement in Syria, possibly with more ground troops, even as the current U.S. approach in Iraq appears to be working and will require fewer...

The Syrian war isn’t stopping for Trump

So far, the most meaningful role played by President Trump in the miserable conflict in Syria has been his relentless demonization of Syrian refugees. But the war still smolders, and the White House will, sooner or later, have to reckon with its complexity. It may also need to confront...