As the Syrian civil war got under way, a former electrician who calls himself Sheikh Omar built up a brigade of rebel fighters. In two years of struggle against President Bashar al-Assad, they came to number 2,000 men, he said, here in the northern city of Aleppo. Then, virtually overnight,...
Nick Griffin , the leader of the British National Party, has waded into controversy about the Syrian crisis by paying a "fact-finding visit" to Damascus as part of a delegation of far-right and nationalist European politicians. Griffin, the MEP for North-west England, used his...
Turkey's deputy prime minister offered an apology Tuesday for the government's violent crackdown on an environmental protest , a calculated bid to ease days of anti-government rallies in the country's major cities. The message was a bit mixed, however, as hundreds of riot police...
The golden cupola of the Sayyida Zainab mosque glints, magnificent, against the clear sky. In the courtyard, children play amid shoes shed by their parents before they entered to pray. Only the crack of gunfire, the hissing of bullets overhead and mortar fire close by disturbs the tranquil...