For analysts familiar with the politics of Syria, the country’s descent into chaos amounts to an all-too-predictable pattern. It also parallels what  Rami Makhlouf , a major regime figure and first cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, bluntly announced in an interview with...

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...

 The Free Syrian Army vowed on Wednesday to punish those committing atrocities, as anger mounted at a video showing a rebel filmed apparently cutting out and eating the organs of a soldier. "Any act contrary to the values that the Syrian people have paid their blood and lost...

  Assad is clearly looking to exploit sectarian fault lines in his favor. Months of bloodshed have heightened sectarian tensions and ripped apart communities in ways that are reminiscent of Iraq, where violence in 2006-2007 effectively turned into real attempts at sectarian...