One week on from the Turkish military’s launch of “Operation Peace Spring” in northeast Syria, Ankara’s forces and their Syrian allies have made some tangible advances on the ground. They have taken control of the border town of Tal Abyad in Raqqa Province, east of the Euphrates, along with several dozen smaller towns and villages around and between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (known to Kurds…

A new book by Cambridge University’s Andrew Arsan arguing Lebanon is “a microcosm of the contemporary world” successfully analyzes the country’s ills, offering a helpful framework for Lebanese seeking change, writes Joey Ayoub.

The statement on Syria issued by the White House on Sunday evening EDT (early Monday morning in Syria) restored the situation in the region east of the Euphrates River to the uncertainty that followed President Donald Trump’s announcement of a full US troop withdrawal from Syria last year. Though the latter decision was never in fact implemented, the potential consequences of its implementation worked effects…

How a scion of the Assad regime’s inner circle placed flattering profiles of himself in Western publications, and what this bodes for the future of online media.

[Editor’s note: The below is an edited version of a talk given by the author in Paris on 4 September. An extended version of the text is also published by Al-Jumhuriya in Arabic.]                                   The twentieth century was one of colonialism, imperialism, and two wars waged by the European powers on the world stage, christened the World Wars. It was the century that witnessed Nazism,…

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

A young member of Syria’s Türkmen minority, living as a refugee in Istanbul, writes of the fears sparked by the Turkish government’s new crackdown on Syrians, and his broader disappointment at the breakdown of communal relations between Turks and Syrians, brought on by xenophobes left and right.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

The bombing campaign waged in northern Syria by the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian allies between late April and 18 August of this year has brought about the displacement of some 576,000 people, half of them children, across various opposition-held areas, according to data published by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last week. The figure includes over 72,000…