[Editor’s note: This article was first published in Arabic on Thursday, 19 October, 2017.]   The southern bank of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria is named “al-Shamiyya” (“The Levantine”), while the northern bank is called “al-Jazira” (literally “The Island,” the historic name in Arabic for Upper Mesopotamia). The cities, towns, and villages of Deir al-Zor governorate are distributed across both banks, which until very…

Why do reputable Western publications keep giving Iran’s foreign minister free rein to spew toxic falsehoods?

The former US ambassador to Syria talks Raqqa, Russia, reconstruction, and more in this half-hour Al-Jumhuriya podcast.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 12 October, 2017] Namer, al-Kutayba, Khirbat Ghazala, al-Shaykh Miskeen, Ataman: five towns and villages in Daraa Governorate whose residents have been forcibly displaced in their entirety following violent battles leading to their takeover by Assad regime forces, and to the widespread destruction of their buildings and infrastructure. They enjoy strategic significance, in light of their…

Al-Jumhuriya’s Arabic editor ponders the political and emotional dilemmas of supporting Syria’s—or is it Assad’s?—soccer team.

Why Western officialdom is inherently stacked against unexpected democracy movements such as the Arab Spring.

Khalifa al-Khuder reports on the aspirations, sufferings, and occasional joys of the largely voiceless Syrian worker community in Lebanon.

At a recent talk in California, Charles Davis encountered a microcosm of the left’s rupture on Syria.

At the stroke of a royal pen, the Saudi clergy dropped the principles of a lifetime. All religion is equally subservient to politics.

They were the world’s top story less than a year ago. Today Aleppo’s displaced are already forgotten.