The Syrian regime army took advantage of the latest battles between the Free Syrian Army and the troops of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to begin a military operation around the Aleppo airport, in the city’s northern suburbs, near the Al-Nayrab Bridge area and the village of Aziza. The army advanced on all the aforementioned areas, but some […]

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) withdrew from the city of Manbij in the province of Aleppo on January 5 after fierce battles with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Many of the city’s residents viewed the event as a “second liberation,” the first being the retreat of government forces in July 2012. Life slowly went back to normal […]

Just carrying a camera is dangerous in areas controlled by powerful militant group (Ghaziantep, Turkey) — Words of prayer and longing are posted on the Facebook page of Faten Ajjan, a Syrian dissident journalist. Her photographer son, Abboud Haddad, was kidnapped around six months ago by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was seized in Atmah, in […]

Setting up barricades is a widespread project in Syria, such as the one that separates Al-A’athamia and Salah Eddine in Aleppo. However, these sites are fraught with danger. Setting up barricades during the day both under the watchful eyes of snipers and in their crosshair takes time. Clashes have diminished since Al-A’athamia was stormed by regime forces and the armed […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been effectively driven out of Raqqa. Three Salafist groups now dominate the city: the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham, Al-Nusra Front, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In light of this new reality, these factions have come to include the greatest number of other battalions, including those that […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - “Our families and people in Raqqa, please forgive us. We love nothing more than to enter a bit of joy and hope to your lives, our wish was that our final statement be in the time where the tyrant Bashar al Assad fell, but circumstances are stronger than we are. We ask god for the better of […]

Fighting stopped in Ras al-Ayn (also known in Kurdish as Serekaniye) in the beginning of November after the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a militia allied with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), took control of the city and a large number of villages around it. Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and other Islamist groups were […]

By Hazzaa al-Adnan (Kfar Nabel, Syria) - In August, in the town of Kfar Nabel, around 50 people gathered one morning in front of Issam al-Dani’s corner store, which is licensed to sell government bread. The people massed there for almost two hours, dispersing only when the 48 year old informed the gathered crowd that the government bakery would not […]

By Raheel Ibrahim* (Jaramana, Syria) - The anger is clear on the face of Motaz, 34, who works as a waiter in a restaurant as he talks about the opposition rockets and mortar shells that regularly fall on the town of Jaramana in the suburbs of Damascus. “Everyone should know that our patience has begun to run out and that […]

Opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo experienced a state of relative stability in the past few months, as a number of displaced people returned and schools and shops reopened their doors. But the situation has become tense again in early October as clashes erupted between opposition fighters and regime forces. These clashes, and shelling, have forced some of the families that returned […]