(Saraqeb, Syria)—The walls of the city of Saraqeb in Idlib province reflect the reality of the Syrian situation in all its iterations over the past three years. After the outbreak of the protests, government forces stormed the city in March 2011, and the security crackdown escalated the summer of that same year, with military opposition forces beginning to organize that […]

Hazzaa Adnan al-Hazzaa (Kfar Nabel, Syria) - During the first few days of 2014, several demonstrations took place under the slogan “Bashar and ISIS are one… Down with ISIS and Assad” in areas controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, now known as ISIS.

Hazzaa Adnan al-Hazzaa (Kfar Nabel, Syria)—Kfar Nabel resident Hassan al-Ahmad, 27, once a student at Aleppo University’s Faculty of Economics, put his studies on hold and joined the Syrian uprising in its second week, becoming one of its most outspoken activists through his work in the media, and also going on to head the organization “Aish,” which rejuvenates walls and […]

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 […]

Hazzaa Adnan al-Hazzaa (Kfar Nabel, Syria) - Mohammad al-Salim, a French literature student from Kfar Nabel at the University of Aleppo, is critical of much of what the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been doing in the various areas that have been wrested out of Baath regime control.

By Hazzaa Adnan al-Hazzaa (Kfar Nabel, Syria) - The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, did not interfere in the public affairs of Kfar Nabel before December 2013, when it took control of the city of 30,000 people with practically no resistance. During their time in Kfar Nabel, ISIS raided several media and development organizations, including […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - New Islamist regulations in Raqqa are felt by students every day on a bus that transports them from Raqqa city to the private Ittihad University in the city’s suburbs. The male students sit in the front of the bus, while the girls sit in the back, because the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has prohibited […]

A prominent development in the ongoing Syria conflict is the ascent of radical Islamists, both Syrian and foreign, who advocate a puritanical form of Islam and who are ready to use violence to impose and spread their views. Jihadist groups, such Al-Jabha al-Islamiyya and the Mujahideen Army, are currently waging a war of attrition against the Islamic State in Syria […]

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 […]

Reporter describes harsh conditions for all those living amid conflict in Syrian city By Lina al-Hakim* (Aleppo, Syria) - Journalism is one of the hardest jobs around: it is the search for the truth, and its difficulties and dangers are multiplied during times of armed conflict, as is the case in Syria. It is no easy feat being a journalist […]