On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that demands access for humanitarian aid organisations in Syria. This is an important step forward. It follows a Presidential…
After destroying towns and cities, Syria’s civil war is spilling into Lebanon.
Christiaan Triebert
The second round of the Geneva II talks on Syria have ended with no agreement and without even a decision on the date of a further meeting. The highly experienced UN mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, was clearly…
Glimpses of horror: while the West watches, Syria burns.
SIcco2007
The humanitarian crisis in Syria is no longer news. It is simple fact: tragedy writ large, as cities burn and lives are ruined. Our eyes may widen at the sheer scale of this destruction: four million people…
Where would we be without Godwin’s Law? This law, formulated for the internet, dictates that as a discussion progresses, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. And, as…
The war at home: Anti-Assad protestors in London.
Lewis Whyld/PA
The arrests of people travelling to or returning from the Syrian conflict have been widely reported over recent weeks in the British media. Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police…
The ruins of the 11th century Great Umayyad Mosque, Aleppo.
Halabi Lens
The destruction and looting of cultural heritage has been intertwined with conflict for thousands of years. To steal an enemies’ treasures, defile their sacred places and burn their cities has been part…
Despite much discussion, the Geneva peace talks between Syria’s warring parties did little more than illustrate the size of the chasm between the two parties.
EPA/Arnd Wiegmann
The much-anticipated first round of the Geneva 2 Syrian peace talks wrapped up on Friday after ten days of tense discussions. The international community had hoped that the talks would pave the way for…
Assad: war crimes? But Syria is not a member of the international criminal court.
Watchsmart
Substantial evidence of torture and systematic killing of thousands of Syrian regime prisoners has emerged as final preparations are made for the Geneva II talks. The claims are unlikely to disrupt the…
The use of medicine as an “instrument of violence” in both the Iraq War and the Syrian conflict shows how blurred the lines between civilian and combatant spaces can become. According to the authors of…
Ahead of the scheduled Geneva peace talks on Syria, the role of president Bashar al-Assad remains a stumbling block between the warring parties.
EPA/SANA
Much is resting on the “Geneva 2” Syrian peace talks scheduled to take place in Switzerland next week. The talks come as the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn nation reaches catastrophic proportions…
Such are the bitter divisions created by atrocities such as the car bombing that led to this mass funeral in Kafat village in Hama province that reconciliation cannot succeed as an afterthought.
EPA/SANA
When outsiders survey the devastation in Syria, reconciliation is probably the last thing that comes to mind. Millions of refugees and internally displaced people are desperate for humanitarian aid. Millions…
The recent surge in violence in Iraq has caught most of the western media by surprise, mainly because of the the decline in its interest in the country since US forces departed two years ago. It has taken…
Iraq now faces an assault on its sovereign integrity from Islamic extremists that is testing the organs of the state.
EPA/Mohammed Jalil
The number of deaths in Iraq from attacks by extremist groups operating under the banner of Islam has been growing steadily since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011. In 2013, nearly 8900 people…
The victims of civil war doctors are trying to help.
Manu Brabo/AP
Annie Sparrow, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
We don’t know the exact details of why Abbas Khan, the British surgeon who died while in custody, was arrested last November at a regime checkpoint in Syria and imprisoned and tortured, or the manner of…
Taking dictation: David Cameron vists Kazakh President Nazarbayev.
Leon Neal/PA
Why do states and societies collapse? Efforts to explain the hugely complicated conflicts in Syria and Libya have understandably placed heavy emphasis on these nations’ ethnic or tribal diversity. Writers…
All smiles in Geneva: but there are some unhappy people in the Middle East.
Carolyn Kaster/AP/Press Association Images
Signed by the P5 + Germany and mediated by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, the deal achieved with Iran on the latter’s nuclear programme has important implications for regional…
Martin E Dempsey warns the fallout of the Arab Spring will take a long time to clear.
Glenn Fawcett
At a meeting at the Wall Street Journal this week, Martin E Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the United States’ ability to exercise influence in the Middle East had significantly…
Syrian troops on patrol in Aleppo. Historically, what has the role of counterinsurgencies been in conflict zones?
EPA/SANA
The Syrian civil war is in its 31st month and shows few signs of abating. The death toll is now estimated at over 115,000, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Understanding this level…
Armed conflict remains the major obstacle to ridding the world of this devastating disease.
James Gordon, Los Angeles.
As if the children of Syria had not suffered enough, the news of an outbreak of polio (poliomyelitis) signals that even more suffering lies ahead. The polio virus invades the nervous system and can kill…
Famed correspondent Marie Colvin was killed while reporting the civil war in Syria last year. Should more protection be put in place for journalists in conflict zones?
EPA/Ivor Prickett
The news coming out of the ongoing conflict in Syria is tragic and, for many, too horrible to look at for long. While the reportage is appreciated, one can’t help but wonder whether it would be different…
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University