زينة ارحيم | منحازة للإنسانية منحازة للإنسانية

None of those who started the Syrian uprising in 2011 would have thought that after five years their home will be taken over by many militias and groups including Iranians, Hizbullah, Al Qaeda and a so called “caliphate”. The first two are among 53 foreign shi’ite militias invited to Syria by Bashar Al Assad, unlike ISIL and Al Qaeda that ...

By Martin Fletcher Published at 12:01AM, September 15 2015Early one morning this summer Zaina Erhaim was woken by the whistling sound of a barrel bomb falling from a regime helicopter. She could tell that the bomb, packed with explosives and steel shrapnel, was going to land close to her apartment in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Her husband, Mahmoud, told her not ...

The journey from Turkey to Aleppo is becoming harder I recently spent a few days in Gaziantep in Turkey. The town is full of Syrians these days. Some are refugees and others are working for one of the many NGOs based there. I have friends who had to leave because they were threatened by the jihadists of the Islamic State. ...

“THREE barrel bombs, two missiles, five mortars… No, no the last explosion is caused by a barrel not a mortar.” This is the first discussion I have with my half-asleep self while turning off my morning alarm. I still use an alarm even though one is provided by the noise of missiles landing nearby. It takes a couple of minutes ...

FOUR masked men raided Fateh Rahmoun’s house in Ras al-Hussein, a village in Syria’s north-western province of Idleb. Heavily-armed and wearing belts of explosives, one shot the 13-year-old boy who opened the door while the others stormed into the house shooting at everyone. This is how Abdo, a 24-year-old fighter with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, describes what happened ...