After one of the most brutal wars of this century, a new Syria is rising from the disastrous legacy of the toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad. His photos have been torn from the walls, as people exercise freedoms denied during his family’s decades-long reign. Now, a different flag flies across Syria, the emblem of the rebels…
The gunfire began at dawn on Friday in the town of al-Haffa on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. At first, Wala, a 29-year-old resident of the town, leaped off her bed to the corner of the room in her first-floor apartment, flattening herself as the rat-a-tat of gunshots sounded outside her bedroom window. When the commotion grew…
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, has reported attacks on Alawite civilians, frequently by unknown gunmen. The country’s new rulers have pledged to bring all armed groups under the state’s control, but the security situation remains unstable, with some Syrians seeking vengeance. Who are the Assad loyalists taking up arms? There…