Syria War

Former CIA analyst David McCloskey, who covered Syria from 2008 to 2014, on the roots of Syria’s war, the US role, and his new novel set during the conflict’s early years, “Damascus Station.” As a CIA analyst, David McCloskey covered Syria from 2008 to 2014. He draws on his experience for his new spy thriller, “Damascus Station,” set during the early years of the Syrian war. David McCloskey joins Aaron Maté to discuss “Damascus Station”; the early years of the […]

A new open-source study concludes that Syrian insurgents carried out the Ghouta sarin chemical attack in August 2013. The explosive findings add to a growing body of public evidence that undermines US-led efforts to blame the Syrian government, which almost led to US military intervention. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands were wounded when sarin rockets hit multiple sites in the Syria area of Ghouta on August 21, 2013. The US and its allies publicly accused the Syrian government […]

Crippling US sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act are decimating war-ravaged Syrian civilians, are illegal, and should be lifted, the UN Special Rapporteur on sanctions says. An independent United Nations expert is calling on the US to lift its crippling sanctions on Syria. Under the Caesar Act, US sanctions explicitly target Syria’s reconstruction in the aftermath of a catastrophic 10-year war. Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the impact of sanctions, says that the US sanctions are illegal and […]

Leading Syria scholar Joshua Landis on how crippling US sanctions are devastating Syria’s people and hindering post-war reconstruction. In a new article for Foreign Affairs, scholar Joshua Landis and former Obama administration official Steve Simon write that US sanctions on Syria “further immiserates the Syrian people, blocks reconstruction efforts, and strangles the economy that sustains […]

As Syria tries to recover from a nearly decade-long war, the US has imposed crippling new sanctions under the Caesar…
The post Crippling new sanctions punish Syrian civilians for US defeat in proxy war appeared first on The Grayzone.

Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran. He discusses his recent…
The post Syria war update: Turkey’s Erdogan invades Idlib, invokes re-establishment of Ottoman Empire appeared first on The Grayzone.

The outcry against Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria reveals an appetite for regional hegemony, writes As’ad AbuKhalil. It also minimizes the capacity of native militia to defend territory for which they fought and died.    A Wise and…Read more →

(MEMO) — The Russian military has revealed that over 63,000 troops from its armed forces have fought in Syria since Moscow entered the conflict in 2015, involvement that has turned the tide of the war in the regime’s favour. The deployment has included some 434 generals over the past three years, and about 90 percent of Russian […]

As rebels in Syria surrender their medium and heavy weapons, the Syrian Army is driving ISIS out of the southern countryside, near the Golan Heights.
The Syrian army has found something peculiar amongst the captured arsenal of hundreds of different weapons. The weapons captured included grenades, many RPGs, makeshift mortars, and even WW2 era machine guns, however, this was not what caught the eye of government forces.

Brushing aside warnings that he was about to unleash Armageddon in the Middle East, George W. Bush launched an unprovoked attack on Iraq on March 19-20, 2003, the ramifications of which we are still grappling with today, Nat Parry writes. By…Read more →