A new brute takes over Palmyra’s notorious Tadmur Prison

Situated in Palmyra, near some of the world’s most beautiful ancient ruins, Syria’s notorious Tadmur Prison has fallen from one brutal boss to another.

Why we got it wrong on Syria and Ukraine

As the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year, I can’t help noticing a common theme with the crisis in Ukraine.

Ignoring the Syrian side of the Sykes-Picot line

ISIS delivers a multilingual, postcolonial, post-national, proto-caliphate jihadist message to beat all prior propaganda ploys. So, why are we divorcing Iraq from Syria? And why do we always ignore a battlefield to rush into Iraq?

Al Qaeda's Possible Collapse in Syria

There are two competing visions of radical jihadism in Syria articulated by two rival groups

American 'freedom fighter' Matthew VanDyke releases film on Syria

After considerable online buzz, self-styled “American freedom fighter" and documentary filmmaker Matthew VanDyke has released the short film he directed about the Syrian conflict.

Goodbye 'freedom fries': France’s mojo rises over Syria

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the French were "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". A decade later, France is now America's staunchest ally on Syria. How did France turn from a white flag-fluttering country to a red-blooded nation of hawks?

How Asma al-Assad’s Vogue profiler duped herself

Joan Juliet Buck, author of Vogue’s infamous “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert” piece, has given her version of the story in a piece titled, “Mrs. Assad Duped Me”. But the Syrian First Lady didn’t do the duping, that was done by solely by Buck.

'The right thing to do', or plain folly: should we intervene in Syria?

Should the West intervene in Syria? Idealists and sceptics are at odds over how best to stop the ongoing bloodshed. Here are some of their arguments.