In the years before the civil war broke out in 2011, Syrian families where women were the main income providers and oversaw family affairs remained the exception. At the time, about 15% of women were in the labor force, a large proportion of them in agriculture. Women occupying jobs in...
In mid-June, Washington imposed harsh economic sanctions on Syria under the Caesar Act. A key US objective behind these sanctions is to prevent President Bashar al-Assad from achieving a true victory in the civil war.
On February 28, Turkey opened its borders with the European Union in the wake of the death of 34 Turkish soldiers in Syria. In response, Greece and Bulgaria stepped their border protections, insisting that they would not admit any Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war. In the meantime, the EU...
There is a strange irony to the latest Turkish offensive announced in northern Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan couched it on his Twitter feed as a move that will “preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists.” Yet the creation of a “safe...
Over the last few weeks, the northwestern area of Idlib province in Syria has come under constant bombardment from regime forces and its allies. With a disturbing civilian casualty count mounting and a nation in upheaval after years of civil war, waning global attention is causing concern that one...
With the MENA region quickly becoming Russia’s most profitable destination in terms of exporting arms, the correlation of foreign policy interests is clear. Involved in armed conflicts on two fronts, in eastern Ukraine and Syria, the Russian Federation’s dual campaigns are often closely...
The final rebel-held province brings into focus all the pressures on Turkey in the Syrian Civil War. “Protection comes firstly from God, and after that it’s up to the Turks,” Mohammad al-Youssef, a 33-year-old resident of the village of al-Surman, southeast of Idlib city, Syria, was quoted...
Donald Trump’s Syria “policy” has been largely reactionary and too reliant upon military force, ignoring opportunities to negotiate an end to the war. On April 13, US President Donald Trump authorized what he called a “perfectly executed strike” against Syrian President Bashar...
The Syrian War, apart from its horrendous humanitarian toll, is now for all intents and purposes an international conflict. Syria’s civil war has reached a magnitude unforeseen by anyone in the conflict’s seven-year course. Not in 2011, when it began. Not in 2012 when President Barack Obama...
Weaknesses and inconsistencies in Turkish strategy leave it exposed to Russian objectives in the Syrian civil conflict. In November 2015, a Turkish F16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M on the Syrian-Turkish border, sparking a diplomatic row that resulted in painful Russian sanctions...
