In a bunker with a woman battlefield commander in Syria: ‘To be under the control of a patriarchal husband? I prefer to be here’
Battle-hardened officer lives like a soldier ready for action to safeguard ‘the people’
Syria
The secret history of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa
Is the man once known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani intent on moderating or a brutal strongman?
Israel’s latest defence strategy sees move to secure border areas
Recent military action suggests IDF working to ensure enemies unable to deploy near borders
Syria’s interim president secures agreement with Druze and Kurds
Ahmed Al-Sharaa has pledged to make Syria ‘inclusive’ and respect all minorities
Hope for Syria as government and Kurds sign deal to merge forces
Kurdish community to get citizenship and language rights denied under Assad regime
Syria faces demands for accountability after civilian killings
Clashes between Assad fighters and country’s new Islamist rulers kill more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians
In restive Syria, who are the Alawites?
Minority group supports Bashar al-Assad and is now subject to reprisal attacks
Syria’s Sharaa pleas for communal peace as clashes continue
More than 1,000 people have been killed in two days of fighting in Alawite region, war monitor says
Almost 200 die in Syria as loyalists of deposed Assad regime clash with government forces
Violence deals blow to interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rule of shattered country
Civilians put themselves in firing line between Turkey and northeast Syria
Tishreen Dam, on the Euphrates river, has become a flashpoint in the conflict between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army
‘We’ve become used to being betrayed’: US aid cuts affect camps for people accused of Isis affiliation
Trump spending freeze threatens security arrangements and could make it harder to stop resurgence of Islamic State
‘Guantánamo on steroids’: Inside a prison for suspected Islamic State members in Syria
During my visit, an administrator says ‘that’s correct’ when I ask if many detainees had died from tuberculosis, and ‘no answer’ when I request the exact figure
I let chatty Stephen the taxi driver rant about ‘those people’ as if they are not my people
“This is not the Ireland I grew up in. It’s gone so far now! They are just letting everyone in,” he says, and I’m not sure if he wants me to respond as a migrant or an Irish person
Jailed Kurdish leader calls for PKK to ‘disarm, dissolve’ after four-decade campaign that has cost 40,000 lives
Abdullah Ocalan is serving life sentence, but could be freed under tentative Turkish peace process
Moving from Syria to Ireland: My daughters speak Arabic and English and they learn Irish at school
Eyvon Bastouri from Syria came to Ireland in 2016. She has a busy life, juggling two children and her own projects, including her fledgling baking business
Egypt fears Syria’s revolutionary fervour could be contagious
After years of economic misery, discontent with the regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could explode into protest in Egypt
Searching for Syria’s disappeared: ‘We can’t always give answers, but we can give part of the story'
Amer Matar, who fled Syria in 2011, runs an online archive that helps people to search for information about their loved ones
Fiction in translation: A glimpse of failed far-right coup leader’s assured gifts as a storyteller
Works by Yukio Mishima, Samar Yazbek, Solvej Balle, Zahran Alqasmi and Vincenzo Latronico
Vincent Durac: Even if ceasefire holds, war in Gaza will affect whole region for years
West Bank at risk of even more violence, and events in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria have significantly weakened Iranian regime
‘Assad was no friend of the Palestinians’: gravediggers of a once-thriving suburb of Damascus devastated in Syrian war
The residents of Yarmouk ‘need help rebuilding’ the enclave of the Palestinian diaspora, which was reduced to rubble by Syrian and Russian air forces
Saudi Arabia calls for end to sanctions on Syria after Riyadh meetings
Regional and western ministers along with senior diplomats pursue ways to advance country’s recovery
Israel in Syria: ‘We’re the only part of the country that didn’t celebrate the fall of Assad’
Binyamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli troops to ‘take over’ a buffer zone with Syria upended decades of relative calm along the de-facto border between the two countries
Diplomats tread the road to Damascus as Syria’s new regime seeks international support
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has held talks with European and US officials, as well regional government ministers
Syrians accuse rulers of imposing Islamist agenda in new curriculum
Critics fear rebel-backed government is pushing religious vision on to what has long been a secular country
Unstable new world order has frightening echoes of 1930s and 1940s
Trump’s re-election fuels global turmoil in which Putin is the biggest of many autocrats blending kleptocracy and dictatorship. US institutions and international treaties are fading, and Ukraine and Palestine have been betrayed
The Syrian neighbourhood at the heart of Assad’s killing machine
Residents returning to Tadamon, once a rebel stronghold near Damascus, find mass graves and expropriated homes
One of the casualties of 12 months of war in the Middle East was the rule of international law
In the space of a single year, the Islamic Republic of Iran effectively lost three of the key elements in its so-called axis of resistance
Syria: 14 security personnel killed in attempted arrest of Sednaya prison officer
Clash broke out in Tartous province, a stronghold of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority
Asma al-Assad, wife of ousted Syrian leader, reportedly severely ill with leukaemia
Assad was diagnosed with acute form of disease in May and has been given 50/50 chance of survival
Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen, says army
Syria cautions Iran on spreading chaos in country; and Israel fails to curb armed gangs looting Gaza food convoys
After the fall of Assad, a family reunites
The future is far from certain, but over juice and cakes one group of relatives celebrates finally being in the same room together
Western indifference to Israel’s thirst for war defines a grotesque year of hypocrisy
As China and Russia weigh up their options in anticipation of Donald Trump’s second presidency, horrified countries in the Global South see Gaza as an emblem of US and European double standards
Top US officials meet new Syrian rulers
US diplomats discuss transition principles with representatives of Syria’s new de facto rulers led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
Vladimir Putin claims war in Ukraine has made Russia ‘much stronger’
Moscow ‘ready for negotiations and compromises’ to end the fighting, Russian president says during carefully controlled press conference
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