Syrian Shi’ites and other minorities flee to Lebanon, fearing Islamist rule
Beirut, Lebanon/Nubl, Syria Reuters Tens of thousands of Syrians, mostly Shi’ite Muslims, have fled to Lebanon since Sunni Muslim Islamists toppled Bashar al-Assad, fearing persecution despite assurances from the new rulers in Damascus that they will be safe, a Lebanese official said. At the border with Lebanon, where thousands of people were trying to leave […]
In Assad’s once loyal hometown, Syria’s rebels win statement of support
Damascus, Syria Reuters The Sunni-led Islamist rebels who toppled Syria’s Bashar al-Assad met elders in the former president’s Alawite hometown on Monday and received their support, in what residents said was an encouraging sign of tolerance from the country’s new rulers. How the rebels treat the sizeable Alawite population, who widely backed Assad and from […]
Assad loyalists shaken by his fall, some relieved by lack of violence
Reuters Confusion and fear have swept through Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect and other loyalist communities since his fall, with many questioning how the collapse was so rapid after so many of their members had died to keep him in power. Loyalists spoke with a sense of resignation about the implosion of his 24-year rule and […]
After quake, Syria’s northern coast ravaged by wildfires
Mashquita, Syria Reuters At 72, Syrian farmer Izzadin Zuhaira has survived war, displacement and a devastating earthquake in February. But the forest fires razing his home province of Latakia last week, turning his beloved orchards to ash, were the worst he had seen. “I’ve never seen any weather like this. The soil and the trees […]
Wildfires bring death and destruction to sun-scorched Mediterranean
Rhodes, Greece/Algiers, Algeria Reuters A plane fighting wildfires in Greece crashed killing two airmen on Tuesday, as large areas of the Mediterranean sweltered under an intense summer heatwave and Algeria battled to control an inferno in which at least 34 people have died. The plane, which had been dropping water, came down on a hillside […]
Earthquake leaves Syrians across frontlines with shared catastrophe
Beirut, Lebanon Reuters On one side of Syria’s civil war, a man in army fatigues carried a lifeless child’s ashen body from the rubble of a shattered building in the government-held city of Hama. Across a frontline on another side of Syria, a rescue worker in the white helmet and black-yellow vest of the Syrian […]