More than 190,000 work permits have been issued to Syrian refugees in Jordan, said Jordan’s Minister of Foreign and Expatriate Affairs, Ayman Safadi, at the recent IVth Brussels Conference on Support for the Future of Syria and the Region.
On 30 June 2020, the UN raised a total of $7.7 billion in humanitarian aid for Syria at the virtual UN donor conference on Syria in Brussels, Belgium.
Syria has been devastated by more than nine years of war that has displaced half of the country’s population. The war in Syria has killed more than 400,000 people and sparked a refugee exodus to neighbouring countries and Europe.
On 21 June 2020, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 16 people for links with the terrorist Al-Nusra group in Syria. The court sentenced 13 defendants to life in prison, and three others to 15 years on charges of joining Al-Nusra Front and participating in its operations.
A web of relationships between Turkey, Russia, Iran, and China have to a significant degree shaped Middle Eastern and North African geopolitics. The fragility of those relationships, however, begs the question whether fluidity in regional geopolitics rather than paradigm shifts is, at least for now, the name of the game.
Early June saw Syria erupt into nationwide demonstrations against the president, Bashar al-Assad. A beleaguered population, exhausted by years of civil conflict, were at the end of their tether. Spiralling oil and food prices, deteriorating economic conditions and the collapse…
During its heyday in 2014-2015, Islamic State (IS) conquered great tracts of Iraq and Syria and ruled over some 11 million people. It took four years for the US coalition, frelying heavily on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), slowly…
On 3 June 2020, Russia confirmed the delivery of more MiG-29 combat aircraft to Syria; just days after the US military had accused Moscow of using Syria to transfer warplanes to Libya. This is the “second batch” of advanced MiG-29…
Lebanon is in a poor way. By January 2020 its currency had lost over 50 percent in purchasing power against the US dollar, and the country was ablaze as furious protesters took to the streets to condemn the stagnant economy,…
On 11 May 2020, Amnesty International reported that during the past year, Russian-backed Syrian regime forces had carried out 18 attacks on medical facilities and schools in northwest Syria. The report said that these acts amount to “war crimes”.
On 20 April 2020, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Javad Zarif, met Syrian dictator President, Bashar Al-Assad, in Damascus.