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The recent Israeli air strikes are a further blow to any hope of "peaceful" resolution and a potential call to arms for the Obama administration that has so far refused to send troops to Syria.
In the past two years, Western media coverage has focused on the growing popularity of Salafist jihadi groups like the Nusra Front (Jabhat Al-Nusra) in Syria. These groups have become both an argument to intervene militarily, as well as a reason to stay out.
This past week I've had the chance to meet and talk with a lot of people in Domiz camp. Adults at the camp are rarely as blunt as the kids, and nearly always tell me things are okay, and services are alright.
In the year since Domiz refugee camp opened, it has grown to the size of a small city. 40,000 people live here; nearly 40 times the population of the country town Yea, where I grew up in Australia.
War still rages in Syria - a fact that we are too quick to forget. The second birthday of the crisis has long passed and resolution doesn't appear to be on the horizon. When Syria-related news does reach our media outlets and Twitter feeds, it usually focuses on chemical weapons or possible intervention by the US. There is little talk of the abhorrent humanitarian crisis, which deteriorates daily.
In the coming weeks UN, NATO, EU, USA, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and many others will have intense debates on what to do. Will the talking heads finally reach common ground and start acting accordingly? Stopping this war, is it really too complex, as many people tend to think? I don't think so.
I believe Syria will be free soon, but the price they will have paid will be huge. And we will pay a massive price too if we stay silent about it. You can donate generously for the rehabilitation of the Syrian people, but more importantly you can lobby your MP and put pressure on the government to help resource the opposition.
So what happened to us as we evolved from shaggy haired Cold War rioters to studious devotees to our laptops? We know more, we appear to be more independent politically as seen in the diverse reaction to Thatcher's death, surely we should be more politically active?
The Syrian uprising has torn Syrian artists and no less Dahoul. He is clearly tortured by events back home. Yet he does not wholly support the uprising either.
David Cameron has said he and Russian president Vladimir Putin share "fundamental aims" in seeking an end to the bloodshed in Syria. Speaking durin...
Syria likely has little choice in continuing to acquiesce in the shipments of weapons to Hezbollah via its territory. The last thing the Assad regime needs now is a war with Israel, but it is now far too weak to call the shots itself.
I joined Unicef after about six months of working with the NGO. Being in Unicef gives me the chance to stay in my country, keep a job, and help vulnerable children at the same time. Life here does get lonely sometimes, with my family and friends out of the country. Everyone goes home before sunset and prefers to stay indoors for safety, which leaves no room for social life after work. I go home in the evening and continue working. Power supply is erratic, and water is available only every few days, and only for a few hours.
Syria is the deadliest place for journalists, who are deliberately targeted by both the government and rebel groups, according to a new human rights r...
In fact it's always timely to be reminded of the fact that journalists are a vital pillar of any properly functioning democratic society. And this is notwithstanding the recent hammering that some parts of the profession have taken in this country over phone-hacking and other illegal activity. The fall-out from Leveson shouldn't distract us from the extremely serious work that journalists regularly do.
Out of all the places to meet Zuheir Salem, the number two man of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB), a David Brent-style office in Alperton, north London, is probably the least expected. The office of the SMB is so elusive that even the security guard does not know what the SMB are or what they do.
The Syrian conflict entered its bloodiest month in March, with more than 6,000 people killed, including more than 500 women and children, according to...
If you think Syria is a ghastly mess now, just wait till the rebels finally topple Bashar al-Assad. If I wanted to be vulgar (hell, why not?), I'd say: "You ain't seen nothing yet."
Puffing on a cigarette, with an AK-47 rifle slung casually on his shoulders, this seven-year-old Syrian boy’s childhood appears well and truly over....
I'm just back from a couple of days in Jordan looking at the incredible work that Save the Children are doing with the Syrian refugees in the country. Jordan is a country of only six million people and, if current estimates are correct, there will be more than a million Syrians in the country by the end of this year.
Walid Saffour is sitting in a light, minimalist office overlooking Hyde Park. A representative of the Syrian National Coalition of the Revolutionary Opposition, he seems like a cross between a gentle Syrian uncle and a seasoned diplomat. Yet while he is affable and polite, there is an intrinsic reserve about him.
Massacres of one sort or another have become part and parcel of Syria's bloody two years. The country's uprising began with a moderately small-scale protest in the city of Daraa on 15 March 2011. Within the space of two days, as the Daraa protests intensified, the security forces had shot dead 15 peaceful protesters, the first in what we now know would become a huge number of similarly horrible incidents.
Human rights campaigners have warned that Syrian opposition fighters are conducting summary killings, using child soldiers, sectarian violence and com...
As many as two million children have had their lives torn apart by the bloody conflict in Syria as the fighting enters its third year with no end in s...
I met an injured soldier in Yamadiya hospital with bits of shrapnel stuck on his face who displayed this extraordinary morale, saying, "May God heal me quickly so that I can return to fight that oppressor." The doctor did not seem very optimistic about his recovery.
Britain has urged the Syrian opposition not to give up on talks that could help end the terror in the country, after the rebels representative said th...
