Damascus

With Assad gone, Syrian pound starts to recover

The Syrian pound has begun to recover against the dollar after president Bashar al-Assad's ouster, moneychangers and traders said Monday as foreign currencies again became available on the local market. On December 7 -- the day before Damascus fell to a rebel coalition led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group – the rate had plunged to ...

Syria's Kurds Call for End to All Military Operations in the Country

Syria's Kurds, who run a semi-autonomous administration in the northeast, called Monday for an end to all fighting in the country and extended a hand to the new authorities in Damascus. Hussein Othman, the head of the administration's executive council, called for "a stop to military operations over the entire Syrian territory in order to begin a ...

Israel Seeking to 'Expand Borders' Through Golan Plan: Turkey

Turkey on Monday denounced an Israeli plan to double the population living in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights as a bid to "expand its borders". "This decision is a new stage in Israel's goal of expanding its borders through occupation," the foreign ministry said in a statement condemning the move. Israel's government on Sunday approved a ...

EU Sending Envoy to Talk to Syria's New Leaders

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday the bloc's envoy to Syria was going to Damascus to talk to the new Islamist-led rulers, as Western powers stepped up engagement after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. The outreach from Brussels comes after the United States and Britain said they had made contact with the new authorities in Damascus, ...

Syrian Pubs Cautiously Reopen After Islamist Victory

The citizens of Damascus largely celebrated the fall of Bashar al-Assad's hated regime with joy, after 13 long years of brutal civil war. But the city's drinking holes did have one concern. The rebel army that overthrew the former leader was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group which some drinkers feared would forbid the sale of ...

SOHR Reports 60 Israeli Strikes on Syria in a Few Hours

More than 60 Israeli strikes targeted military sites across Syria in the space of a few hours, almost a week after an armed coalition overthrew Bashar al-Assad and seized Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Saturday. The SOHR counted “61 strikes in less than five hours” on Saturday evening by Israel, which has ...

Syrian Christians Who Took on the Challenge of Trust

Introduced by Vincent Gelot, L'Œuvre d'Orient's representative in Syria and Lebanon, the conference featured addresses by Archbishop Jacques Mourad, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Homs, Hama and Debek, Sister Jihane, a member of the Soeurs de Besançon (Sisters of Besançon) and director of Damascus' largest Christian school, and Salim Safir, ...

Turkey Reopens Embassy in Syria as Diplomats Gather for Talks

Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, nearly a week after president Bashar al-Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria's civil war. The move came as Middle Eastern and Western diplomats were meeting in Jordan for high-level talks on Syria, and a day after ...

SOHR Reports Israeli Strikes on Former Syrian Arab Army's Military Sites

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar al-Assad almost a week ago. "Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute" and other related military facilities in Barzeh, ...

Syrian Rebels Took a Year to Plan Assad's Ouster

Syria's Islamist-led rebel alliance had been planning the surprise ouster of President Basher al-Assad for a year, an opposition military leader told the Guardian in an interview published Friday. The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group, which says it has moved away from its roots in Al-Qaeda, has long-controlled a part of northwest ...

Qatar Delegation to Visit Syria Sunday

A delegation from Qatar is due to visit Syria on Sunday for meetings with officials in its transitional government following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, a Qatari diplomat told AFP Friday. "The first Qatari delegation visit to Syria is expected to happen Sunday where they will take the necessary steps to reopen the embassy and ...