L'Orient Today

20/12/2024

A small warehouse with a half-open metal door spews an indigestible mix of medical equipment and ready-made meals onto the tarmac of the military base. Until recently, it was occupied by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Iraqi and Lebanese auxiliaries, including Hezbollah, in the shadow of Sayyida Zeinab's mausoleum, eleven kilometers south of Damascus.

Two days before the fall of the Syrian regime on Dec. 8, the pro-Iranian militias who controlled the suburb surrounding the sacred site left the area, quickly replaced by Syria's new strongmen, who promised to preserve access to the shrine.

“Inside, we found a refrigerator with human remains,” says Sekaoui. “We called the White Helmets to intervene, but they couldn't come until today, as they're being called in from all sides to deal with similar cases.”

Emmanuel Haddad writes...

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📷 Emmanuel Haddad

A small warehouse with a half-open metal door spews an indigestible mix of medical equipment and ready-made meals onto the tarmac of the military base. Until recently, it was occupied by the...

20/12/2024

Two figures gave impetus to the presidential dossier on Wednesday: Walid Joumblatt and Sleiman Frangieh.

In the run-up to the Jan. 9 parliamentary session dedicated to elect a president, to which Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, confident and optimistic, invited the diplomatic corps in Lebanon, the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc, which mainly consists of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), led by Teymour Joumblatt, said that it will support the candidacy of Lebanese Army Chief Joseph Aoun for the presidency.

This decision was taken after the bloc’s meeting, attended by former PSP leader Walid Joumblatt, his son, and MPs Marwan Hamadeh, Akram Chehayeb, Wael Abu Faour, Hady Abou el-Hosn, Faysal al-Sayegh, Ragy el-Saad and Bilal Abdallah.

Rita Sassine writes...

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📷 Lebanese Army website

19/12/2024

After its Dec. 9 meeting, the committee overseeing the cease-fire deal held another meeting on Dec. 18, in Naqoura, amid a volatile situation on the ground.

Almost three weeks since the cease-fire deal came into effect, Lebanon is still waiting for the guns to fall silent. The deal, which came into force at 4 a.m. on Nov. 27, put an end — on paper at...

19/12/2024

As the main opposition group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) consolidates control in post-Assad Syria, women’s rights advocates warn that without concrete guarantees, HTS’ outward assurances of inclusivity and moderation may prove superficial, leaving women marginalized under a rebranded regime.

On Tuesday, Ubaida Arnaout, spokesperson for HTS’ interim political administration under the Military Operations Management, sparked criticism for an off-the-cuff remark about women's roles.

In a heavily circulated video, Arnaout told a crowd of people gathered around him: “The essence of women and their biological and psychological nature does not align with all positions, such as the minister of defense, for example.”

How representative are his views of the future government?

Ghadir Hamadi writes...

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📷 AFP

19/12/2024

The recapture of territories once held by the Assad regime has thrust Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) into the spotlight. Born in 2011 under the patronage of the Islamic State and affiliated with al-Qaeda until 2016, the group now claims to have severed ties with its past. Yet, the world remains skeptical.

How much of Abdallah Azzam's 1980s ideology—reshaping jihad into a global, obligatory struggle centered on martyrdom—still influences HTS today?

Understanding the inner workings of HTS, a group with a fundamentally hybrid ideology, is no simple task. Officially established in Idlib in 2017 by former members of Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS has undergone a striking evolution in recent years.

Stephanie Khouri writes...

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📷 Jaimee Lee Haddad

18/12/2024

The White Helmets, a Syrian rescue organization, announced the discovery of bodies and bones in a warehouse in the suburbs of Damascus, where such discoveries have been increasing following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

17:02 Beirut Time The cease-fire monitoring committee made up of the United States, France, UNIFIL, the Lebanese Army and the Israeli army met today in Naqoura. The mechanism will...

18/12/2024

"When you talk about this kind of organized killing by the state and its organs, we really haven't seen anything quite like this since the N***s," said the American lawyer, who led prosecutions at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals.

QUTAYFAH — An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run ''machinery of death'' under toppled...

17/12/2024

While Jolani stated that he does not intend to meddle in Lebanon’s internal affairs, the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leader said he was ready to support Army Chief Joseph if elected president.

In reaction to the remarks made by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohamed Jolani, some Lebanese analysts and officials said, “It’s none of his business.”Jolani had indicated that he is...

17/12/2024

Few Syrians, like Khalil Aindoura, have managed to escape the human slaughterhouse of Sednaya.

Khalil Aindoura’s first instinct when he heard gunfire at 3 a.m. in his cell at Sednaya prison was to assume the guards had come to finish them off. He had no way of knowing that it was actually...

17/12/2024

I never imagined I would one day return to Syria. During my last (purely transactional) visit to my father's country in 2017, I was convinced that I would never need to return. So, I took with me all the documents I might one day need: Identity card, passport, exemption from military service.

Of course, all this happened in record time, as I was forced to quickly return to Lebanon – my mother's country, where I was born but have no right to nationality – to escape the “barbaric state.”

In this state, people have a nasty habit of disappearing without a trace, walls seem to have ears, and countless portraits of the ‘eternal leader’ and his beloved father keep a watchful eye on our every move.

But, for millions of Syrians around the world, the sudden liberation of the country on Dec. 8 made the hope of a return suddenly possible.

Salah Hijazi writes...

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📷 AFP

16/12/2024

Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured, in first statement since the fall of the regime, that he did not flee "premeditatedly" when Damascus fell, AFP reported.

Bashar al-Assad claimed that Russia has requested his "evacuation" from Damascus, in his statement.

He added that the state is now "in the hands of terrorism."

15:15 Beirut Time In his statement, Bashar al-Assad claimed that the state is now ''in the hands of terrorism.'' 15:15 Beirut Time In his statement, Bashar al-Assad claimed that...

16/12/2024

At the heart of this victory also lies an extraordinary group of Syrian journalists whose work, in the face of unimaginable odds, illuminated the crimes of a dictatorship and chronicled the plight of a people determined to reclaim their freedom.

The collapse of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, 2024 marked the end of decades-long oppression by one of the most brutal dictatorships. As analysts and experts, legitimate or self-declared, have been...

16/12/2024

Among the horrific images coming out from Sednaya, the pandemonium of Assad’s prison hell, is a swollen face bearing the marks of torture. It is the face of Mazen al-Hamada. Two moles on his right cheek, a protruding jaw, gaunt features: enough for those who've met him to recognize him, even when inanimate.

As Sednaya’s gates opened, many were asking after Mazen, who had disappeared four years ago when he risked a return to Syria. His sister, Amal al-Hamada, came to identify his body at the morgue of Damascus' al-Mejtahed Hospital.

The 47-year-old activist had been executed just days before ‘the slaughterhouse’ where he was being detained was liberated and the regime he’d spent years speaking out against was toppled.

Gabriel Blondel and Caroline Hayek write...

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📷 Mohammed Yassin

13/12/2024

They were assassinated 19 and 17 years ago respectively, to the day, amid Lebanon’s struggle for sovereignty and freedom from Syrian tutelage under then-president Emile Lahoud.

Gebran Tueni, a former MP for Beirut and CEO of an-Nahar daily, and François al-Hage, head of operations in the army command at the time of his assassination, continue to be two leading national figures despite being assassinated almost two decades ago.

However, the commemoration of their assassination has taken a different form following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Dec. 8. Their assassinations were blamed on Damascus, as were the series of attacks that rocked the country between 2005 and 2013, despite the withdrawal of Syrian troops on April 26, 2005, after 40 years of occupation.

Layal Dagher writes...

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📷 L'Orient Le Jour archives

13/12/2024

According to World Bank estimates, domestic production would need at least a decade to return to its 2011 level.

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, now in exile in Moscow, has left behind a battered economy, ravaged by 13 years of uprisings, repression, counter-revolutions, civil war and mass...

13/12/2024

The upheaval that surrounds the crumbling of Assad's regime has created favorable conditions for the jihadist group, which has already tried to intensify its attacks.

This will be a crucial question for the parties involved in post-Assad governance. On Sunday, a few hours after Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Assad, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)...

12/12/2024

She weaves through the crowd — a tide of men, old and young, wounded and armed fighters — paying no attention to the chaos around her. She crosses the massive gate and plunges into the familiar depths of a place she can barely recognize.

Hanin scans each room, searching every corner, struggling to make sense of what she sees. She picks up a page from an inventory lying on the ground, examines it carefully, and places it back on a ledge with great care. Earlier that morning, she had visited the morgues of Damascus’ main hospitals.

In 2018, the young nurse was offered ‘a golden job’ thanks to a connection — weekly pay that could cover two months of rent. The catch? It was in a prison. She accepted.

Caroline Hayek and Zeina Antonios write...

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📷 AFP

12/12/2024

A few days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, our photographer Mohammed Yassin walked through the streets in Damascus, where civilians and rebels alike are carrying on with day-to-day life under a new reality.

📷Mohammed Yassin