Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Fighters of Al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria carry their weapons during a parade at the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, near the border with Turkey January 2, 2014. (REUTERS/Yaser Al-Khodor)

Pushed Out of their Own War

by Hannah Lucinda Smith | Jan 21, 2014 | Features

Akçakale, Asharq Al-Awsat—You could chart the path of the Syrian conflict through the wounds on Abdul Latif’s legs. The right one was studded with a series of pink depressions that climbed up from his ankle to his kneecap. “They are shrapnel wounds. I got them when I...

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A picture taken on October 25, 2013 shows members of jihadist group Al-Nusra Front taking part in a parade calling for the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria, at the Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood of Aleppo. (AFP/Karam Al-Masri)

The Revolution Betrayed

by Hannah Lucinda Smith | Dec 31, 2013 | Features

Antakya, Asharq Al-Awsat—One of the last things that Mahmoud did in Syria was to fit a new front door. It was another example of everything that was going wrong in Aleppo. A month before, he had upgraded his pistol to a submachine gun. Now he was fixing big metal...

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A member of the Free Syrian Army plays with children along a street in Aleppo’s Bustan al-Qasr district August 23, 2013. Picture taken August 23, 2013. (REUTERS/Loubna Mrie)

A Stubborn Dignity amid Syria’s Tragedy

by Hannah Lucinda Smith | Dec 25, 2013 | Majalla Blogs

In September, I sat and ate dinner with a friend in a fish restaurant in Istanbul. He was one of the first Syrians I met when I moved out to Turkey to cover the conflict, and he had become a good friend. I had always thought of him as one of the lucky ones, an urban,...

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Photo of school wall destroyed in Jabhat Al-Nusra assault on Alouk. (Hannah Lucinda Smith/Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Boy who Grew up to Betray his Village

by Hannah Lucinda Smith | Dec 23, 2013 | Features

Ras Al-Ain, Asharq Al-Awsat—Mohammed Ezzo Heloub was, by all accounts, a very well-respected young man in Alouk. The locals in the village knew him as a baby, and they watched him grow up to be become a schoolteacher and then, later, a lawyer. He was a 30-year-old...

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Syrian fighters of the YPG (Kurdish Popular Protection Units) man a guard post at a building near the frontline, in Ras al-Ayn (Seri Kanye in Kurdish), al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria, 22 October 2013. The YPG is composed of youths from communities across the Kurdish region of Syria. Kurds, the largest ehtnic minority group in Syria, reportedly make up nine percent of the country’s population. EPA/MAURICIO MORALES

Land Mines in Ras Al-Ain

by Hannah Lucinda Smith | Dec 7, 2013 | Features

Ras Al-Ain, Asharq Al-Awsat—His name was Mahmoud, but to his friends he was known as Shaheen. They gathered in their dozens on a November morning, huddled in small, subdued clusters under clouds that threatened to spill rain. Yesterday Shaheen was their comrade, just...