Ola Rifai Apr 4, 2017 Earlier last week, dozens of the government green buses pulled out of al-Waer neighborhood in central Homs carrying 2000 people; 300 of them were fighters; the buses’ final destination was…
Ola Rifai Feb 23, 2017 Paradoxically, all parties engaged in the Syrian war do not miss an opportunity to stress their determination for a political solution to end the almost 6 year-old conflict. Alas, these…
Ola Rifai Dec 11, 2016 Today marks the third week in the Russian and Syrian Regime onslaught to control eastern Aleppo. After 15 days of continuous bombardments and, nearly, a year of besieging of some 250,000…
Ola Rifai Sep 14, 2016 On August 24th Turkey, backed by American jets and its NATO allies, sent tanks and especial forces into Syria with the main aim of driving away ISIS off her southern borders, as Turkish…
Ola Rifai Aug 4, 2016 Abo Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) declared in an unprecedented video statement last week the detachment of his group from al-Qaeda, and revealed that JN would now be…
Ola Rifai Jul 13, 2016 A triple Suicide bombing and gun shooting at Ataturk airport last week has rung the security alarm loudly in the world’s main capitals. The terrorist attack that killed 42 people at Istanbul…
Ola Rifai Mar 15, 2016 On March 15, 2011, around noon time, dozens of Syrian youth protested in the heart of Damascus chanting for freedom and singing in a confident loud tone ‘Syrian people are one’. This was the…
Ola Rifai Feb 22, 2016 The two tiny towns of Tal Rifaat and Azaz in the very north of Syria occupied the headlines for the last couple of days, and further became the focal point of what some dub a ‘reduced World…
SUMMARY OF DELIBERATIONS OF PARTICIPANTS PROSPECTS FOR GETTING BEYOND THE STALEMATE – Prof. Raymond Hinnebusch, Director, Centre for Syrian Studies The Syria 2015 Conference, “Getting Beyond the Stalemate,” held…
Scholarly Research presented at Syira: Moving Beyond the Stalemate July 2015 Ibrahim Al-Marashi – Has the Syrian Civil War Reached a ‘Mutually Hurting Stalemate? Maria Aurora Sottimano – The Syria Interim Government:…