DAMASCUS - Syrian capital Damascus is being flooded with refugees. The devastation in Beirut is beginning to show in another capital. The disaster response director at the Damascus headquarters of the Red Crescent, Raed al-Tollin, told IPS that while he does not have...
LATAKIA, Syria – Hezbollah, a group often misunderstood by Westerners, is a militant as well as political group. The Arabic name means "Party of God." Led by the charismatic Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese Islamist Shi'ite group was set up in 1982 to resist...
LEBANON-SYRIA BORDER - Refugees fleeing Beirut in the face of Israeli air attacks are speaking of "haphazard bombings" and a crisis situation developing in the city. Israeli warplanes bombed the suburbs of Beirut overnight, killing three people and wounding...
DAMASCUS - Syrians are outraged over Israeli air strikes in Lebanon that have killed scores of civilians and closed down Beirut's international airport. Early Thursday morning, Israeli air strikes targeted the new Rafiq al-Hariri international airport. Israeli naval...
With Ali Fadhil FALLUJAH - It could be called perhaps just another raid. Early in the morning on Sunday, June 18, U.S. military helicopters landed near the home of Sinan Abdul-Ilah al-Mashadani in the al-Jughaifi district of Fallujah. Within two minutes the doors of...
Surprise, surprise. In an interview with John King from CNN last Thursday, Dick Cheney said that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would be the "worst possible thing we could do." Doing his best to stoke the always simmering fears of so many U.S. residents (let us be...
"My personal opinion is that the only way we will lose this war is if we pull out prematurely," said Col. Jeffrey Snow, who commands a brigade of soldiers in Iraq. Snow, as reported by AFP on June 30, fears losing public support in the U.S. for the ongoing occupation...
with Ali Fadhil One and a half years after the November 2004 U.S. military assault on Fallujah, residents tell of ongoing suffering, lack of jobs, little reconstruction and continuing violence. The US military launched Operation Phantom Fury against the city of...
On Tuesday, June 13, while Mr. Bush spent a brave five hours in the "green zone" of Baghdad with puppet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, at least 36 people were killed across Iraq amid a wave of bombings. Eighteen of those died in a spasm of bombings in the oil...
With Ali Fadhil RAMADI - As the threat of a giant U.S. military operation in Ramadi lingers and sporadic clashes plague the city daily, residents struggle to cope, both inside and outside the sealed city. A week spent in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province west of...
