Spotlight

The Alawite Tragedy
The recent massacres of Syria’s Alawites mark a painful end to a long chapter in the community’s history and highlight the existential challenges it faces following Assad’s fall.

Whipping Up a War
India and Pakistan face a situation close to war in one of the worst clashes between the countries to take place in more than two decades. Amid military exchanges, the trading of accusations and an information war straddling traditional and social media, both publics appear primed to support further actions.

Women Released From Syria’s Prisons Share Their Stories of Incarceration
Three women released from imprisonment under Syria’s Assad regime share their stories of torture, abuse and the ongoing struggle to rebuild their lives.

Living in Part-Time Exile on the Niger-Nigeria Border
Violent bandit attacks have rendered Illela, once a thriving rural hub in northwestern Nigeria, a ghost town by night and created a peculiar new kind of refugee in the region: the cross-border commuter. Many residents flee to safety each night across the border to the small Nigerien town of Birni-N'Konni.

An Unwelcome Homecoming
I recently returned to Syria with my family to reconnect with the loved ones I left behind when I moved to Lebanon a few years ago. What began as a peaceful evening in Jaramana, near Damascus, quickly descended into violence.

Israel Wages War for Land and Water in Syria’s South
Israeli forces have moved into southern Syria following the fall of the Assad regime, seizing strategic points and vital water resources, with disastrous effects for the area’s farmers.

A Public Letter Criticizing Israel Reveals a Schism Among Britain’s Jews
In a rare move, 36 members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews — the oldest body representing U.K. Jews — published an open letter in the Financial Times criticizing Israel’s war in Gaza. What followed the letter’s publication was an uncharacteristically public bust-up within the British Jewish community.