Tag - bashar-assad

 
 

BASHAR ASSAD

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) shakes hands with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 16, 2025
Syrian leader seeks reset in Russia relations in Putin meeting
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was expected to push for Moscow to extradite Bashar Assad, who fled there after being toppled.
A drone view of the mass grave site in the desert near the eastern Syrian town of Dhumair on Feb. 27
WORLD
Oct 15, 2025
Assad government secretly moved bodies from mass grave to cover up killings
The bodies were moved to cover up the Assad government’s crimes and help restore its image, witnesses with direct knowledge of the two-year effort said.
The Nagoya High Court overturned a lower court decision that obliged the government to recognize a Syrian man as a refugee.
JAPAN
Sep 25, 2025
Court rules government not obliged to recognize Syrian man as refugee
The court overturned a lower court decision that obliged the government to recognize a Syrian man as a refugee.
Fidaa al-Eissa hangs a rug to dry on the rooftop of her home, surrounded by the wreckage left by the civil war, in the Qaboun neighborhood of Damascus on Feb. 21.
WORLD
Jun 30, 2025
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria
The overthrow of Bashar Assad in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs.
An Israeli Druze woman looks over the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria on May 4.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2025
Israel’s Syria policy could fuel more conflict and disorder
Israeli policy, part of a decades-old strategy of undermining Sunni power, risks paving the way for the emergence of a formidable new threat.
Smoke rises while members of the Syrian forces ride on a vehicle as they battle against an insurgency by fighters from ousted leader Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, in Latakia, Syria, on March 7.
WORLD
Mar 17, 2025
'Pray for us. They've arrived': How Syria descended into revenge bloodshed
Just three months after Bashar Assad's ouster, parts of western Syria descended into vengeful bloodletting.
A woman reacts next to one of the pictures of victims of a recent wave of sectarian violence targeting Syria's Alawite minority in the west of the country along the Mediterranean sea coast, during a protest condemning the attacks in Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Tuesday.
WORLD
Mar 12, 2025
Syria determined to 'prevent unlawful revenge,' says fact-finding committee
The latest violence has marked the gravest threat to Syria's new authorities, calling into question their ability to govern.
Syrian army personnel gather as they head toward Latakia to join the fight against the fighters linked to Syria's ousted leader Bashar Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, on Friday.
WORLD
Mar 10, 2025
Syrian leader scrambles to contain deadliest violence in years
Clashes that a war monitoring group said had already killed over 1,000 people in Syria continued for a fourth day.
A soldier stands guard at a roundabout in Latakia, Syria, on Sunday. Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa called for national unity and peace after more than 1,000 people were reportedly killed in clashes in coastal regions of the country.
WORLD
Mar 9, 2025
Syria's new leader calls for peace as communal clashes continue
More than 1,000 people had been killed in the two days of fighting in the Mediterranean coastal region in some of the worst violence for years in a 13-year-old civil conflict.
A Russian military vehicle heads toward Hmeimim air base in Latakia, Syria, on Dec. 15.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 3, 2025
Russia gambles to keep military bases in post-Assad Syria
Syria's interim president wants to renegotiate the 49-year lease for one base and an indefinite lease for the other to secure better terms.
A member of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard near an image of Assad at the fourth division headquarters in Damascus on Jan. 23.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 3, 2025
Digital discord: Online disinformation sows discontent in Syria
There are fears online disinformation is derailing the transition of power after Sunni Islamist rebels defeated Assad in December.
Syrian police members attend their graduation ceremony at the Police Academy under the Syrian Salvation Government in Damascus, Syria, on Jan. 14.
WORLD
Jan 24, 2025
Syria's new leaders turn to Islamic law in effort to rebuild Assad's police
Syria's new authorities are using Islamic teachings to train a fledgling police force.
People shop at a mall in the town of al-Dana, near Sarmada, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on Dec. 13.
WORLD
Jan 13, 2025
'It was a mafia': Syrian businesses hope for revival after Assad
Syria's new caretaker government has told business leaders it will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy.
Syria's de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa (left), greets a member of Qatar's delegation in Damascus on Dec. 23.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 30, 2024
Syria's de facto leader says holding elections could take up to four years
Drafting a new constitution could take up to three years, Ahmed al-Sharaa said, adding that it would take about a year for Syrians to see drastic changes.
Bashar Assad's fall offers a chance to rebuild Syria, but the history of Middle East stabilization is littered with failure, making the coming months crucial.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 26, 2024
Rebuilding Syria after the ouster of the dictator Assad
Hope must be tempered by caution. Across the Middle East, the removal of strongmen has generally produced violent chaos.
Syria symbolized Russia's "great power" status, but Vladimir Putin's failure to stop Bashar Assad's ouster exposed Russia as merely a regional power.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2024
Russia just lost its 'great power' status
If Russia’s war in Ukraine is about identity and empire, its presence in Syria was about prestige and status.
Orthopedic surgeon Mohammed al-Hanash sits at his clinic in Douma, east of the Syrian capital Damascus, on Saturday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 24, 2024
Syrian medics say were coerced into false chemical attack testimony
The medics, who treated the wounded at a field hospital near Damascus after the April 7, 2018, attack, said they were coerced into giving false testimony.
Protesters behead a statue of Saddam Hussein's predecessor, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, president of Iraq from 1968 to 1979, in Baghdad's al-Mansur district in May 2003, erasing one of the last symbols of the Baath Party's 35-year regime.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2024
Can lessons from Iraq's regime change be applied in Syria?
If regional tensions escalate, disruptions to energy supplies could impact global markets, including Japan, which remains disengaged despite the mounting crisis.
Syrians step on posters of Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad, in Homs, Syria, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024
How Bashar Assad's inner circle fled Syria after his fall
The ousted president was accompanied by only a handful of confidants, leaving both family members and loyal aides to find their own means of escape.
Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, a former detainee in a Damascus prison, poses for a picture with his mother at their home in Sarmada, in the northern Syrian Idlib province, on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 16, 2024
Bashar Assad's prisoner #3006 tells his story
When Syrian military intelligence officers detained Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, they told him to forget his name and who he was.

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The second life of Japan's net cafes