OMAR ALBAM

Residents mourn the body of Ayman Salem al-Suleiman, who was reportedly killed in an Israeli drone attack that claimed at least four lives, in Koayiah, southwestern Syria, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Malek Khattab)

Israeli strikes in southwestern Syria kill 6 people as troops clash with residents

Syria’s Foreign Ministry says an Israeli strike in a southwestern village has killed at least six people as Israeli troops occupying the area clashed with local residents.

Syrian families who fled the clashes in Syria hold their luggages as they cross a river marking the border between Syria and northern Lebanon near the village of Heker al-Daher in Akkar province, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Syrian Kurds celebrate deal with Damascus as coastal residents remain wary after violence

In northeast Syria, revelers took to the streets after the announcement of a breakthrough deal between the central government in Damascus and local Kurdish-led authorities.

In this photo released by Syrian state news agency SANA, Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, sign a deal in Damascus, Syria, Monday, March 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)

Syria’s government signs a breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in the northeast

Syria’s interim government has reached a deal with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. It includes a ceasefire and the merging of the main U.S.-backed force there into the Syrian army.

A member of the Syrian government security forces stands guard at a street in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Assad loyalists kill at least 13 police officers in ambush on Syrian forces in coastal town

Gunmen have ambushed a Syrian police patrol in a coastal town leaving at least 13 security members dead and many wounded, a war monitor said.

Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, leaves the podium after speaking during Syria's national dialogue conference at the People’s Palace in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syria’s national dialogue conference held as the battered country seeks to rebuild

Syria’s new rulers have held a long-awaited national dialogue conference to rebuild the country after nearly 14 years of civil war and the fall of former President Bashar Assad. The gathering opened Tuesday in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Participants in Syria's national dialogue conference gather at the Dama Rose hotel in Damascus, Syria, Monday Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syrians express hope and skepticism as national dialogue conference kicks off

A long-awaited national dialogue conference intended to help chart Syria’s political future after the fall of former President Bashar Assad is set to begin.

A man identified as Imad Mohammed Al-Mahmoud, is arrested by security forces in Tadamon, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Three individuals, alleged former operatives with the military security before the fall of Bashar Assad, were arrested accused of being involved in the execution of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Damascus in 2013.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syria arrests 3 men suspected of links to Tadamon massacre in which hundreds were executed

Syrian security forces have arrested three men linked to the 2013 Tadamon massacre, when government forces executed hundreds of blindfolded detainees, shooting them into a trench before setting their bodies on fire.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Syrian White Helmet civil defense workers inspect the area of a car bomb attack that killed least 15 people and wounded dozens, the local Syrian civil defense reported, on the outskirts of the city of Manbij, Syria, Monday. Feb. 3, 2025. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)

Another car bomb in a northern Syria city kills at least 19, mostly women

A hospital worker says at least 19 people are dead after the latest car bomb exploded on the outskirts of a northern Syrian city. Almost all were women. The civil defense says another 15 women were wounded Monday.

Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, walks in the presidential palace ahead of his meeting with Walid Ellafi, Libyan minister of state for communication and political affairs, in Damascus, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy, File)

Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president

The Syrian factions that toppled President Bashar Assad last month have named an Islamist former rebel leader as the country‘s interim president in a push to project a united front as they face the monumental task of rebuilding Syria after nearly 14 years of civil war.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, gestures during a new press conference, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, June 10, 2024. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

UN refugee chief calls for more help for Syria as refugees begin to return en masse

The United Nations refugee chief says some 200,000 refugees have returned to Syria from neighboring countries since the government of Bashar Assad was overthrown last month.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk talks to the press in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday Jan. 15, 2025.(AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

UN human rights chief calls for lifting Western sanctions on Syria as country rebuilds after Assad

The United Nations human rights chief has called for the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on Syria over its yearslong civil war, now that former leader Bashar Assad has been ousted and sent into exile.

Relatives take part in a protest demanding the whereabouts of four activists who disappeared during the war between opposition groups and former President Bashar Assad's forces, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Protesters in Syria demand justice for disappeared activists and accountability from all factions

Protesters in Syria have held a sit-in demanding justice for four activists who were forcibly disappeared in 2013 and whose fate remains one of the most haunting mysteries of the country’s 13-year civil war.

A banner with an image depicting the ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad is placed on the fire as a Syrian member of the rebel forces destroys drugs and alcoholic beverages, found at a complex building, in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Clashes between Islamists now in power in Syria and Assad’s supporters kill 6 fighters

A British-based war monitor said clashes between Islamists who took over Syria and supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad’s government have killed six Islamic fighters and wounded others.

Hilala Meryeh, a 64-year-old Palestinian mother of four, weeps in the middle of the dingy identification room after finding her son's body at the Al-Mojtahed Hospital morgue in Damascus, Syria, on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. Many are flocking to morgues, hoping to identify loved ones who were either killed or imprisoned under President Bashar Assad's government, which collapsed over the weekend. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Syrians flock to morgues looking for loved ones who perished in Assad’s prisons

Many bodies have been found in Syrian detention centers and prisons since President Bashar al-Assad’s government fell.

Violence spikes in Syria’s opposition-held northwest, killing civilians and striking infrastructure

A U.N. official has said he is “alarmed” by escalating violence in Syria’s opposition-held northwest in recent days, including airstrikes that hit near a food distribution site for displaced families and others that struck a power station and disabled water stations.

Walid Mohammed Abdel Bakki shows a picture of his dead son, Ali, on his mobile phone, in Idlib, Syria, Monday, May 27, 2024. After Ali's death in Lebanon, Bakki paid a smuggler $1,200 to take him and his 11-year-old son back to northwestern Syria, a journey that included an arduous trek through the mountains on foot. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Some Syrian refugees risk returning to opposition-held areas as hostility in host Lebanon grows

For more than a decade, a steady flow of Syrians have crossed the border from their war-torn country into Lebanon. But anti-refugee sentiment is rising there, and over the past two months, hundreds of Syrian refugees have gone the other way.

At least 7 people die when a school bus plunges into a river in northwest Syria

At least seven people have drowned after a school bus in northwest Syria skidded off the road and plunged into a river. Twenty people were injured in the accident. Most of the casualties were children.

U.N. Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis David Carden, center, inspects a wastewater treatment project in the village of Bhora, in Idlib province, Syria, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Syria's devastating civil war, now in its 14th year, remains largely frozen and so are efforts to find a viable political solution to end it, while millions of Syrians have been pulled into poverty, and struggle with accessing food and health care as the economy deteriorates across the country's front lines. Aid organizations are making their annual pitches to donors ahead of a fundraising conference in Brussels for Syria on Monday, May 27. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Ahead of another donor conference for Syria, humanitarian workers fear more aid cuts

Syria’s devastating civil war, now in its 14th year, remains largely frozen and so are efforts to find a viable political solution to end it.

FILE - People ride their motorcycle by damaged buildings in the old town of Homs, Syria, Aug. 15, 2018. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)

Violence in Syria is on the rise while aid is flagging as the civil war enters its 14th year

Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces.

A house damaged in the February 2023 earthquake overlooks the tents of Syrians displaced by it in Jinderis, Syria, on Jan. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Shrinking international aid and enduring conflict compound earthquake misery for Syrians one year on

In the year since a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria, killing more than 59,000 people, the situation in Syria has only become more grim for those who survived.

This image taken from video provided by Rudaw TV shows smoke rising from a building hit by a strike in Irbil, Iraq, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. Iran has announced that it launched strikes against a “spy headquarters and the gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups” shortly after missiles hit an area near the U.S. consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. (Rudaw TV via AP)

Iraq recalls ambassador, summons Iran’s chargé d’affaires over strikes in Irbil

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry has recalled its ambassador to Iran for consultations and summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad in protest over Iranian strikes on northern Iraq that killed several civilians.

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

At least 10 people killed in Syrian government shelling of a rebel-held village, the opposition says

Syrian opposition activists say government forces shelled a northwestern village killing at least 10 people, including seven children.

FILE - In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, a Syrian White Helmet civil defense worker runs at the site where a shell struck in the outskirts of the northern town of Jisr al-Shoughour, west of the city of Idlib, Syria, on Oct. 5, 2023. United Nations humanitarian officials sounded an alarm Thursday Oct. 12, 2023 over a humanitarian crisis in rebel-held northwestern Syria, warning that intense shelling by government forces displaced almost 70,000 people in recent weeks. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File)

Intense shelling has displaced 70,000 people in northwest Syria, UN agencies warn

United Nations humanitarian officials have sounded an alarm over a humanitarian crisis in rebel-held northwestern Syria. They warned on Thursday that intense shelling by government forces displaced almost 70,000 people in recent weeks.

Doaa al-Hassan, 10 years old, who lost her hand to a cluster bomb in 2022, studies at a camp near the town of Ain Sheeb, northern Idlib province, Syria, on July 18, 2023. More than 300 people were killed by cluster munitions in Ukraine in 2022, according to an international watchdog, displacing Syria as the country with the highest number of deaths from the controversial weapons for the first time in a decade. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Cluster munition deaths in Ukraine pass Syria, fueling rise in a weapon the world has tried to ban

More than 300 people were killed by cluster munitions in Ukraine in 2022, surpassing Syria as the country with the highest number of deaths from the controversial weapons for the first time in a decade.

FILE - This Aug. 21, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by the anti-government Media Office Of Douma City which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man mourning over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by government forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria. Syria denies ever using chemical weapons during the war and says it eliminated its chemical arsenal under a 2013 agreement brokered by the U.S. and key ally Russia. It also joined the Hague-based global chemical weapons watchdog as global pressure mounted on Damascus. (Media Office Of Douma City via AP, File)

A decade after a sarin gas attack in a Damascus suburb, Syrian survivors lose hope for justice

A decade after a sarin gas attack killed hundreds and left thousands hurt in a Syrian suburb near the capital of Damascus, survivors say there has been no accountability for that attack or for other atrocities committed during the country’s brutal conflict.