Zhao Seng, a citizen of Myanmar, traveled halfway around the world to work as a medic and videographer with a humanitarian group in northern Syria. David Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers talks with host Marco Werman about Sang’s death, what motivated him to work in front-line humanitarian aid, and the fighting that continues to rage in the border region.
The Syrian war has changed in its three years. The Free Syrian Army forces that were attacking the Assad regime and its government soldiers are now locked in battle with Islamic fighters, who were once their allies. PBS Frontline journalist Muhammad Ali slipped across the Syrian border to report on this “second front” in Syria.
It’s essentially an improvised explosive device – an oil barrel filled with explosive material and shrapnel – dropped from the sky. Host Marco Werman speaks with Time’s Middle East bureau chief, Aryn Baker from Beirut about so-called barrel bombs and why Syrian forces are dropping them on cities.
Expectations are pretty low for this week’s Syria peace talks in Geneva. It will the first time that government and opposition representatives actually meet since the civil war began almost three years ago. But a third major player in the conflict will be missing: the Al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group that controls much of north-east Syria. Most of its fighters are foreign. Here’s the story of one Syrian man who has been forced into exile by the very men he once helped bring into his country.
In Kafr Nabl a Syrian town known as the “creative hub” of the revolution, local artists are famous for lampooning President Bashar al-Assad in posters and signs. But in recent months, the town’s residents have used original tactics to help eject jihadists in their midst, according to opposition activist Mariam Jalabi.
In Syria a bombing campaign against rebel-held parts of Aleppo killed more than 300 people over the past 10 days according to activists. Meanwhile across Northern Syria, the mainstream armed opposition –the Free Syrian Army– has lost the upper hand to a coalition of Islamic brigades and to al-Qaeda-linked groups. Here’s the story of one FSA unit that started as a major player in the insurgency in Latakia province, and ended the year disbanded.