Mother to son: "If your father were still alive, we would not be in this mess." The father is Hafez al- Assad- the man who got away with the original Hama Massacre of 1982; and the son ...

Syria’s new leadership faces allegations of mass killings, as Alawite communities endure field executions and mass displacement amid escalating sectarian violence.

The one thing holding Syria together now is Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has taken on the near-impossible job of teaching his people ...

For decades, schoolchildren began their day with a song of praise to Hafez al-Assad, “our eternal leader.” He died in 2000. He was succeeded by his son Bashar, who received similar praises.

the cousin and son-in-law of Islam's Prophet Mohammed. Alawites are centred in Syria though there are also communities elsewhere in the Middle East. - Most Alawites in Syria are poor farmers, coming ...

Before him, Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria with an iron grip from 1971 until his death in 2000, when power was transferred to his son. The Assad family hails from the Alawite sect, a Shia Islam ...

The fall of the Assad regime marks a turning point in Syria’s history. But it also opens a ‘chapter fraught with peril’ for the country’s minorities, an expert on religious minorities writes.

Syria’s security forces arrested a former intelligence chief Thursday who is accused of carrying out hundreds of assassinations under ex-regime leader Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian news agency SANA ...