Former ISIS Commanders Rehabilitated as Traffic Cops in Raqqa Suburbs Under US Watch

The rehabilitated ISIS fighters are reportedly “imposing bribes” and royalties on vehicles, “not to mention the shameful acts against the pedestrians in the streets and the harassment of the citizen women.”

Alexander Rubinstein
By Alexander Rubinstein
Raqqah, Syria

EIN ISSA, SYRIA -- Locals of Ein Issa, a Syrian town just north of the city of Raqqa are reportedly fed up with former ISIS members and commanders who have been rehabilitated by U.S. proxy forces as traffic cops. “Reliable sources” told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) that former Daesh militants have been converted into “security

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Amnesty Demands Independent Probe of Civilians Massacred During US Annihilation of Raqqa

“How can the coalition avoid inflicting high civilian death tolls in the future without accounting for what went wrong in Raqqa?”

Andrea Germanos
By Andrea Germanos
Massacre of Raqqa

Amnesty International on Monday is urging the U.S.-led military coalition targeting the Islamic State in Syria to launch an independent investigation into the full scale of civilian carnage it may have caused in its brutal Raqqa offensive last year. The siege took place between June and October 2017—right after Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog"

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Amnesty: US-Led Coalition Committed War Crimes In Raqqa, Syria

“Everyone we spoke to in Raqqa agreed that Isis had to be defeated. But they asked why their families had to be killed and their city destroyed in the process.”

Elliott Gabriel
By Elliott Gabriel
Massacre of Raqqa

LONDON -- Last year’s Washington-led coalition effort against the Islamic State (ISIS) group in the Syrian city of Raqqa included numerous “disproportionate or indiscriminate” attacks on the city, showing little regard for civilian lives and constituting potential war crimes, a new report by Amnesty International stated Tuesday. The campaign to

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As US Tries to Remake Rather than Rebuild Northern Syria, Local Resistance Groups Emerge

The growing discontent among Syrian civilians in areas under American control suggests the unraveling of the U.S. occupation of Syria may come from internal, not external, forces.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Syria US soldier

RAQQA, SYRIA – A handful of groups claiming to resist the U.S.-led occupation of Northeastern Syria have sprung up throughout the region since the year began -- targeting U.S. forces as well as the U.S. proxy in the area, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since last year, the U.S. has been occupying over 30 percent of Syrian territory, as well as

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Ghouta, Raqqa, Aleppo: Ceasefire Decisions and Humanitarian Unconcern

Last year’s campaign to retake Raqqa saw U.S. forces fire more artillery rounds into that city than during the entire invasion of Iraq and resulted in over 3,000 civilians deaths. At that time, the U.S. rejected UN calls for a ceasefire.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Black smoke rises from a US airstrike on the eastern side of Raqqa, Syria, July 26, 2017. (AP/Hussein Malla)

NEW YORK -- A UN-brokered ceasefire has once again been established, now for the sixth time, in Syria and, like most of those that preceded it, has now been broken. The current ceasefire sought to end fighting in Eastern Ghouta, an area near the Syrian capital of Damascus that has long been controlled by militant U.S.-Saudi backed rebels seeking to

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East Ghouta: Selective Outrage Undermines Human Rights in Syria

Selective outrage over civilian suffering in Syria – hyping Syrian government bombing while downplaying the effects of U.S.-led Coalition air strikes – undermines the legitimacy of human rights advocacy.

Jonathan Marshall
By Jonathan Marshall
Smoke and debris rising after a Syrian government ground-to-ground rocket strikes the opposition-held town of Ain Terma, in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, Syria. (Ghouta Media Center via AP)

News stories are full of quotes painting the situation as nearly unprecedented in its horror: “hell on earth,” “never seen anything like this,” “one of the worst attacks in Syrian history,” and “flagrant war crime” on an “epic scale.” A New York Times editorial, calling the battle “one of the most violent episodes of the seven-year

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