Bio
Alaa Nassar
Alaa was forced to flee Damascus with her family because of the pressure from the Syrian regime in 2013. She was a student of Arabic Language & Literature at the University of Damascus. She came to Syria Direct because she hopes to find a new direction in her life and to show the world what is happening in her country.
Latest Articles
Russian pretexts at Assad’s disposal
AMMAN—Although the reasons that led Russia to intervene militarily in Syria, on September 30, 2015, are “plentiful, complex and interrelated,” according to Taha Abdul Wahed, a Syrian journalist who focuses on Russian affairs, Russian officials seldom mention these reasons to justify their intervention.
Hijacking of the “freedom revolution”: HTS imprisons activists in northwest Syria (interactive map)
During the first week of September, protesters across Idlib province expressed their opposition to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, and the Syrian government’s ongoing military campaign in northwest Syria.
Darayya: Three years in waiting for the return of life
AMMAN— A few civilians disembarked from an old bus that had just stopped in the western countryside of Damascus and continued their journey to Darayya, a city that has been pummeled into rubble by bombardment of government forces, on foot. The city has become the example of organized mass displacement in Syria after an extended siege.
Khan Sheikhoun: A city that dies more than once
AMMAN – Until recently, the city of Khan Sheikhoun was a symbol of life in Syria. While some accounts date the building of the city to the Byzantine era, discoveries made of buildings and tunnels that sometimes exceed one kilometer in length trace back to the third millennium BC.
Syrian students in Jordan struggle with multiple obstacles to post-secondary education
AMMAN- 4761 Syrians sat for high school final exams (tawjihi) this year, according to the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education, Sami al-Salaitah, among which hundreds are expected to have passed and thus become qualified to enroll in universities and community colleges.
Four months in, civilians remain a target of the government military campaign on northwest Syria
AMMAN- Since the beginning of Russia and the Syrian government’s military campaign on northwest Syria in April 2019, territory control has barely changed.
Thousands of students take primary and secondary school exams in northwest Syria amidst bombing campaign
AMMAN- Thousands of students sat down to take their final exams last Sunday in the opposition-held area in northwestern Syria following a two-week delay as the Educational Ministry of the Syrian Interim Government struggled to coordinate testing amid massive waves of displacement, resulting from the Syrian government’s bombing campaign on the region.
Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights: The law is on our side … but politics is against us
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in the spring of 2011, humanitarian monitoring and documentation organizations have been active in cataloguing human rights violations and war crimes, regardless of who committed them.
Civil Defense: More than 200 killed in Idlib during Ramadan
Amman – The Syrian Civil Defense documented 24 people killed and 35 injured on Monday as a result of the Syrian government’s targeting of northern Hama and southern Idlib provinces with air raids.
Dozens dead as Syrian Army counterattacks Kafranbuda in response to Islamist gains
Amman- Rocket fire killed four civilians and injured 20 others in the city center of Saraqib, southeast of Idlib, in a new escalation by government forces in response to a military operation launched by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.