crime

4 04, 2024
  • Clan leaders, notables and commanders with the Syrian military security-affiliated 8th Brigade participate in a clan reconciliation agreement in the northern Daraa countryside town of Mahajja in February. Among the group are Colonel Nasim Abu Ara (far right) and the brigade’s deputy commander, Ali al-Miqdad, known as Ali Bash (center, carrying white flag), 12/2/2024 (Busra Press)

Daraa residents turn to clan reconciliation over the court system

By Walid Al Nofal|2024-04-09T14:19:20+02:00April 4, 2024|

People in Syria’s southern Houran region have long turned to clan reconciliation processes to resolve thorny disputes. The practice increased after 2011, and peaked over the past three years, with residents choosing the clans over the courts with the encouragement of regime legal representatives.

29 03, 2024
  • The Men of Dignity movement, the largest local faction in Suwayda, destroys a seized shipment of narcotics that was set to be smuggled from the southern Syrian province into Jordan, 9/2/2024 (Suwayda 24)

Communities in southern Syria take on the drug trade

By Walid Al Nofal|2024-03-29T18:27:02+01:00March 29, 2024|

Communities and local armed groups in Syria’s southern Suwayda and Daraa provinces are taking the fight against drug traffickers and smugglers into their own hands. With Damascus and Hezbollah profiting from the trade, they face an uphill battle.

26 03, 2024
  • A truck targeted by the Jordanian Armed Forces while attempting to cross into Jordan from Syria carrying a load of drugs, 24/3/2021 (Jordanian Armed Forces)

How Suwayda became a drug-smuggling hub

By Karam Mansour|2024-05-24T15:12:13+02:00March 26, 2024|

In Syria’s southern Suwayda province, suspected Jordanian airstrikes hunt drug traffickers and kill civilians. Regime-linked gangs operate with impunity and smugglers ferry drugs over the border. Local armed groups fight back. How did we get here?

12 03, 2024
  • Satellite images reveal how the Tal al-Hara woods, in the northwest of Syria’s southern Daraa province, were all but stripped bare by logging between October 2011 and November 2022. (Google Earth)

Under the axe: The fall of Daraa’s forests and fruit trees

By Walid Al Nofal|2024-03-13T13:34:49+01:00March 12, 2024|

Trees have fallen under the axe in Daraa and across Syria since the spring 2011 revolution, cut for wood to sell or use as an alternative to heating and cooking gas during war, siege and economic crises. Since 2020, however, logging has increased to include fruit-bearing trees on private farmland and within cities.

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