Nine decades after a future Syrian president helped broker peace in Yemen, Ahmed al-Sharaa’s embrace of Riyadh raises the prospect of a very different Syrian role.

By restricting women’s access to university programmes, Syria’s Higher Education Ministry has inadvertently fuelled a much wider debate about women’s rights – and Syrians’ growing expectation that government decisions can be challenged.

War and disruption are reviving Syria’s importance as a gateway to the Mediterranean. But pipelines and trade routes alone will not lift its people out of poverty.

Long a fixture of Syria policy writing, the metaphor has found a new political use under the Syrian authorities.

As Kurdish fighters integrate into the Syrian state, political exclusion and worsening living conditions threaten to undermine the transition.

Caught between discredited Ba’thist socialism and predatory neoliberalism, Syria needs a new economic vision that people can rally around.

A singer’s celebration of Syria’s heritage has exposed a struggle over who gets to define the nation’s identity.

After 15 years in Germany, I returned to find that Syria had changed – and so had I.

From Phoenician Málaga to a fake wedding bound for Sweden, the Syrian journey west has a long history.

A jinn hunter, a gambler and a devout scientist: a glimpse into Syria’s mental health crisis.