Narcotics is perhaps the only booming industry in Syria. This excellent report from COAR Global summarizes news articles of seized drug shipments originating from the country since 2011. See the sharp rise from 2019 here.

According to COAR Global, in 2020 the seized Captagon shipments from Syria had a market value of $3.46 billion. To appreciate how massive this is, remember that the regime's 2021 budget stood at $2.7 billion. Much of the activity in the narcotics industry is in regime areas.

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ISIS' media mouthpiece, Amaq, published its operations summary for the month from 13 April to 13 May 2021. While ISIS is significantly more active in Iraq, assassinations are more commonly used in Syria. I wonder why.

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Other than safety, there may not be many reasons for Syrians to stay in Lebanon anymore. The ICRC asked young Syrians in Syria, Lebanon, and Germany about their access to essential services. Syrians living in Syria fared better than those living in Lebanon on every single front.

To top it off, according to the same survey from the ICRC, Syrians sadly feel much less welcome in neighbouring and culturally similar Lebanon than in far-away Germany.

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Since 2016, Insecurity Insights documented 4,653 healthcare-related incidents globally. A whopping 1,066 of them were in Syria alone (nearly a quarter of them).

See where they're concentrated to know who are the the perpetrators.

Being supposedly secular is good not only for regaining some tacit Western support, but it also helps in allowing a regime to continue torturing its people during the month of Ramadan.

From Syrian Network 

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Month after month, refugee-packed northwest Syria receives more IDPs than returnees. A disaster that only gets worse.

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