Iraq's death knell

Iraqis carry a bombing victim in the city of Kirkuk in May.          (MARWAN IBRAHIM AFP/Getty Image)

 Almost daily, there is a deadly suicide bombing or attack in Iraq. The Agence France- Presse has counted only 16 days this year when one hasn't happened. Sixteen days.

There has been a particularly violent surge in the last two days, but it is estimated that  5,400 people have died this year alone. There were 700 deaths in October, according to AFP.

This week, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki left for Washington, the finger pointing about Iraq's decline began. An influential group of senators wrote U.S. President Barack Obama warning of al-Maliki's "mismanagement" of Iraq's politics and his unwillingness to share power with the country's Kurdish and Sunni minorities, the New York Times reported.

In Foreign Policy, retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus also argued "this was not a road that Iraqis had to travel" since the last American troops left at the end of 2011.

 Al-Maliki, who will meet with Obama on Friday, wrote a column in the New York Times urging patience and asking for help, noting that "Syria has become a magnet that attracts sectarian extremists and terrorists from various parts of the world and gathers them in our neighbourhood." As Syria's conflict began, the U.S. walked out of Iraq - nearly nine years after their invasion.

"Despite the terrorist threats we face, we are not asking for American boots on the ground," he writes. "Rather, we urgently want to equip our own forces with the weapons they need to fight terrorism, including helicopters and other military aircraft, so that we can secure our borders and protect our people. Hard as it is to believe, Iraq doesn’t have a single fighter jet to protect its airspace.

"Iraq has matured into a country with democratic institutions. But we are in need of more training, education, practice — and patience. We are on the road to security, democracy and prosperity. While we still have a long way to go, we want to walk that road together with the United States."

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Saving Syria's Children: "You can't say you didn't know"

A Syrian child in a refugee camp near the Turkish border.                                               (Photo: BBC) 

When "Saving Syria's Children" aired on British television, the BBC broadcast a warning at the start of the documentary: "There are scenes which some viewers may find upsetting."

Shots of children, staring solemnly at the camera with huge, dark eyes. Premature babies, thin and tiny, reaching out to doctors who coo over how small their fingers are.

Then, this: "I think there's been some kind of chemical attack. There's dozens of people that have just been rushed in, covered in burns and some kind of white powder dust. All their clothes are hanging off them."

And that is in the first three minutes. It's bloody, even though there is actually very little blood, and upsetting.

It's bloody upsetting.

BBC reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway were in Syria earlier this year with two doctors from a charity called Hand in Hand for Syria. Dr. Rola Hallam usually works in a pediatric ICU in London; her colleague, Dr. Saleyha Ahsan, in ahospital in Essex, just outside London.

In August, the doctors, trailed by the journalists, travelled close to the front lines to see what conditions are like; they met families who have lost children and homes, yet still bake bread and offer it to visitors.

They spoke to an 85-year-old man who is suffering with diabetes and hasn't had his medication. He and his family have been forced to move from place to place for two years. A tear rolls down his cheek as he speaks to Hallam; she leaves him an emergency food parcel, something she calls a drop in the ocean.

"It's not a home. It's not your health. It's not your medication you need. It's not your dignity back," Hallam says. "It's not your broken heart mended."

After their trip, the doctors return to a hospital in the city of Aleppo. Ahsan is looking after a baby with a burned face; it's difficult, and the doctors are concerned that there's little in the way of pediatric supplies.

Then, cars and vans and ambulances begin pulling up. And people, their skin and clothing hanging off them, start staggering in. They're mostly teenagers. Their school, they say, has been attacked. They are very badly burned, and the doctors are worried they're dealing with a chemical attack. 

"It was a surreal, slow-motion event," Pannell recalls. "The hospital was overwhelmed. And you had these kids writhing on the floor."

In the footage, children look like zombies, shaking, swaying on their feet and drooling in what must be shock and pain.

A father screams at the camera, pointing at the blistered face of his child: "This is my daughter! This is my daughter!"

Ten of the children died.

"I found it difficult not to be touched by what (we) saw," says Pannell, an experienced conflict journalist who has reported from Afghanistan and Iraq, among other war zones. "The overriding thing is nobody can say they didn't know what was happening.

"You may choose to do nothing about it - you may choose not to donate ... and politicians may choose not to act," he says. "But you can't say you didn't know."

"Saving Syria's Children" airs Saturday, Oct. 5 at 10 p.m. on The Passionate Eye on CBC News Network. 

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

"Sex Jihad" or Sexy Hoax

A controversial Diesel jeans ad denounced as Islamaphobic by some, as seen in lower Manhattan Sept. 29, 2013. MICHELLE SHEPHARD/ TORONTO STAR

 

It was a sexy sex scandal and like anything shocking these days, it instantly went viral.

Tunisia's Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou claimed women are flocking to Syria to wage "sex jihad." Ben Jeddou made the audacious statement to Tunisia's members of the National Constituent Assembly on September 19, alleging that these women would leave home to have "sexual relations with 20, 30, 100 militants" fighting the regime loyal to President Bashar Assad in Syria. Many would return pregnant.

Various media outlets reported that this idea of "sex jihad" is backed by hardline Salafist clerics. Misogynist edicts are not uncommon in some circles (look no further than Saudi Arabia's top conservative cleric, Sheik Saleh Saad el-Leheidan, who said Friday in endorsing a ban on female drivers, that women will damage their ovaries should they drive) but the most commonly cited reference for "sex jihad" points to a fatwa reportedly issued by Saudi cleric Mohammed al-Arefe - which he denies making.

Further, there are no credible interviews with Tunisian women who were on their way to Syria or had returned pregnant.

So why would Tunisia's interior minister make such a claim, if not true? Foreign Policy Magazine's David Kenner points out that Ben Jeddou campaigns against extremist Salafi groups. "Suggesting that Tunisian Salafi women are sleeping with dozens of Syrian rebels could be another way to discredit them" Kenner writes.

Sometimes when a story is so hard to believe we think, you just can't make this stuff up. Sometimes, however, it appears you can.

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Syria, Al Qaeda & the ISIS

Rebel fighters in Aleppo, Syria, use an interesting decoy. MUZAFFAR SALAM/REUTERS

 

What is the ISIS?

Expect to hear more about this organization as the horror in Syria continues. Although the group was formed in April, recent events are distinguishing the ISIS from other groups fighting forces loyal to the Assad regime.

ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (sometimes referred to as Syria or the Levant), and it is the newest and likely most-experienced Al Qaeda franchise in Syria.

Al Qaeda has been skilled in taking advantage of Syria's chaos and in some areas fighters were welcomed by rebels, who may not agree with the group's global ideology but appreciated the military support when opposing the well-equipped forces supporting President Bashar al Assad.

The ISIS even went on a "charm offensive," reaching out to war wearing neighbourhoods with street festivals instead of hardline doctrine. 

As U.S.-based analyst Aaron Zelin, author of a new in-depth analysis of the group for the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, told the Star's Mitch Potter: “It’s pretty clear that ISIS has learned hard lessons about not shoving a conservative interpretation of Sharia law down people’s throats."

“This is exactly the same organization that is Al Qaeda in Iraq, same leadership structure, everything,” he said. “But unlike Iraq, they are being much smarter about outreach, especially this past summer. Events like pie-eating contests, aimed at children, together with significant successes in battle against Assad forces, show a kind of soft-power outreach."

But the hearts-and-mind agenda seemed to change Wednesday, when the group took control of the Turkish border town of Azaz, fighting not Assad loyalists, but the Free Syrian Army rebels who held the region.

By Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, the ISIS and rebels had agreed to a truce, but tension remains.

What this recent division and reconciliation all means is still unclear, except for the obvious: if rebel groups are fighting each other they are not fighting the Assad regime.

But as the BBC's Paul Woods notes, in the long term this could work to the Free Syrian Army's advantage. If the U.S. and Western governments are able to see clearer distinctions between FSA rebels and Al Qaeda-linked groups, they may be more willing to support the FSA. (Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had recently warned his followers not to fight alongside secular rebels with ties to the West).

For more on this rebel vs. rebel debate, read The National's Hassan Hassan with his latest analysis in Foreign Policy Magazine: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/18/rebel_vs_rebel_syria_jihadists_groups?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

 

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Medical neutrality: a dying principle?

Doctors and staff of the Salmaniya Hospital in Manama joined demonstators on the hospital grounds to protest against Bahraini security forces who were halting the dispatch of ambulances to scenes of demonstration. Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star

The doctor's mission is straightforward: to save lives. Even in times of war and conflict, the health worker's modus operandi is to treat the patient on the table, regardless of his or her uniform, nationality, race or creed.

Medical neutrality is a time-honoured concept, one first enshrined in international law by the Geneva Convention of 1864. But these days, it seems to be increasingly coming under fire.

Matthew Watson with the UPMC Center for Health Security has written a piece today about the growing problem of violent attacks against health workers around the world. His article coincides with a new UN report on Syria, finding that "the denial of medical care as a weapon of war is a distinct and chilling reality of the war in Syria."

As Watson writes, it has "long been held that medical care providers and their patients and places of practice should be held safe."

"However, recent reports of violence targeting healthcare workers provide evidence that the prohibition of violence against healthcare workers has degraded and requires strengthening and enforcement."

He lists several examples of health workers recently coming under attack:

* Syria, where healthcare workers have been intimidated, repressed, targeted and even arrested and detained. According to today's UN report, the authors have come to the "overwhelming conclusion" that "government forces deny medical care to those from opposition-controlled and affiliated areas as a matter of policy." There is also evidence of anti-government forces attacking hospitals, according to the report.

The group Physicians for Human Rights has subsequently issued a press release, calling for the international community to address war crimes in their Syrian negotiations. "Government forces have shelled maternity wards, tortured patients instead of treating them, and arrested doctors for doing their courageous work," said senior medical advisor Dr. Vincent Iacopino in the release. "In a conflict where more than 100,000 lives have already been lost, attacking the health care system cannot be tolerated from either side.”

In a conflict where more than 100,000 lives have already been lost, attacking the health care system cannot be tolerated from either side.” - See more at: http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/phr-urges-us-and-international-community-to-address-war-crimes-in-syria-negotiations.html#sthash.2AvWpTC8.dpuf

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s senior medical advisor. - See more at: http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/phr-urges-us-and-international-community-to-address-war-crimes-in-syria-negotiations.html#sthash.2AvWpTC8.dpuf

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s senior medical advisor. - See more at: http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/press/press-releases/phr-urges-us-and-international-community-to-address-war-crimes-in-syria-negotiations.html#sthash.2AvWpTC8.dpuf

* Pakistan, where several vaccination teams have been recently violently attacked. (Not included on Watson's list is Nigeria, where polio workers have also been targeted in the past year)

*Somalia, which Médecins Sans Frontières recently pulled out of after spending 22 years in the country providing medical services. The humanitarian aid agency said conditions in Somalia have become unacceptably dangerous for health workers, with 16 of its own staffers killed since 1997.

In 2008, the Red Cross began recording violent incidents against health workers in countries where it has operations, issuing its first report in 2011. Their initial report documented 655 violent incidents between July 2008 and December 2010; a follow-up report this year documented 921 in 2012.

Watson concludes his piece by calling for global action to combat the erosion of medical neutrality, a long-held -- and necessary -- international principle.

"As healthcare delivery in conflict zones become more dangerous, decisive action is needed to protect healthcare workers and facilities," he writes.

Jennifer Yang is the Star’s global health reporter. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar

Venezuelan politician joins Syrian army, uses Twitter to document war

Venezuelan politician Abdel el-Zabayar received permission from his government to stay in Syria and help the Assad military. (Twitter.)

Who is fighting the war in Syria?

Plenty of non-Syrians, according to some media reports that warn Islamist groups have moved into Syria from the Caucuses and elsewhere to support the Syrian opposition.

There is even a group of Canadians who are believed to have left the safety of Canada to fight in Syria, according to Toronto Star journalist Michelle Shephard, who writes more than 100 Canadians have left to join the conflict during the past year.

But Abdel el-Zabayar is surely one the most unlikely fighters on the battlefield.

While el-Zabayar's roots are Syrian, he was born in Venezuela and he now is a congressman for the country's ruling party.

El-Zabayar several weeks ago asked his political bosses in Caracas for permission to remain in Syria, after he'd visited with friends and family there. When Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gave him his blessing, "the lawmaker became a soldier," according to a report on el-Zabayar on the Website Vocativ.com.

“Thank you president and extraordinary brother @NicolasMaduro," el-Zabayar Tweeted on Sept. 3. "It’s important for the world to punish and stop the imperialist arrogance here.”

Overnight, el-Zabayar's Twitter account became one of social media's more oddball reads. (He has about 15,000 followers, although that figure is tempered by the fact he also follows more than 14,500 others).

There is el-Zabayar posing with his comrades armed with AK-47s. There are his some anti-American diatribes, to be sure, and also some Tweets to update Maduro, the Venezuelan president.

"There are no UN resolutions prohibiting trade with Syria," el-Zabayar tweeted Friday, after posting earlier a photo of local newspaper report in Damascus about his visit to Syria's national assembly.

El-Zabayar has also accused Turkey and Jordan of making money off the "Syrian refugee business" because he says they receive $700 per refugee per month from the U.N.

"If Obama cannot convince his wife and daughter of the attack on Syria, how can he convince the American people?" el-Zabayar tweeted on Sept. 11, also claiming online on Sept. 5 that U.S.-backed Islamists attacked a Christian village in North Syria.

El-Zabayar is not actually on the front lines with Syria's army.

He tells Vocativ that he does not have any weapons training and is looking after administrative chores.

“I am stationed near the Jordanian border, some 90 kilometers south of Damascas and around 20 kilometers from the front line,” he said, according to Vocativ. “My unit is in charge of maintaining a control point near the border, to avoid mercenaries getting into the country.”

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Hollywood stars silent as Syria sizzles

 Sean Penn (right)  joins Egyptian actor Khaled al-Nabawi and protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square in Sept. 2011.  Penn and other stars have been pilloried for silence on Syria. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

In its own way, Hollywood is a political platform – not to mention a springboard for celebs like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But Syria has tied some of the most prolific tongues in Tinseltown, in spite of an agonizing two years of murder and mayhem, much of it by the ruthless regime of Bashar Assad.

Still, as Washington was loudly rattling sabers at Syria this week, we might have heard the odd outburst from TIFF celebs like George Clooney, a vocal critic of failure to staunch the suffering of Sudan. Susan Sarandon, a noted anti-war activist, was also silent.

The Hollywood Reporter, not known for its probing geopolitical analysis, went on the hunt for comments from more than a dozen red-carpeters and came up empty-handed. Sarandon was “unavailable for comment,” (though she told the Daily Beast Syria was "tricky.")  Likewise silent were libertarian comic Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. And anti-war toughie Josh Brolin. And fellow Iraq protester Tim Robbins.

Many have been pilloried by the American right as un-American and unpatriotic for speaking out against George W. Bush’s war. Now they’re skewered again as “hypocrites” for keeping stum on Barack Obama’s threatened strikes on Syria.

The silence is suprising. From the McCarthy era Hollywood blacklists to the Vietnam protests, to the bare-knuckled rhetorical brawls over Iraq, famous Hollywood voices have been raised, and sometimes harshly silenced on volatile political issues.

But super-celebs like Barbara Streisand, “Hanoi Jane” Fonda and anti-poverty rock star Bono have stayed out of the Syrian fray. Even Martin Sheen, and Sean Penn -- who joined Egypt’s Tahrir Square protests -- have been uncharacteristically tight lipped.

Why the reticence?

Hollywood veteran Ed Asner – no stranger to protest and arrest --  puts it down to fear of racism against a black president, as well as sluggishness, disorganization and Obama's sudden rush to war, which caught the anti-war faction with its placards down.

“It’ll be a done deal before Hollywood is mobilized,” Asner grumbled to the Hollywood Reporter. “This country will either bomb the hell out of Syria or not, before Hollywood gets off its ass.”

And, he said, protest fatigue set in after Iraq, when Bush and his backers were never called to account. But Obama’s dismal record on inequality, corporate power and cyberspying has also alienated rather than energized his onetime Hollywood supporters.

“People aren’t getting active because ‘who gives a s---? ‘ is essentially the bottom line,” he said.

Not so Madonna, however. On her Instagram account she posted a graffiti-like message, “U.S. stay out of Syria.”

Rapper-songwriter Azealia Banks also broke ranks, and silence, on Twitter, saying that “America should mind it’s (sic) business this time.”  But she added later, if another world war is inevitable, “can’t we just wait until AFTER I drop my album in January?”

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, human rights and politics from the former Soviet Union to South Asia and the Middle East. She’s never been to Hollywood.








       

Military action in Syria: the Pinocchio effect

 President Barack Obama left for the G20 Summit after winning backing of key figures in the U.S. Congress for limited U.S. strikes on Syria.  So far American public opinion has not followed his lead. Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts.

British Prime Minister David Cameron climbed down from his war horse after losing a House of Commons vote on military intervention in Syria.

Meanwhile public opinion put three-quarters of Brits on the no-go side, according to a BBC poll.

Before France’s President Francois Hollande had a chance to saddle up, polls were running 59 per cent against military action.

And in the U.S., where President Barack Obama won backing from key members of Congress when he called for limited military strikes -- and hopes for a positive vote in the House and Senate -- some 59 per cent of Americans said they won’t answer the call.

 There are a variety of complicated arguments for staying out of a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people, led to the torture, rape and detention of thousands of others and sent 2 million into exile as refugees.

But the current casus belli – the Assad regime’s apparent use of chemical weapons to paralyse and suffocate hundreds of his “enemies” including children – has been met with more cynicism than sizzling rage.

It’s the Pinocchio effect.

The more Obama protests, the longer his metaphorical nose, in the minds of a public that was force-fed too much WMD truthiness by George W. Bush.

Iraq, Bush insisted, was awash in the stuff. And no American could sleep easily in his/her bed while Saddam Hussein was plotting a sneaky nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Voices to the contrary were quickly silenced and whistleblowers throttled.

Now a broker, more battered America is backing away from WMD claims, even ones far more credible than Bush could muster. Obama’s Red Line means little to those whose lives were flat lined by the economic crash and the massive debts of two recent wars.

But American doubt and cynicism goes back much farther: to the multi-fronted war on communism, to the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s leader Mohammad Mossadegh (which eventually gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic) to Vietnam and Laos, to the American-funded Central American death squads to the Iran-Contra scandal. And so it went.

Now Americans and other Westerners are drawing their own lines in spite of their political leaders. It’s exactly the kind of scenario that Bush’s foes warned of when he was touting the false “evidence” for the Iraq invasion. Whatever the evidence, for better or worse, weary Americans are saying they want the country's nose out of other nations' wars.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia. She worked with director Shelley Saywell on the film Generation of Hate, on Iraq on the eve of the American invasion.

 

How to treat victims of a chemical attack

A man, affected by what activists say is nerve gas, breathes through an oxygen mask in the Damascus suburbs of Jesreen August 21, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Dar

Were chemical weapons used in Syria? There now appears to be little doubt that the answer is yes and Médecins Sans Frontières reported over the weekend that three Damascus-area hospitals received some 3,600 patients with neurotoxic symptoms last Wednesday.

But so far, the World Health Organization has refrained from making any public statements on the alleged attacks, despite having eyes and ears on the ground –  probably prudent, given that a UN team is currently in Syria trying to cobble together a neutral investigation of whether chemical weapons were used.

Today, however, the UN health agency posted a new technical document on its website that is, in itself, a statement of sorts: clinical guidelines for treating "chemically-contaminated patients."

The document, compiled by the WHO with consultation from various experts, provides only interim guidelines and expires on October 31, 2013.

According to the guidelines, the first (and obvious) step is to assess whether an exposure took place. This can be done by taking patient histories and searching for dust, powder or liquid droplets. Odours also provide telling clues: a whiff of garlic indicates mustard gas, cyanide can smell of bitter almonds, and the scent of fresh hay or grass could suggest a phosgene attack.

The document has a handy chart of signs of toxicity to look for: seizures and a loss of consciousness are signs of a cyanide attack but the same symptoms – along with pinpoint pupils and "copious secretions" – could also indicate a nerve gas attack.

Once a chemical exposure is confirmed, the most urgent priority is to decontaminate the patient. This means carefully cutting away clothes (not lifting their shirts over their head), removing things like jewelry, hearing aids and contact lenses, and taking off their shoes, which could contain contaminated soil. The patient must also be thoroughly washed using what the document refers to as a "RINSE-WIPE-RINSE" technique.

The document provides a flow chart for triaging patients too. Is he or she walking? Then file them under priority 3. Not walking but still breathing? Check the respiratory rate before deciding whether the patient is priority 1 or 2. 

Finally, a chart lists the various antidotes available and how they should be administered. For nerve agents such as sarin gas or VX – both of which are reportedly in Syria's arsenal – doctors should inject atropine, which gives temporary relief to a nervous system in overdrive, and pralidoxime, which reactivates the enzyme that gets blocked by nerve agents.

This new WHO document is certainly welcome given the increasingly grim situation in Syria. And judging from the graphic videos of last week's alleged attack, the emergency response was haphazard at best – many patients were left in their potentially-contaminated clothes, several first responders were poorly protected, and decontamination efforts consisted of rinsing people with bottled water and wiping them down with rags.

But the hope, of course, is that the guidelines will never be needed – and in wartorn Syria, where resources are woefully depleted and health workers operate under chaotic circumstances, who knows how closely they can even be followed.

Jennifer Yang is the Star’s global health reporter. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar

Syria: What the Human Exodus of War Looks Like

All Photos Courtesy of UNHCR/G.Gubaeva

 

War in Syria is not news. Nor is the steady stream of people fleeing the bloody civil war.

But when a photographer from the UNCHR, the UN’s refugee agency, captured the images of thousands of people crossing a newly-built bridge into northern Iraq late last week, it provided a stunning look at the exodus of war.

 

UNHCR field officers first reported about 750 Syrians crossed over the pontoon bridge across theTigris River, but within hours a much larger group of 5,000 to 7,000 people followed.

The vast majority of the new arrivals are families -- women, children and elderly -- mainly from  the devastated Syrian cities of Aleppo, Efrin, Hassake and Qamishly.

 UNHCR Field Officer, Galiya Gubaeva, was on the ground with her camera and took these pictures.

 "The factors allowing this sudden movement are not fully clear to us at this stage," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

 Some of the Syrians had reportedly been waiting near the Tigris River for two to three days. UNHCR officials saw scores of buses arriving on the Syrian side dropping off more people seeking to cross.

 Relief workers scrambled to accommodate the human tide. 

 

At Erbil, about 2,000 of the new arrivals are  encamped at an emergency transit site in Kawergost town. Some new arrivals are sheltered under tents, others are  staying in mosques or with family and friends.

"As of today 1,916,387 Syrians have fled the war and registered as refugees or applied for registration. Two-thirds of these have arrived this year," Edwards said.

 

The UNHCR says there are now more than 684,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon, 516,000 in Jordan, 434,000 in Turkey, 154,000 in Iraq and 107,000 in Egypt.

________

 Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter for the Star and can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.