Chaos and Killing in Syria: Photos of a Slow-Motion Civil War
NARCISO CONTRERAS / AP
A Free Syrian Army fighter offers evening prayers beside a damaged poster of Syria’s President Bashar Assad during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 8, 2012.
More than a year ago, Arab Spring–inspired protests kicked off in the impoverished Syrian agricultural town of Dara‘a. The mini-uprising met a brutal response, one that few observers at the time could have anticipated would blow up into a far wider rebellion against President Bashar Assad and the entrenched, decades-long rule of his family. With Syrian authorities clamping down on journalistic access and freedoms, we saw glimpses of the unrest there for months only through grainy YouTube footage, images as uncertain and hard to corroborate as the events on the ground.
But more than 18 months of violence — largely wrought by the Assad regime — has led to what is for all intents and purposes a civil war, one that has likely fissured the country along sectarian lines. The estimated death toll, according to the United Nations, is more than 60,000 as of Jan. 7, 2013. Forces loyal to the Assad regime continue their onslaught on opposition strongholds, making ancient medieval cities like Homs, Hama and recently Aleppo front-page news. Journalists have stolen across the border with the aid of rebel groups to document the shelling of civilians and the bloody unraveling of the Assad status quo. Some have paid the price for access with their lives. Diplomatic efforts at the U.N. to curb the killings have stalled amid a mess of geopolitics; few place much hope in a peace plan pushed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and tacitly accepted by a Syrian regime that has lost nearly all its credibility. Separate efforts on the part of the so-called Friends of Syria will lead to the U.S. and like-minded allies further backing and supporting the rebel Free Syrian Army, aid that will only intensify a conflict that shows few signs of relenting. —Ishaan Tharoor
Wildfires Scorch Australia As Temperatures Reach Record Highs
TIM HOLMES / AP
Tammy Holmes, second left, takes shelter with her grandchildren, from left, Charlotte Walker, 2, Esther Walker, 4, Liam Walker, 9, Matilda, 11, and Caleb Walker, 6, under a jetty as a wildfire rages nearby in Dunalley, Australia, Jan. 4, 2013.
AUSTRALIA BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
The heat wave across Australia has spiked to unfathomable levels as the ominously-labeled “dome of heat” blankets the continent, sparking wildfires that have caused more than $60 million in damage and claimed more than 120 homes. The average temperature stretched above 39° Celsius (102° F) for six consecutive days, and local temperatures were so high that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was inclined to add a new hue to their heat map — a deep purple shade — which indicates a temperature above 50° C (122° F).
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