Her name was Maysaa, and she was paralyzed from the waist down.
Am I a terrorist?
Are all of the children they kill terrorists?
An image of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, riddled with bullets, is seen on the facade of a provincial government office in the aftermath of the opposition’s takeover of Hama, Syria, on Dec. 6, 2024.Omar Albam/AP
she asked, recuperating in an improvised medical facility on her way to a Turkish hospital.
Despite her pain, she was overcome with anger, and she cursed the man responsible.
Children are being torn to pieces.
May God tearBashar al-Assadand his children to pieces.
Curses like Maysaas are seeds that took root inSyrias blood-soaked soil and have stubbornly grown.
Now, more than a decade later, they are bearing fruit.
The end came quickly, in little more than 10 days.
The paroxysms of pain brought on by the war in Syria have wracked the globe.
It became an epicenter of chaos that tore apart the Middle East and changed the face of Europe.
Millions fled into exile, abandoning their homes in a quest for safety for themselves and their children.
He remainswantedfor war crimes.
When Hafez al-Assad died, Bashar became president.
Hopes were high that change would come to Syria with a leader from a new generation.
Damascus Spring turned into Syrias winter, until 2011.
The country exploded into violence.
By the summer, the protest movement had become an insurgency.
Large numbers of soldiers were defecting and joining the protesters, and then organizing into armed militias.
Protest became revolution, and descended into civil war.
Now they did so in the thousands.
Under Assad, people simply disappeared.
Coordinating their activities was challenging.
In 2013, they started using chemical weapons.
Estimates of the number killed range from 500 to more than 1,700.
In reality, Obamas response was tepid.
Damascus agreed to let an international organization oversee the destruction of chemical weapons stock and dismantle production facilities.
But conflicts inevitably create power vacuums, and something always fills a vacuum.
Insurgents and jihadis who had fought against American occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan flooded into Syria, sensing opportunity.
The jihadis had a clear idea of what they wanted and how to achieve it.
They declared the establishment of the Islamic State in 2014.
Syria became a cauldron of violence.
American warplanes were bombing the Islamic State in the east.
Russian warplanes were bombing the Islamic State and rebels in the northwest.
The Turks were bombing theKurdsin the north.
Millions fled renewed fighting.
Many Brits felt they were losing their country, and they wanted to do something about it.
I thought again of Syria.
Both attacks had been the Islamic State.
It all went back to Syria.
The Russian air force was pounding the rebels.
I spoke to people in the besieged city regularly rebel fighters, aid workers, and doctors.
The maternity ward she worked in had just been bombed.
These kids are innocent, and they came into this world under very difficult circumstances.
They came into this world during a war.
Few choose to live amid war.
But when it comes, it is always the innocent who suffer the most.
By December 2016, Aleppo had fallen to Assads regime.
More than 30,000 people died before it was taken, two-thirds of them civilians.
In 2022, when war came to Ukraine, I was there, too.
When contemplating current events, it can never be quite correct to say: It all started here.
We live in the now, and Syria is a nexus for our times.
She was there when the offensive led by the militant Islamist group Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham (HTS) began.
Shes stuck there now, hoping for the best.
My colleague Anthony Shadid was a correspondent forThe New York Timeswho died covering the war in Syria in 2012.
I believe that the craftsman, the artist, the cook, and the silversmith are peacemakers.
They instill grace; they lull the world to calm.
No one can say what the future holds for Syria.
Russia, the U.S., Turkey, andIranall have a presence there.
Its leaderpresents himselfas a reformed jihadist, willing to accommodate Syrias polyethnic, multi-religious reality.
But he isnt giving up.
It will need those who instill grace and lull the world to calm.
And now hes gone.
