ISTANBUL—A German woman suspected of supporting the Islamic State was repatriated from Syria along with her three children last month, in the first case of an adult European ISIS member brought home through official channels. On Nov. 22, the family was released from the overcrowded detention camp in northern Syria where they’d lived for almost a year and transferred to the Iraqi city of Erbil, where they boarded a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. The mother, known only as Laura H., had her passport confiscated upon arrival. She cannot leave Germany, as she is being investigated for belonging to a terrorist [...]
Syria
“Is that a warplane over us?” a doctor asks. “Yes, it is,” says another, as an airstrike rumbles overhead. “Don’t look so frightened. It will be alright.” “Don’t worry dear,” a different doctor tells one of his patients. “We don’t have anesthesia, but we have music.” They are in a town outside Damascus in the midst of a five-year military siege. Their makeshift hospital is underground, in a series of tunnels and basement shelters below the devastated streets of eastern Ghouta, pummeled by the Syrian army, including with chemical weapons, and by Russian bombers. These scenes are captured in “The [...]
From the moment Donald Trump became U.S. president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a risky bet. He decided to embrace Trump unreservedly, ignoring warnings from critics who said such close ties to an unpopular president could undermine bipartisan support for Israel in the United States. If his gamble paid off, Netanyahu calculated, Trump would not only provide an unprecedented level of backing for the agenda of Israel’s political right, but he would do something more: Trump would help him stay in power. For a while, the wager seemed to pay off. But now, as Netanyahu faces a fierce battle [...]