The governor of Damascus faced major backlash in the Arab world for his comments about making peace with Israel. But what do Israelis and Syrians want?

So why did his feared military disintegrate when rebel fighters swept across Syria to take the capital? Leila Fadel reports from Syria, and we should warn you - this is a story about Syria's civil ...

In Syria's capital, Damascus, there are hole-in-the-wall beauty parlors on nearly every street, places for women to chat while getting blowouts and manicures. And when NPR's Diaa Hadid visited a few, ...

Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based ... Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives ...

and Syrian people were dancing in the streets. DETROW: Morning Edition host Leila Fadel is in Damascus, and she joins us on the line now. Hey, Leila. LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Hi. DETROW: What's ...

FADEL: When Syria's peaceful uprising began in 2011, it was met with violence from the regime and turned into a civil war that pitted the country's sects against each other, the Sunni Arab ...

Available weekdays at 6:30 a.m. ET, with hosts Leila Fadel, Steve Inskeep, Michel Martin and A Martinez. Also available on Saturdays at 9 a.m. ET, with Ayesha Rascoe and Scott Simon. On Sundays ...

FADEL: Syria has never recognized Israel as a state ... the Israeli foreign ministry said that it rejected any overture from HTS. And, Leila, like you said, it was remarkable - for two reasons.

now the new Syrian flag. Out of the crowd a man with a mustache, a red baseball cap and a wide smile walks up to us. "Let me speak to you," he says. His name is Abdullah Fadel and he translates books.

As Syria emerges from decades of dictatorship, people in the Assad family's ancestral home of Latakia province are both overjoyed and anxious. Assad and his family are Alawite, an offshoot of Shia ...