For today, links to reports Middle East Monitor and National Public Radio; others are accessible by clicking on their names or initials below. (GAZA and UKRAINE entries for this date are HERE and HERE.)

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FROM DEC. 15  Israel occupies 3 new villages in southern Syria. From Middle East Monitor.  Tel Aviv has deepened its military incursion into the country following the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime, seizing Jamlah in Daraa province and the villages of Mazraat Beit Jinn and Maghar al-Mir in the Damascus countryside, according to Anadolu reporters. READ MORE . . .

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What comes next for Syria after the Assad regime. Leila Fadel, Jane Arraf and Ruth Sherlock of NPR share their reporting from Syria more than a week after the fall of the Assad regime. Click HERE to listen and, later, read.

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FROM DEC. 15  We head inside a feared intelligence branch after the fall of Assad regime in Syria. Ruth Sherlock of NPR describes visiting an abandoned “dungeon prison,” site of torture and death, in Damascus. Click HERE to listen and read.