SHAPIRO: Mohammed al-Refai was a 22-year-old refugee from Syria. In 2015, millions of Syrians fled the civil war in their country. Mohammed's family went across the border to Jordan, but something strange happened.

As Syria's economy collapsed during the civil war, the country became something of narco-state. The now-ousted regime was estimated to earn billions annually from trafficking a drug known as Captagon.

HEYDEMANN: Well, I think Syria faces significant headwinds, and they arise in part from the identity of HTS as an Islamist movement. SHAPIRO ... Thank you very much, Ari. Transcript provided ...

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Mohammed al-Refaai, who we first met nine years ago when he moved to Ohio from Syria. KUOW is Seattle’s NPR news station. We are an independent, nonprofit news ...

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Steven Heydemann, Middle East Studies director at Smith College, about how Syria might avoid replicating Arab countries that are worse off after overthrowing dictators.

Ari Shapiro has been one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine, since 2015. During his first two years on the program, listenership to All Things ...

The brutal regime of Bashar al Assad fell over the weekend with dizzying speed. Syrians within the country and around the world burst into celebration. Now, the rebel group Hay'at Tahrir al Sham, or HTS has to govern.

Travis Timmerman, a U.S. citizen found wandering barefoot in Damascus after being freed from a Syrian prison following the fall of the Assad regime, was handed over to U.S. forces in Syria on Friday.

Last week, after 50 years of tyranny and repression, the government of Bashar Assad fell in Syria. It fell thanks ... reality is dangerous and stupid. Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard ...

Ben Shapiro is host of "The Ben Shapiro Show" and ... the government of Bashar Assad fell in Syria. It fell thanks to a combination of three forces. First, Israel’s military utterly eviscerated ...

By Patricia Cohen Reporting from London Although the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria was shockingly quick, rebuilding the devastated economy he left behind will be ...

Senior U.S. diplomats on Friday held their first formal talks in Damascus with the leader of the Islamist rebels who overthrew the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a discussion they later characterized as “good” and “thorough.”