Syria News Wire

Five years ago today I became a blogger.

14 February 2005 was a pretty important day to start writing about Syria, because next door, Mr Lebanon had taken his last breath.

Socially, politically and economically, Syria has changed more in the past five years than in any similar period in our generation. Here are a few of the landmark moments of 2005-2010:

2005:

14 February – Rafiq Al-Hariri assassinated on Beirut’s Corniche

15 February – America withdraws its ambassador, deciding that Syria is to blame for the Hariri killing

14 March – Massive anti-Syria demonstrations in Beirut

27 April – all Syrian troops leave Lebanon

KFC and Coca Cola appear in Damascus (right)

June – Hariri’s son Sa’ad leads his coalition into power in Lebanon

12 October – Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan commits suicide

30 December – Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam defects

2006:

March – Syria Planet (the first Syrian blog aggregator) launches

March – Four Seasons and Damascus Boulevard opens (right)

May – Michel Kilo and Anwar Al-Bunni arrested, others released

July – Israel launches 33 day attack on Lebanon, many seek refuge in Syria

September – 4 terrorists attempt to attack the American embassy in Damascus

2007:

Work begins on Medhat Pasha in the Old City of Damascus (right)

May – Fateh Al-Islam attacks the Lebanese army from the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, fighting lasts all summer and 40,000 civilians are made homeless

September – Israel bombs a disused factory in northern Syria and calls it a ‘nuclear bomb plant’

November – Lebanese President Emile Lahoud leaves office – there would be no replacement for 6 months

2008:

The Old City gets its own private cleaning company, Swan (right)

February – Israel assassinates Hizbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh in western Damascus

May – street battles between Lebanese opposition and pro-government forces in Beirut – fighting ends when the rivals meet in Doha and agree on Michel Sleiman as the compromise candidate for president

May – Syria and Israel acknowledge they have been in peace talks

July – Bashar Al-Assad is guest of honour at France’s Bastille Day celebrations

September – Bashar invites French President Nicolas Sarkozy to dinner at Naranj restaurant in Damascus (right)

September – Black Saturday: 17 people killed in a car bomb in southern Damascus

October – American helicopters invade eastern Syria, killing 8 civilians

December – Israel attacks Gaza relentlessly for four weeks, prompting massive demonstrations in Damascus and truckloads of Red Crescent aid convoys (right)

2009:

Damascus gets a new set of green buses, replacing the old white Russian dinosaurs (right)

January – George W Bush finally leaves office

June – Hariri’s coalition wins a second term in office, but the coalition quickly falls apart and the Hizbollah-led opposition is invited into government

September – Hugo Chavez visits Syria

December – a tyre burst at a petrol station south of Damascus kills three people, it was originally feared to have been a bomb blast

December – Sa’ad Al-Hariri visits Damascus for the first time since his father was killed

2010:

January – Syria makes it into the New York Times top ten destinations for 2010

February – Syria accepts America’s new ambassador to Damascus, filling a post that had been vacant since 15 Feb

Happy birthday to you, to you, to you, to you, to you…

2006 The Syria News Wire’s first birthday

2007 Happy birthday Syria News Wire

Well, you only celebrate birthdays when you’re young, don’t you.

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