By >Simon Cotton , University of Birmingham 

There are >allegations that a nerve agent was used in Syria recently. According to US officials, it >killed more than 1,400 people, including 400 children. But since then, in a >more recent incident , a bomb dropped on a school caused many children to suffer from burns. 

The substance used was >widely reported as napalm. But was it? How can we know for sure? And what is napalm anyway? 

Napalm has come to be associated with its use by the American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War, but its origins go further back.

In her book Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs, the distinguished classical scholar Adrienne Mayor recalls that the Persian army under Xerxes the Great used flaming arrows 2,500 years ago. Not long after that the Roman army used spears tipped by a mixture of burning pitch and sulphur as a weapon.

By 700 AD, the inhabitants of Constantinople had developed a fearsome substance that became known as Greek fire. Crude oil had been discovered long before that, and it was widely used as a source of naphtha, an ingredient in flaming projectiles. To their mixture, Byzantines added further refinements.

Today, the ingredients are a lost secret, but it looks as if they used naphtha, pine resin and other chemicals including sulphur, projecting it long distances by forcing it through a nozzle under pressure, the original flamethrower. High-boiling chemicals like pine resin would enable the mixture to burn for longer and reach higher temperatures than one purely based on petrol-like molecules. It would also cause the burning mixture to adhere to any surface – or person – unlucky enough to be in its way. This was used twice successfully to fight off the Muslim navy besieging Constantinople.

Some people have called World War I “the Chemists’ War” for its use of substances like chlorine and mustard gas. One of the less successful weapons was the gasoline flamethrower. The trouble with it was that it burned too fast.

During World War II, American scientists re-investigated this weapon, in a team led by Louis Fieser (who an older generation of chemists will associate with an organic chemistry textbook). Just like the Byzantines, they found that adding a thickening agent to the fuel created something that burned longer and also tended to stick to surfaces. Their thickening agent was a soap-like material based on aluminum naphthenate and aluminium palmitate. The name napalm was derived from the first parts of the words naphthalene and palmitate. When they mixed this with gasoline, they got a viscous sticky brown liquid which burned more slowly and produced higher temperatures, making it a very effective weapon for fire-bombing cities, for example. Since then this formula has been refined many times.

It was found that if you mixed polystyrene (the stuff used to make plastic model kits, or in “expanded” form as a packaging) with benzene and gasoline, the resulting product was less flammable and thus safer to handle. Despite the fact it contained neither naphthalene nor palmitate, it became known as napalm B. Burning napalm would set peoples’ clothing on fire and produce 4th or 5th degree burns penetrating right through the skin. It came into combat use in the Korean War and even though it has been used by many countries in different conflicts since then, it is imperishably associated with the Vietnam War.

There is a photo of a nine-year-old Vietnamese victim of a misdirected napalm attack running down a road. She is naked because she has ripped off her burning clothes. Thanks to surgery she survived and >Phan Thi Kim Phuc now lives in Canada. 

Napalm has not been outlawed as a weapon of war, but a United Nations convention forbids its use against civilian populations. William Butler Yeats used the phrase “a terrible beauty is born” when writing about the Easter Rising of 1916. Napalm is not beautiful, it is obscene.

Simon Cotton does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations. 

This article was originally published at >The Conversation . Read the >original article . 

Syria’s government and Kurdish forces on Saturday (January 24, 2026) extended their truce by 15 days, with Damascus saying it was to support the U.S. transfer of Islamic State group detainees from Syria to Iraq.

Several sources had earlier told AFP the truce would be prolonged, with a Syrian official in Damascus citing the same reason.

In a statement, the Syrian Defence Ministry said the 15-day extension would take effect at 11 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Saturday (January 24, 2026).

“The extension of the ceasefire comes in support of the American operation to transfer Islamic State detainees from SDF prisons to Iraq,” the statement added, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The SDF also confirmed the extension, saying it was reached “through international mediation, while dialogue with Damascus continues”.

“Our forces affirm their commitment to the agreement and their dedication to respecting it, which contributes to de-escalation, the protection of civilians, and the creation of the necessary conditions for stability,” it said in a statement.

Damascus and the SDF had initially agreed to a four-day ceasefire after Kurdish forces relinquished swathes of territory to government troops, who also sent reinforcements to a Kurdish stronghold in the northeast.

Three sources, including a Kurdish source and a Syrian official in Damascus, had told AFP earlier on Saturday (January 24, 2026) that the ceasefire would be extended.

IS transfer

After the SDF lost large areas to government forces, Washington said it would transfer 7,000 IS detainees to prisons in Iraq.

Europeans were among the 150 senior IS detainees who were the first to be transferred on Wednesday (January 21, 2026), and two Iraqi officials told AFP that a second batch of “up to 1,000 IS detainees” were being sent on Saturday (January 24, 2026).

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country is a key backer of Damascus but hostile to the SDF, had said during a TV interview Friday (January 23, 2026) that in light of the IS prisoner transfers, “extending the ceasefire for a while longer might be considered”.

The transfer is expected to take several days.

IS swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014, committing massacres and other atrocities before ultimately being territorially defeated by the SDF and a US-led coalition.

The truce between Damascus and the Kurds is part of a new understanding over Kurdish-majority areas in Hasakeh province and a broader deal to integrate the Kurds’ administration into the state.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

The new authorities are seeking to extend state control across Syria, resetting international ties including with the United States, now a key ally.

The Kurdish source said the SDF submitted a proposal to the authorities through U.S. envoy Tom Barrack that would have the government managing border crossings — a key Damascus demand.

It also proposes that Damascus would “allocate part of the economic resources — particularly revenue from border crossings and oil — to the Kurdish-majority areas”, the source added.

Earlier this month, the Syrian army recaptured oil fields, including the country’s largest, while advancing against Kurdish forces.

On Saturday (January 24, 2026), Syria’s government freed at least 126 minors being held in a prison for IS detainees in Raqa province in northern Syria after taking over the facility from Kurdish forces.

A suicide ‍bomber targeted a police patrol ​in Aleppo, killing one ‌person and wounding ​two members of the security forces, a Syrian government spokesperson said on Wednesday (December 31, 2025).

“The person who detonated an explosive belt within the patrol ​in Aleppo is believed ⁠to have an ideological or organisational background linked to Islamic ​State,” Interior Ministry ⁠spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba told state-owned news agency Al Ekhbariya, adding that investigations ‌were ongoing to determine ‌the attacker’s identity.

The attacker detonated himself while ‍being searched by the patrol after arousing suspicion, Ekhbariya ‍TV reported, citing a security source.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier this month, two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed ⁠in Syria by a suspected Islamic State attacker ​who targeted a convoy ⁠of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead.

The secretary general of Amnesty International said Saturday that the new authorities in Syria have taken steps to show commitment to reform, transitional justice and reconciliation but says democracy is still lacking.

A year after the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government, Agnes Callamard, who visited Damascus this week, said that having legal reform plans before parliament, committees for transitional justice and welcoming international rights groups and other experts were signs that change is happening in Syria.

“All of those things are very good signs but they are not very deep,” Ms. Callamard said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Messages left with Syrian officials seeking comment Saturday (November 29, 2025) were not immediately returned.

After the fall of Assad in an offensive led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria remains unstable. Forces loyal to the government were blamed for taking part this year in sectarian violence against members of the country’s Druze and Alawite minorities in the coastal region and the southern province of Sweida that left hundreds dead.

The state has formed committees to investigate atrocities against Druze in Sweida and the trial of those suspected of involvement in the violence along the coast in March began last week.

Over the past year, scores of Assad-era officials have been detained and are expected to be put on trial in the near future to face charges for human rights violations committed over decades in the Arab country.

Ms. Callamard said she was told by Syrian officials, including the minister of justice, that hundreds of detainees are being held in “relation to abuses by the former regime.”

“There is seemingly a process whereby charges will be drafted very soon,” she said, asking what are the grounds for their arrest and who is going to try them. Ms. Callamard added that the legal framework needs urgent reform “because some of the most gruesome crimes under international law have not been domesticated.”

Ms. Callamard said that she held talks with members of the National Commission on Transitional Justice and the National Commission for the Missing, on the process of collecting evidence from Assad-era prisons, adding that the process is ongoing and “will be a long process and slow.”

She said that unlike Ukraine, where some European countries established teams of experts to support Ukrainian authorities in their investigation into atrocities “nothing like that is happening in Syria. Nothing. So that needs to change.”

“We really need to see the international community doing a bit more of a leap of faith, hearing the cries for change of the Syrian people,” Ms. Callamard said. She added that despite lack of movement by international community, several small civil society organisations are the one providing all that kind of evidence in Syria.

“My impression after that very short visit, arguably, is that for the international community, Syria is a problem that must be contained,” she said. “It seems to me that very few countries are prepared to to do the leap of faith into that and frankly.”

“Without that support, I don’t know whether what’s happening right now will be sustainable,” she said.

Last month, Syria held its first parliamentary elections since Assad’s fall but there was no direct popular vote in the elections. Two-thirds of the 210-member assembly seats were elected through province-based electoral colleges, with seats distributed by population, while one-third will be appointed directly by al-Sharaa. The new parliament will serve a 30-month term while preparing for future elections.

The first trial was opened on Tuesday of some of the hundreds of suspects linked to deadly clashes in Syria’s coastal provinces earlier this year that quickly spiralled into sectarian attacks.

State media reported that 14 people were brought to Aleppo’s Palace of Justice following a month-long, government-led investigation into the violence in March involving government forces and supporters of the ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad. The investigating committee referred 563 suspects to the judiciary.

Seven of the defendants in the court were Assad loyalists, while the other seven were members of the new government’s security forces. A judge was heard during the televised proceedings asking whether they were military or civilian.

The trial follows pressure from the public and the international community for the country’s new rulers to commit to judicial reform after decades under the autocratic rule of the Assad dynasty.

Despite initial reports by the state media that charges could quickly be brought against the defendants, the judge adjourned the session and rescheduled the next hearing for December.

Charges against the suspects could include sedition, inciting civil war, attacking security forces, murder, looting and leading armed gangs, according to state media.

Given the scale of the violence and the number of suspects, it is unclear how long the proceedings will take.

The clashes in March erupted after armed groups aligned with Assad ambushed the new government’s security forces. A counteroffensive then spiralled into sectarian revenge attacks and the massacre of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which Assad belongs and who largely live along the coast.

The attacks on the Alawite community mounted pressure on interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Since coming to power in December, his government has scrambled to step out from diplomatic isolation and convince the US to drop crippling sanctions and boost trade to rebuild the war-torn country.

The government’s investigating committee in July concluded that over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed during several days of sectarian violence. But the inquiry said there was no evidence that Syria’s new military leaders had ordered attacks on the Alawite community.

A United Nations probe, however, found that violence targeting civilians by government-aligned factions had been “widespread and systematic.” The UN commission said that during the violence, homes in Alawite-majority areas were raided and civilians were asked “whether they were Sunni or Alawite.” It said: ”Alawite men and boys were then taken away to be executed.”

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday (November 8, 2025) for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.

Mr. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday (November 10).

It’s the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts.

The interim leader met Mr. Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the U.S. President’s regional tour in May.

U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that Mr. Sharaa would “hopefully” sign an agreement to join the international U.S.-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS).

The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel”, a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.

The State Department’s decision Friday (November 7) to remove Mr. Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Mr. Sharaa’s government had been meeting U.S. demands including on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.

“These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,” Mr. Pigott said.

The spokesman added that the U.S. delisting would promote “regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.”

Transformation

Mr. Sharaa’s Washington trip comes after his landmark visit to the United Nations in September — his first time on U.S. soil — where the ex-jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.

On Thursday (November 6), Washington led a vote by the Security Council to remove UN sanctions against him.

Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Mr. Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington as recently as July.

Since taking power, Syria’s new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a moderate image more tolerable to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.

The White House visit “is further testament to the U.S. commitment to the new Syria and a hugely symbolic moment for the country’s new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman,” International Crisis Group U.S. program director Michael Hanna said.

Mr. Sharaa is expected to seek funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of brutal civil war.

In October, the World Bank put a “conservative best estimate” of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday (November 6, 2025) voted to lift a series of sanctions on Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and members of his government days before he is set to arrive in the U.S. for a historic visit to the White House.

The U.S. resolution to drop U.N. sanctions tied to Mr. al-Sharaa and Syria’s Interior Minister, Anas Hasan Khattab, stemming from their ties to the al-Qaida militant group, was adopted with 14 members in support. China abstained from the vote.

“With the adoption of this text, the council is sending a strong political signal that recognises Syria is in a new era since Assad and his associates were toppled in December 2024,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, said in his statement after the vote, referring to longtime autocratic leader Bashar Assad.

American officials pushed to pass the resolution before Monday, when President Donald Trump is expected to host Mr. al-Sharaa in the first visit by a Syrian president to Washington since the country gained independence in 1946.

Syria’s foreign ministry welcomed the vote, saying in a statement that the near-unanimous support “reflects the growing confidence in President al-Sharaa’s leadership” and “represents a victory for Syrian diplomacy, which has succeeded in restoring international recognition of Syria’s status and its pivotal role in the region”.

But China remained skeptical of the effort.

Fu Cong, Chinese ambassador to the UN, said that while Beijing supports the Syrian people, the U.S. proposal did not adequately address “the legitimate concerns of all parties” regarding counterterrorism and security in Syria.

“The sponsor did not fully heed the views of all members and forced the council to take action even when there were huge differences among council members in an attempt to serve its own political agenda,” he said.

While Mr. al-Sharaa is in Washington, Syria is expected to join the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition, which includes some 80 countries working to prevent a resurgence of the militant group.

The effort is part of Mr. Trump’s strategy to rebuild relations with Syria after the 50-year rule of the Assad family came to an end in a lightning offensive led by al-Sharaa. Assad’s fall also brought to an end nearly 14 years of civil war.

Since then, Mr. al-Sharaa has sought to restore ties with Arab countries and the West, where officials were initially wary of his past ties to al-Qaida. The rebel group he formerly led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was previously designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organisation.

Mr. Trump met Mr. al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and made good on a pledge to lift or waive decades of sanctions against the war-torn country.

However, the most stringent sanctions were imposed by Congress under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act in 2019 and will require a congressional vote to remove them permanently.

In a bipartisan statement, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee welcomed the UN action on Thursday and said it was now Congress’ turn to act to “bring the Syrian economy into the 21st century”.

We “are actively working with the administration and our colleagues in Congress to repeal Caesar sanctions”, Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement ahead of the vote.

“It’s time to prioritise reconstruction, stability, and a path forward rather than isolation that only deepens hardship for Syrians.” Syria’s conflict broke out in early 2011 and left nearly half a million people dead and millions displaced, including many who are now refugees. The war caused widespread destruction, and Syria will need tens of billions of dollars to rebuild.