Heavy Snow Causes Pause in Fighting, But Increased Misery in Syria and Lebanon

The severe winter storm which has affected life throughout the region has dumped dozens of centimeters of snow on western Syria and Lebanon, making it nearly impossible for anyone to fight and making Wednesday the first day in three years without a reported casualty. However, it also destroyed the flimsy shelters housing hundreds of refugees  and caused severe hardship for many more. “The storm has bad effects and good ones,” Beibares Tellawi, an activist in the central Syrian city of Homs, told AP. “We have no blankets, no heating but the (Assad) regime stopped its airstrikes.”.