Syria's new leader is saying that he will dissolve the many rebel factions there and absorb them into the new ministry of defense. That new leader is Ahmed al-Sharaa. And if he can achieve unity, he'll do something that Syria's former dictator, Bashar al-Assad, never could.

NPR's Leila Fadel, Jane Arraf, and Ruth Sherlock share their reporting from Syria more than a week after the fall of the Assad regime.

Edition host Leila Fadel reports from Damascus, in the first week in a half-century that the Assad family did not rule the country.

Our colleague, Leila Fadel, is in Syria learning some of the secrets of a government that has now fallen. Her latest revelation is painful enough that some people may find it hard to listen to ...

And, Leila, I spoke with a senior U.S. military ... that they will be equally safe in this new Syria. FADEL: And not to mention all of the outside influences, right? Turkey's influence.

Hey, Leila. LEILA FADEL, BYLINE ... DETROW: Have you met and talked to anyone from HTS during your time in Syria? FADEL: Yeah, I mean, I've talked to a lot of the rebel fighters.

People in Syria are looking for their relatives and friends in prisons, hospitals and morgues. The U.N. estimates over a 100,00 people have gone missing in Syria under the Assad regime.

The road to Damascus tells the story of a new Syria emerging from 54 years of authoritarian rule by one family, the Assads. Today's Syria is no longer theirs.

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, on his trip to Syria to help preserve evidence from mass graves.

In some ways, Syria is a land of ghosts, and the job of speaking for the dead falls to their loved ones and the new Syrian government. Leila Molana-Allen reports from the suburbs of Damascus. A warning, images in this story are disturbing. Syrians are ...

Brendan Smialowski/Reuters A woman stands on a street in a Kurdish town near Syria’s border with Turkey as smoke billows from tires burned to decrease visibility for Turkish warplanes.

Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering issues of culture, diversity, and race. Most recently, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and ...