Andrew Lee Butters

A Syrian demonstrator with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the background
Photo by Andrew Lee Butters for TIME
By Andrew Lee Butters/Ein el-Tina
The southwestern Syrian province of Golan is normally off limits to most civilians because parts of it — the famous Golan Heights — have been occupied by Israel since the war of June 1967. But […]

By Andrew Lee Butters/Arbil

A Kurdish family celebrates Nowruz, a holiday marking the Kurdish New Year and the start of spring. Since 2003, no U.S troops have been killed in Kurdish Iraq. Kate Brooks/Polaris for TIME
LIKE RESIDENTS OF BERLIN DURING THE AIRLIFT, inhabitants of Arbil–capital of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq–get a little flutter […]

Monday, Apr. 02, 2007
By Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut
The Palm Sunday celebration in the Beirut suburb of Al-Fanar looked like any of the hundreds occurring simultaneously in neighborhoods all over Lebanon. Priests led a procession of palm-frond waving parishioners, while parents snapped photos of their daughters dressed like poofy-skirted princesses. But when the signing and chanting stopped, […]

March 22, 2007
By Andrew Lee Butters/Erbil

Noruz, the Zoroastrian New Year and the first day of spring, is celebrated by Iraq’s Kurds every year on March 21. The holiday is a much bigger deal next door in Iran — ancient Persia is the birthplace of the Zoroastrian religion, and the government practically shuts down for weeks. […]

By Andrew Lee Butters/Kirkuk
The drive east from the safe haven of Erbil, the Kurdish capital of northern Iraq, into the contested city of Kirkuk, is typically a spooky one. To the north, stands a chain of crumbling forts left over from the Iran-Iraq war; the Hamreen mountains to the south are practically deserted save […]

Thursday, Mar. 08, 2007
By Andrew Lee Butters/Fardis

Every weekday morning, a detachment of Indian soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) embarks on an unusual kind of peacekeeping mission—one that doesn’t require guns or ammo, or even shoes. They operate what must be the first roving yoga ashram ever to appear in south […]

By Andrew Lee Butters/Damascus
What happens to a country when its population grows by more than 10% in three years? In Syria, which has absorbed more than a million Iraqi refugees, you can see cosmetic transformations. Iraqi-accented Arabic is heard constantly in the cafés and streets of Damascus. Real estate prices have skyrocketed. Food prices are […]

By Andrew Lee Butters/Damascus
Just days before the American invasion of Iraq, Nahdi Mahdi, one of Iraq’s most famous comedians, was starring in a play called The Wanderers at the National Theatre in Baghdad to a packed house of almost 2,000 people. Like many then living in the misinformation bubble created by Saddam’s regime, war was […]

Two Journalists From The Great Satan Attend a Party at Iran’s Embassy in Syria
By Andrew Lee Butters/Damascus
It came as no small surprise yesterday afternoon, when another American journalist – my friend Andrew Tabler, the editor of Syria Today magazine — and I received last minute permission to attend a banquet at the Iranian embassy in […]

The one-day general strike enforced today by Lebanon’s Hizballah-led opposition turned out to be much more aggressive and effective than expected. Not that the majority of Lebanese necessarily wanted to stay away from work. They just didn’t have a choice. Opposition activists cut the country’s major highways and the main roads into Beirut with an […]