Scott Peterson

Middle East

Journalist and Photograph at The Christian Science Monitor

Journalist, The Christian Science Monitor; photographer, Getty Images; author of Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran–A Journey Behind the Headlines

Featured in: Favicon

csmonitor.com Favicon

cbsnews.com Favicon

scribd.com Favicon

washingtonpost.com Favicon

yahoo.com (+3) Favicon

wsj.com

cbr.com

comicbook.com Favicon

jsonline.com Favicon

bonappetit.com + 9 more

Articles

The Istanbul mayor’s arrest, and rise of a ‘new model’ of Turkish autocracy

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

The sudden detention of Istanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on fraud and “supporting terrorism” charges early Wednesday had one primary beneficiary: Turkey’s long-standing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, bidding to extend his rule through a third decade. Mr. İmamoğlu was arrested just days before he was to be formally named the main opposition candidate in Turkey’s next presidential election, in 2028.
What role for Kurds in the ‘new’ Syria? They’re getting mixed messages.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

On paper, the agreement to integrate a powerful, U.S.-backed Kurdish force into the national army and institutions of the “new” Syria promises unity, peace, and mutual respect for the country’s long-disenfranchised Kurdish minority. The deal on “principles” brings a much-needed boost to Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, following the bloody crackdown on armed Assad-regime remnants that had mounted multiple attacks on forces of the new government.
Amid war’s ruins, a family grapples with young son’s hunger to learn

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

In front of a house on a slight rise in this destroyed village, on a road of frozen mud, sit a tiny wooden table and a pink plastic chair. On the table is a small router with a SIM card that sends the internet to the house below. It is protected from the elements by an overturned plastic bowl, held in place by half a brick. For Artem Aharkov, a 10-year-old boy, it is hallowed ground, the modest set-up an altar of learning.
Once-occupied Ukraine towns try to stay defiant amid fear over Russia gains

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

The veteran Ukrainian history teacher and education official in Izium had courageously kept it all together during the six-month Russian occupation in 2022. She had refused to collaborate because it was “against my ideology,” she told the Monitor soon after Ukraine forced the Russian troops out. Her heart ached when colleagues chose to work to advance Moscow’s plan to create “Russkiy Mir” (Russian World) in occupied Ukraine. And she was bold.
Ukraine is exhausted. But it’s still determined to resist Russia.

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

Three years since Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukraine’s growing war fatigue groans from cities and villages subjected to daily bombardment, rolling blackouts, and grim news from the front lines. Far from the front, at an artists café in Lviv, Oleksandr grows visibly more stressed with every word he speaks about the depth of his exhaustion. His mind is at “1% charge, and it’s not charging.
Facing relentless Russia, Ukraine confronts shortages of men and morale

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

It is an emotional moment for Nataliia Bilanska amid the constant crashes of encroaching artillery. With advancing Russian forces bringing the southeast Ukraine war front to her town, the pensioner gives herself up to her inevitable evacuation. Sobbing quietly, she locks her blue-painted front door, double-checks the handle, and then steps back and moves her hands in the shape of a cross, to bless her immaculate home, just west of the key transport hub of Pokrovsk.
After Assad’s fall, Syrians search for lost loved ones – and a path forward

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Dominique Soguel |Scott Peterson

Hamed is driving away from the gates of Syria’s infamous Sednaya Military Prison with a steady grip on the wheel. The sun is shining outside, but the darkness of the multistory complex – a network of torture chambers and cold cells cut off from the outside world by concrete walls and a latticework of braided barbed wire – is overwhelming. “I, too, was held in Sednaya,” the Syrian taxi driver suddenly blurts. He had been incarcerated there for seven years.
Ukrainians warn Trump not to trust Putin in planned peace talks

Jan 21, 2025 | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

Nearly three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House could shake things up. But how? On the campaign trail, he said he could stop the war within 24 hours of taking office. But now his aides are talking in terms of months. And they are hinting that Washington might favor freezing the front lines, which would give Moscow 20% of Ukraine’s territory. Why We Wrote ThisDonald Trump says he wants to leave a presidential legacy as a peacemaker.
Through the ubiquitous eyes of cellphones

Dec 29, 2024 | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

| Flipping through a photography magazine decades ago – when I first started visiting war zones – I came across a job description that has stayed with me ever since. The work of the photographer, it said, was to journey with a torch to the back of the cave, and return to tell the rest of the tribe what you had seen. I thought that was especially apt for a war photographer, which required being (safely-ish) in the right place at the right time, with professional cameras and the ability to...
In Syria, what remains of Iran’s regional ‘Axis’ is rubble and resentment

Dec 19, 2024 | csmonitor.com | Scott Peterson

At the abandoned Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, Iran’s fall from powerhouse to powerless is most evident. For years, the embassy, ringed with concrete blocks, fences, and an array of security cameras, served as the cockpit of Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance.”The regional strategy built and sustained allied militias from Lebanon to Yemen to counter Israeli and American influence and serve as Iran’s first line of defense.