Public radio’s longest-running daily global news program.
©2025 The World from PRX
PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402.

Rebels in Syria are making bombs and improvized explosive devices to assist in their struggle against government forces. The BBC’s James Reynolds went to see a rebel bomb-making factory and training center, and describes it to anchor Marco Werman.
A Syrian rebel smokes during fighting in a neighborhood of Damascus January 30, 2013. The rebels lack heavy weapons. (Photo: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)
Syria remains locked in a full-on civil war.
Rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad lack heavy weapons.
So they’re trying to compensate with home-made bombs, what American forces in Iraq would have called improvised explosive devices or IEDs.
The BBC’s James Reynolds has just been to a rebel bomb factory in Turkey, just across the border from Syria.
Reynolds says these are small home-made devices, intended for use against the Syrian army.