Hawar News Agency


Hawar News Agency is an online Kurdish news service based in Al-Hasaka, Syria. The site started as an Arabic-only news service. Hawar News serves as Rojava's de facto official news agency, and is linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Ownership, identity and reliability

The ownership of the Hawar News Agency is unpublished. The website's domain name was first registered in August 2012. The site's About page says just "ANHA". Pro-Syrian opposition source Verify-sy claims Hawar News is affiliated with the Democratic Union Party.

Access blocked from Turkey

The Turkish telecommunications regulator blocked access to several news agencies in July 2015. In what was described as a counter-terrorism action, other news sites based within and outside Turkey that were banned at the same time as Hawar News included Rudaw, Dicle News Agency, and Özgür Gündem.