Syria: Syria , State-run General Tobacco Company

In Syria's northeastern province of Latakia, workers roll the country's initial locally made cigars, a new product being launched despite the devastating civil conflict presently in its fifth year.

The workers are employed by Syria's national-run General Tobacco Company, which has decided to branch out into cigars in a bid to create desperately needed jobs and boost revenue.

At the end of February, the company's director general said the initiative would create some 1,000 new jobs in the country, which has seen its economy ravaged by the conflict.

"The company will start selling the products on the local market very any minute at this time and again begin trying to export to friendly nations," says Salman al-Abbas, the company's deputy director-general.  Syria's conflict, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011 before spiralling into a brutal civil war, has taken a massive toll on the economy and killed additional than 215,000 people.

Before the war, the General Tobacco Company was part the country's most prosperous national-run enterprises, generating millions of dollars.

But, like a lot of national companies, it has been under European Union sanctions since 2012, its assets frozen next accusations that it helped finance the government's bloody crackdown against unrest.

The company has decided to press ahead anyway with production of the initial locally made cigars.

"We decided to develop a new product without foreign expertise with the hope of supporting the economy," says Shadi Mualla, the plant manager, criticising what he termed "the economic war waged against Syria" by the West.

- '100 % Syrian' -

The project has been three years in the making, with workers learning to hand-roll cigars "in accordance with international standards" at the factory in coastal Latakia.

The province is a stronghold of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose father was born in the region, and is a heartland for the Alawite minority sect to which the president belongs. It has been largely insulated from the conflict and is where the tobacco for the cigars is grown.

Part those working at the factory is Um Ali, a woman in her fifties who wears a white headscarf. She began in 2011, in the early days of the conflict, and says it has taken three years to master the subtle art of rolling cigars.

"At initial, I didn't even know what a cigar was," she says. "One day, Hussam, an engineer here, said to us 'Ladies, you're used to making (local delicacy) stuffed vine leaves, so try to roll cigars the same way'," she adds.

But Um Ali says she went online to get additional tips, watching videos about cigar production in Cuba to pick up the best way to produce the luxury item. Boasting that the cigars will be "100 % Syrian", Um Ali says "2015 is the best year of my life because it's the year that we announced the start of production".

- 'Mild and smooth' -

At the moment, the factory employs some 130 workers, just six of whom are men, and produces 400 to 500 cigars a day.

They are still in the testing phase, with part of production distributed to individuals who carry out taste tests and verify the quality.

Um Ali and her colleagues work in a large hall under photos of Assad and his father Hafez, sorting brown tobacco leaves to be rolled.

She can produce around 15 cigars on a good day, up from the five to 10 she was able to roll at the same time as she started.

"They have the flavour of Syrian tobacco, and they are made by Syrian workers," she says, taking a puff on one.

Hussam Mahmud, an engineer at the factory, says the new cigar line is intended "to challenge the embargo by creating a new and profitable product". The company has from presently on to set a price for its cigars, which Abbas from presently on hopes to export, inclunding sell to wealthy local aficionados.

He plans to target nations that retain ties with Syria, inclunding Iran, Russia and China, inclunding some African nations. Mahmud says the factory's cigars will be able to compete with the world's most prestigious brands, inclunding from Cuba.

"Syrian cigars have a pleasant mildness -- they're smooth," he says.