The world will regret bringing Assad in from the cold

 

 'When Jordanian King Abdullah II spoke with Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, on the phone earlier this month, it set a precedent that thawed a decade of ice between the two. A week prior to that, Amman had fully re-opened its main border crossing with Damascus, and the intelligence chiefs of both countries met and agreed on cooperation.

 It was a stark contrast to Abdullah's initial stance in 2011, when he condemned the Assad régime's brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors at the start of the Syrian revolution, making Jordan the first regional country to cut ties with Syria and support the opposition.

 Jordan is not the only country which has implemented a supportive stance on Assad. Two weeks ago, Egypt's foreign minister also met with his Syrian counterpart and vowed to help return Syria to the Arab League and restore its position in the Arab world. All these,, of course, came after the normalisation processes initiated by Gulf states such as the UAE, Oman and, partially, Saudi Arabia.

 The flurry of efforts to restore and normalise ties with the Assad régime is, in many ways, understandable. As was the case with Arab states joining the international community in normalising ties with the likes of Israel, to do so with Assad is simply an extension of that recognition of geopolitical reality.

  After a decade of war and the involvement of numerous foreign actors in the country, the relative territorial victory of Assad—thanks largely to his Russian and Iranian allies, of course—has compelled his neighbours to accept him back into the fold. Whether it is proof of 'might is right' or just the fact that the régime is there to stay and they may as well put up with it, is not important: they simply see that dealing with Assad is the only and best practical solution.

 Of course, the best time to ensure a transition of government in Syria has long passed. That opportunity presented itself in the early years of the revolution, when the opposition was still largely unified and gathering velocity in its fight against the régime. Back then, when the opposition was requesting arms and military assistance from the US and Western nations, however, all it was given were supplies of food packs.

 In the current situation and the efforts to restore diplomatic ties, everything that the Syrian military forces did is dropped and forgotten. This includes the countless and indescribable war crimes, the disappearance and torturing to death of tens of thousands, the dropping of barrel bombs on civilian areas and their populations, the (disputed, apparently) chemical weapons attacks on civilians and opposition alike, and the régime's vast and nightmarish prison system which is still very much intact.



 What governments in the region fail to realise, however, is that they are most at risk of the crimes of the Syrian régime than even its enemies. While Assad does provide a measure of stability and security, albeit in a way that labels any form of dissent as 'terrorism,' that is only a short-term stability.

 Firstly, there is the obvious social and political instability caused by unrestrained human rights violations, as suppressed dissatisfaction amongst the population has a way of resurfacing in later years, if left unresolved. We witnessed that fact with the Syrian revolution itself, which was built upon decades of repression and massacres such as that in Hama in 1982.

 Aside from that, there is also the major obstacle of the narcotics trade that has emerged from Syria over the course of the conflict. The production and smuggling of drugs such as captagon and hashish—especially the former—have been a nightmare for customs and border officers throughout the region, with neighbouring states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, having busted numerous shipments of narcotics, as well as states as far away as Libya and Greece.

 Those narcotics smuggling operations have had their source in Syria, and not under militias like Daesh, as many initially thought, but under the Assad régime and its overwhelming amount of manufacturing sites which it runs throughout its territory. If states in the region and beyond allow the Syrian régime to reign unhindered, they will be making themselves vulnerable to the ever-growing transnational narcotics trade coming from the 'narco state' at their doorstep.



 One surprising phenomenon throughout the normalisation process has been the silence of the US. Under the former Trump administration, despite all of its many faults, there was an active effort to check the Syrian régime and its allies. From Trump's revelation that he considered assassinating Assad, to the implementation of the major Caesar sanctions on Damascus and its affiliates, that administration had a distinctive policy on Syria and a force behind its words.

 Under the current administration of President Joe Biden, however, there are no distinctive goals in Syria and Washington's policy is notably unclear. Apart from assurances that the US does not plan to restore ties with Assad and its urging of its regional partners to cease their normalisation efforts, no serious steps have yet been taken.

 Even the Caesar sanctions —those hard-hitting measures implemented in 2019 against the Syrian government and any individuals, companies, or states that dealt with it—seem to have been forgotten. According to that landmark act, sanctions should have hit numerous entities dealing with Assad by now.

 There are cases where exceptions are understandably granted, such as the US's assurance to Lebanon that it can import from, and export to, Syria during Beirut's ongoing economic crisis and lack of essential goods, including fuel. Other states in the region, however, are not in such desperate straits.

 The fading of the Caesar sanctions shows both the US's allies and adversaries in the region—and certainly around the world—that it may not enforce what it rules. In fairness, though, many have attributed that lack of a clear Syria policy to Biden's own health concerns, which have also fuelled theories that he is not truly at the helm of the US government and that he does not even occupy the White House's oval office.

 The entire debacle also, ultimately, proves to states that sanctions can be outmanoeuvred and overcome, especially with the right geopolitical allies, a booming drug trade, and an international network of businessmen and front companies.

 States in the region and beyond who intend to normalise relations with the Syrian government should know that such a régime is not conducive to long-term stability and prosperity. Normalisation will come back to haunt them.'

Assad Steps In From the Cold, but Syria Is Still Shattered

 'Assad’s grip on power is often tenuous even in areas he controls.

 From the Presidential Palace in the capital, Damascus, he cannot drive to his country’s northern border with Turkey or to much of its eastern border with Iraq without hitting hostile front lines.

 Syria’s northwest is run by jihadists formerly associated with Al Qaeda who expend more effort trying to open a line to Western countries than they do to Mr. al-Assad.

 Rebels backed by Turkey hold other territory along the border, where Turkish currency has displaced the drastically devalued Syrian pound.

 Administering the northeast, where most of Syria’s oil and much of its farmland are, are Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States. Rounds of talks about reconnecting the territory to Damascus have failed.

 Assad relied heavily on Russia and Iran to fend off the rebels, and now both countries are eyeing his economy for opportunities to recoup their investments.

 But the economy is so weak that businessmen are closing up shop.

 The owner of a Damascus ice cream company said in an interview that he was shuttering his family business after 50 years and moving to Egypt. Recently, the tax authorities, the electricity company and the consumer protection department had all come to collect bribes after threatening to shut him down over bogus infractions if he refused to pay up.

 Other families had already moved their businesses, and the badly needed jobs they created, to Turkey, Iraq, Egypt or Gulf countries, he said.

 The Syrian government has no money and wants to collect its employees’, soldiers’ and militiamen’s salaries from the traders and industrialists,” the man said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.



 International powers have largely given up on seeking peace through diplomacy, and many acknowledge that 10 years of war, sanctions and peace talks have failed to secure concessions from Assad.

 Since he has resisted compromise so far, he probably won’t start now, said Karam Shaar, research director of the Operations and Policy Center, a research institute in southern Turkey.

 “Western policymakers do not appreciate what they are asking Bashar al-Assad to do” when they speak of integrating the opposition into his government, Mr. Shaar said.

 Mr. Shaar recalled Adib Shishakli, a Syrian politician who was president in the 1950s before being pushed out and fleeing to Brazil, where he was assassinated a decade later by a man who had been orphaned in a battle Mr. Shishakli oversaw.

 Assad had killed many more people, Mr. Shaar said, so he faced greater risks.

 “If Bashar al-Assad is ever out of office, he knows that there will be thousands of people going after him,” Mr. Shaar said.

 Still, the moves by Syria’s neighbors to draw closer with Assad reflect an erosion of the feeling that he should be ostracized when there are so many other problems in the region.



 The pipeline that the United States has backed is supposed to transmit Egyptian gas from Jordan through Syria to Lebanon, where an economic collapse has caused extensive blackouts. Despite sanctions on the Syrian government, the United States supports the plan, in part to compete with efforts by the militant group Hezbollah to bring in sanctioned fuel from Iran.

 Jordan, seeking to revive its own ailing economy, has reopened its border with Syria for trade and recently was host to the Syrian defense minister for security talks. King Abdullah II, who called on Assad to step down in 2011, spoke with the Syrian leader last week to discuss ties between the “brotherly countries and ways to enhance cooperation between them,” according to Jordan’s royal court.

 Wealthy Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., some of which bankrolled the rebels early in the war, have dropped their opposition to Assad and scoped out investment opportunities. But the cash has not followed, largely because of American sanctions.

 The Biden administration has taken a less aggressive approach toward Assad than former President Donald J. Trump, but the Biden administration has still discouraged its Arab partners from normalizing relations.

 In an interview, a senior Biden administration official said it was clear that Assad had survived and that sanctions had yielded few concessions, so the administration preferred to focus on other issues, including fighting the coronavirus pandemic, assuaging economic distress in the region and limiting Iranian influence.

 The United States would like the gas deal, whose details are still being worked out, to avoid triggering sanctions and provide minimal benefit to Mr. al-Assad, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under government protocols. The administration was also telling its friends not to let Mr. al-Assad off the hook.

 “We are actively telling the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, ‘Don’t go building shopping malls. Don’t unfreeze Bashar’s assets. Don’t give the government in Syria access to any kind of revenue for rebuilding or reconstruction,’” the official said.

 But it was allowing flexibility on issues like the provision of electricity to Lebanon and some kinds of aid inside Syria, in hopes of having a “humane, sensible policy,” the official said.'

Will the world wake up to Russian occupation of Syria?

 

 'As the Russian occupation of Syria enters its seventh year and with the Syrian crisis no longer in the news, serious questions must be asked. Vladimir Putin's intervention on behalf of his ally Bashar al-Assad may have offered Assad a short term victory, but moving forward, both lose out. At the same time however, the West has lost out too, its empty rhetoric coming to nothing, as the international community failed the Syrian people.

 Putin's intervention in late September 2015 was never meant to be a long term fix; there were concerns that Assad's position was genuinely weakened, so what was originally short term intervention has become a six-year occupation that has no sign of it ending. Russia is essentially stuck in Syria. To abruptly leave would be an admission of defeat, no matter how Putin spins the fact that Assad is still in power. The Syrian president's hold on power is tenuous, and nowhere near as strong as it was pre-March 2011. Any indication of Russia abandoning Assad would embolden even fragmented opposition groups, and threaten the régime.



 Similar to the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, Syria is essentially being used by Russia to score political points in a new cold war. The occupation of Syria is a way of showing the international community that Russia – as a great power – is "back", and that its weaker days of the 90s and early 2000s are behind it. The fact that Russia has a veto on the UN Security Council (an organisation that is fundamentally broken) is crucial here too; it can shield the régime from any wrongdoing, binding it ever closer and making it even more reliant. Weapon sales and the use of warm water ports are also benefits Russia enjoys as a result of its occupation and shielding of the réegime.

 The statement "a diplomatic solution must be sought to end the Syrian crisis" is often repeated, but is now completely meaningless. A diplomatic solution cannot be achieved unless there is genuine political will; this looks like it is in extremely short supply right now.

 Any help for Syria has to go beyond humanitarian aid. This cannot simply be used by politicians and policy makers to soothe their consciences. The root of the problem, the disease, has to be tackled and that is the Assad régime, which has destroyed the state over the last decade. Countless conferences and meetings failed; the longer the crisis continued, the more the appetite shrunk amongst the international community who quickly became preoccupied with a variety of internal and regional political problems. Fighting Daesh isn't less important as fighting Assad, with the former's creation and support being the result of the latter's brutality and a way in which all protesters were tarnishes with the label "terrorist". But unfortunately, Russia simply had to state that its airstrikes and intervention were aimed at eradicating Daesh (evidence indicates that it was not), and the response was muted.



 The Syrian uprising is not over yet. Whilst the narrative slips away from the news, recent protests in Dara'a serve as a reminder that the people of Syria are still taking to the streets and are still demanding justice and accountability for their perpetrators. A possible step for the West to take is to re-engage with Turkey. As a neighbouring state on the doorstep of Europe, it would be prudent to have Turkey onside and distance itself from Russia; essentially an occupying power here.

 Efforts to legitimise the régime must be resisted at all costs. The steps that Gulf states and other Arab states who in the past were staunchly opposed (Jordan being a notable example) have been making in rebuilding their ties with Al-Assad are deeply concerning. Al-Assad must remain an international pariah. It is deeply concerning too, that international organisations such as the WHO and Interpol are recognising the legitimacy of Assad. Ultimately, the UN never stripped the Assad régime of Syria's seat either.

 Russia is ultimately part of the problem, not the solution. No matter how it may run a protection racket with Assad, destroying the state but then claiming it is the only power that can defend and rebuild it, any efforts to accept Russian hegemony cannot stand.

 The EU should adopt policies similar to that of the Caesar Protection Act to those who finance and support the Syrian régime. Seeing Russian figures at the top of that list would be no surprise whatsoever. Moreover, holding perpetrators of the last ten years accountable, has to be considered.

 Where there is political will, there is a way. The Middle East is said to be a troubled place, but the longer the Assad régime remains, the less likely it is that other problems in the region – including Iranian aggression and the spill over crises – will be solved.'

How History Will Remember Assad's Siege of Yarmouk

 

 'Over the course of the ongoing decade-long Syrian conflict, documentation of the war and its effects has always been desired by the outside world. From footage spread on social media to entire masterpieces produced by those who lived through it, such as the movie 'For Sama' in 2019, those who were fortunate enough to only witness the conflict were able to catch glimpses of the atrocities committed by the Syrian régime, its allies and the numerous opposition groups on the ground.

 The period resulted in the emergence of a generation of unlikely filmmakers and directors, who picked up their cameras and decided to record exactly what they saw around them, without any certainty of whether the world would, one day, see it or if they would even survive the ordeal. Abdallah Al-Khatib was one such individual.

 What made his situation even more unique, though, was that he was not just in Syria but in one of the areas where the régime of Bashar al-Assad and his loyalist forces laid siege to. The Yarmouk camp—that site which was home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees since the Nakba and their exile from Palestine in 1948—had all the roads leading to and from it blocked off by Assad's forces while they held checkpoints on the camp's outskirts.

 Since the siege was enforced in 2012, the régime starved the camp's population and forbade international aid from getting in. Anyone who dared to escape through a checkpoint was arrested, disappeared and often tortured to death.

 Speaking to me about his experience, Khatib revealed that he initially had no plans on releasing his own film. Using the camera of a friend—Hassan Hassan, who attempted to leave but was detained and tortured to death—Khatib filmed footage of the situation within the camp for others who would use it outside to produce their own films. "I thought I would die" in the siege, he told me, and had no idea if he would ever escape.

  to the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution, he had worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) while studying sociology at the University of Damascus, planning to continue his life in Yarmouk and to contribute towards the Palestinian population's well-being. The Assad régime's brutal crackdown on protestors throughout the country and the ensuing siege on Yarmouk changed that.



 Like most of the country, Yarmouk and its Palestinian residents faced the full force of the régime's repression, and Khatib's film has an intense way of showing that. With starvation ravaging the camp and aid resources running dangerously dry, the camp's inhabitants—including numerous children—could be seen picking weeds out of the ground to eat them, both raw and to be cooked as a soup. Undernourished babies and skeletal figures could be seen throughout the camp as testimony to Assad's long-perfected strategy of 'siege and starve' warfare.

 Aside from the obvious human rights violations that this strategy resulted in, the fact that it targeted Palestinian refugees en-masse was also seen as a contradiction of the Assad family's long-perpetuated myth that it supports Palestinians and their historical plight. When asked whether he—as a Palestinian from Syria—saw the siege and other atrocities by the régime against his people as a betrayal, Khatib disagreed.

 Rather than a betrayal, the siege "was rather a continuation of the series of crimes committed against Palestinians, and the Syrian régime never leaned towards the Palestinian cause at all." He stressed that, through acts such as historic massacres and the targeting of hundreds of Palestinian fighters, "the Syrian régime used the Palestinians as a card of pressure for its own good in order to reach its own goals."

 Throughout the film, the viewer often notices that, contrary to popular Western notions of what would take place in an apocalyptic scenario, the inhabitants of the camp acted with an air of dignity and upheld much of their joy and laughter despite their condition. Khatib insisted, however, that it "was actually nothing exceptional to us as Palestinians, but you can also see it in other parts of Syria and you could also see it in Afghanistan."

 The important question is, he explained, "who is making the film and how do they want to portray them? Western media is used to picturing us as broken people, as victims and in that sense only as numbers."

 The siege on Yarmouk may have ended a few years ago, but the ordeal left long-term effects on him and others who survived it. When he eats, uses electricity, showers with running water, and other basic daily tasks, he says he remembers the siege. While there was no physical effect on his body, he admitted that it left a mark on his soul and psyche.

 That impact was most obvious when he was about to title his film 'The Siege within Me' rather than the current and final title of 'Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege.'

 "There are also positive aspects," he said, recalling when everything was locked down during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. "It didn't make such a big difference for me because I had lived this experience before." When social media apps like Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram also temporarily shut down this week, he mentioned that it did not bother him because "I lived in situations where they were not available."

 The siege reportedly gave Khatib immunity against certain aspects of life, as well as allowing him to see the true value of things. "We have to realise that we live in a consumerist world. We value things that pass by, that can break, like a refrigerator. We do not consider the true values like the relationships between people, for example, or the human being itself."

 When hearing about the growing and increasingly vocal class of public figures, academics and journalists who support the Assad régime and echo its claim that it is only fighting terrorism, Khatib compared them to a thief who "would ask himself for a moral excuse to rob the bank."

 By using the rhetoric of fighting terrorism, Damascus and its supporters aim to justify their atrocities and crimes against humanity. "Everyone always tries to find the moral justifications, although in the end they are political and economic interests."

 He added that the entire concept of fighting terror using atrocities is "the rhetoric of the superiority of the West," referring to the popular narrative following the state of the US-led 'war on terror.' "This serves the interests of the West, so the whole world circles around them and their interests. We should not accept in the very beginning this rhetoric of fighting terrorism," Khatib insisted.

 Abdallah Al-Khatib's film 'Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege' is, therefore, the intimate and revealing—with dashes of humour and wisdom—account of that siege of Yarmouk camp, brought to us by hard copy footage smuggled by Khatib's friends, once he fled Syria to Turkey and then Germany, where he now lives.'

Syrians in Tadef town running out of options

 

 'The town of Tadef is contested. Part of it is run by the Syrian opposition, and the rest by the Assad régime. Khalil Ibrahim has lived here all his life. 

 "We are here, and the Assad régime is about 100 metres away from us. We live in constant danger, close to the front line and the line of fire. We are forced to live here. We have nowhere else to live."

 From the rented property where he lives, Ibrahim can see the home he grew up in. It's just out of reach. 

 "We moved to many places during the period of our displacement, until they told us we could return to our city. My house in on the side of the régime, but I can't go there, and they won't let me stay there."

 Up until a month ago, 300 families lived in opposition controlled Tadef. Another 300 families have recently arrived, and many more are expected soon. 

 Omar al-Omar, an activist, said: "The devastation in Tadef is terrible. 50-60% of the town and the homes were destroyed. People tried to return several times, but that did not happen. Not a single civilian lives in the areas controlled by régime forces. That's because people are not safe from the practices of the régime, and the return of people to the city is banned."

 The future of the town is stark. Control has passed from the Assad régime to Daesh, and then back to the régime. The uncertainty is very stressful for residents. Khalil Ibrahim continued, "If the régime forces advance on our areas, we will flee from them. But we don't know where to go."

 Because northern Syria hosts millions of displaced people, the decision to move here is less often a choice than a last resort. With Assad's foces no more than a few dozen metres away, the people live in constant fear of what happens if and when the Assad régime decides to claim control of the entire town and all of Syria.'

Biden is tacitly endorsing Assad’s normalization

 

 'Ever since he met President Biden at the White House in July, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has been leading a rapid regional normalization of the Bashar al-Assad regime. This runs counter to U.S.-Syria policy and counter to U.S. law. But the Biden administration has decided it no longer will actively fight this trend. The consequences could be disastrous.

 When Abdullah took a phone call from Assad this week, he ended a decade-long policy of isolating the Syrian dictator for his mass atrocities and unrestrained violence on civilians, which have had catastrophic effects across the region and beyond. Members of Congress and Syrian opposition groups — aware that Jordan had reopened its border with Syria just a few days before — were rightfully outraged and called on the Biden administration to act.

 The Arab push to normalize relations with Assad isn’t new. But its advancing speed is alarming to many. Salem al-Meslet, president of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, led a delegation to Washington last month to urge the U.S. government and the international community to keep pressure on the regime.



 “How can you reward a ruler who killed his own people with chemical weapons and who made refugees out of half of the country’s population?” he told me in an interview. “Now, it seems like nobody is saying no to this. One word from this administration would make a huge difference.”

 But the State Department actually welcomed the border announcement, at first, and has said nothing about the Abdullah-Assad phone call. Jordanian media reported that Biden gave Abdullah explicit assurances he would not be sanctioned under the Caesar Act, the U.S. law meant to prevent normalization of the regime until Assad stops the slaughter.

 A senior administration official told me that it is still U.S. policy to discourage any country from normalizing relations with Assad.



 “We did not give Jordan a green light or an orange light. We did not support the call” between Abdullah and Assad, the official said. “We’ve made clear that sanctions restrictions remain in place and nothing should come for free.” Yet the same official conceded that the Biden administration will no longer actively work to stop countries from engaging with Assad, except when the law specifically requires it.

 This new approach, in which the United States publicly opposes normalization but privately looks the other way, was on clear display in the weeks after the Biden-Abdullah White House meeting. Soon after, a deal was struck to pipe Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria, which will surely result in cash payments to Assad. Rather than stand in the way, the Biden administration advised the participating countries that they could avoid sanctions by financing the deal through the World Bank, essentially promoting a loophole in U.S. law.

 Regional countries got the message. At last month’s U.N. General Assembly, Syrian officials met with several Arab leaders, after which Egypt’s foreign minister pledged to help “restore Syria’s position in the Arab world.”

 Proponents of normalization argue that 10 years of isolation and pressure on Assad have not produced any progress on a political settlement, while sanctions have exacerbated Syrians’ suffering. They also argue that Arab engagement can dilute Iranian power in Syria.



 One main proponent of such an approach over the years has been Brett McGurk, the Biden White House’s top Middle East adviser. In a 2019 Foreign Affairs essay entitled “Hard Truths in Syria,” he argued that the United States should cease opposing efforts by its Arab partners to normalize Assad. He also wrote that the United States should encourage its partners within Syria, such as the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, to strike a deal with the Assad regime so U.S. forces can leave and Russia and the regime can take over responsibility there.

 The glaring problem with this approach is that the Assad regime and Russia have violated every deal they’ve struck with local groups, subjecting them to new cruelty and suffering. The long-term result will be more extremism, refugees and destabilization.

 “The conflict in Syria has destabilized the entire Middle East region. Normalizing relations now will only allow that destabilization to continue,” the ranking Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees said in a statement.



 The only hope for real peace, stability and justice in Syria is for the United States to reengage diplomatically and work to revive and lead the international political process. Meanwhile, the United States should help to improve the lives of Syrians living outside of Assad’s control, rather than advising them to strike bargains with their oppressor.

 There are no good choices in Syria, but tacitly allowing a mass murderer to be welcomed back into the diplomatic fold is not an acceptable choice. Normalizing Assad won’t end the war, and looking the other way is a morally and strategically bankrupt strategy.'

Northern countryside of Homs faces similar fate to Daraa

 

 Suhail al-Ghazi:

 'The northern countryside of Homs holds great importance in the context of the Syrian civil war. The people of Homs city, known as the “capital of the Syrian revolution,” are tribally linked to its northern countryside and its strategic location connects the capital Damascus and Aleppo. Its provincial cities and towns have also participated in the demonstrations since the Syrian uprising in 2011.

 Residents and defectors from the Syrian army established armed groups to fight against the Bashar al-Assad régime in 2012 and controlled the area until 2018. The northern countryside of Homs witnessed increasing episodes of sectarian violence throughout the conflict. It was subjected to siege and bombing by the Assad régime from 2014 until its recapture and a subsequent reconciliation agreement in May 2018. But, recently, a series of attacks against régime forces and threats by régime commanders are exposing the region to a similar fate as Daraa governorate. In June 2018, locals in Daraa reached a similar reconciliation agreement with the régime, only for the Syrian army to launch a military attack against Daraa al-Balaad to fully capture it and force a new deal that allows the régime to enter all areas.



 In April 2018, after the Assad régime recaptured Eastern Ghouta, Syrian army forces headed to the northern countryside of Homs to retake control. Military operations began, accompanied by aerial bombardments that targeted civilians and civilian objects, including hospitals and schools—a common tactic used by the Assad régime against opposition-held areas, which also constitutes a war crime. After less than a month of intermittent fighting and negotiations, the Syrian army and a committee comprised of local figures, opposition commanders, and the Syrian al-Ghad Movement—an opposition political party led by former Syrian Coalition President Ahmad al-Jarba—reached a reconciliation agreement under Russian auspices in May 2018.

 The agreement displaced civilians and fighters who refused to stay and sign the reconciliation agreement; offered civilians and defectors six months before being required to join compulsory military service; banned Syrian régime forces entering the region for the first six months since recapture; and transformed the Jaish al-Tawhid faction, an armed opposition group from Talbise town, into a local police force under the command of the Russian military police. However, as with other instances, the Syrian army violated the terms of the agreement and entered the area earlier than agreed.

 Régime forces immediately started to arrest civilians following the former’s return to the northern countryside, including civil defense volunteers, defectors, and even members of the local reconciliation committee. After the reconciliation, Russia followed the same tactic in Daraa governorate by using former opposition fighters to its benefit. The Russian military police issued identification cards for the local auxiliary force after the fighters finished the settlement process. The auxiliary force was eventually dissolved and some fighters were either transferred to the Fifth Corps—a Russian-backed division of the Syrian army that consists of reconciled former opposition fighters—or went back to civilian life.

 Following the May 2018 reconciliation agreement, Iran-backed forces, such as the Fourth Division, expanded their presence in the northern countryside. The régime’s continued neglect of these areas in terms of services and reconstruction as well as continued human rights violations—such as arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, and personal grievances cases filed by pro-régime locals, who accused opposition fighters of killing and kidnapping loved ones or destroying their properties—contributed to growing resentment against the Assad régime. Despite this so-called reconciliation agreement, several members of the reconciliation committee fled to Lebanon out of fear of being detained.



 In June 2019, a year after the Syrian army took control of the northern countryside, a channel on Telegram announced the establishment of a group calling itself “The Resistance Brigades in Homs.” The statement said that the group formed due to Russia’s failure to fulfill its obligations to the region and the régime’s use of conscripted youth in the battles in northwest Syria against opposition forces. The Resistance Brigades claimed nine attacks on régime forces between September 2019 and December 2020, targeting checkpoints and military bases.

 In October 2020, another armed group calling itself the “Brigades of 2011” announced that it would start carrying out attacks against the Syrian army, security services, and national defense militias—a local pro-régime militia affiliated with the security apparatus—in the northern countryside due to rights abuses committed by the régime in the region. In mid-November 2020, the armed group announced that they targeted a building belonging to state security in the city of Talbiseh in the northern countryside, a day before a scheduled celebration for the Baath Party. A statement published by the Brigades of 2011 said that the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases was the reason behind the attack. In May, while the country was preparing for the presidential elections, the armed group took credit for attacking an election celebration in the village of Farhaniya. Armed men on a motorcycle shot into the crowd, killing one person. Then, in July, the armed group again took credit for assassinating an army corporal at his home and assassinating another first lieutenant in mid-August.

 After these developments and, following the decision of the régime to send military reinforcements to the region, Major General Hossam Loqa, director of the General Intelligence Branch, met with local figures and the reconciliation committee in late August. Loqa threatened to launch a military operation unless the perpetrators involved in the attacks were handed over, in addition to handing over individual weapons and demanding six hundred personnel of Jaysh al-Tawhid for military service. Thus far, there has neither been a military operation nor a new settlement.



 The northern countryside of Homs is facing a scenario similar to Daraa, as the Assad régime has shown a lack of commitment to the settlement agreements signed by several regions across Syria, and countless human rights violations have continued. However, because the northern countryside of Homs is a tribal society and many army officers are from the area, especially Rastan—the biggest city in the northern countryside—the region may avoid a siege scenario like Daraa and a large-scale military operation if they reach an agreement with the Assad régime. This is partly because of the limited sleeper cell attacks against régime forces compared to those in Daraa governorate.

 Still, the Assad régime’s condition of six hundred young men joining conscription will be the biggest obstacle to implementing any agreement. This is yet another example of the so-called reconciliation agreement’s failure to bring stability and peace to Syria, as these agreements are built over destruction and rights abuses rather than any genuine and sustainable reconciliation. It is also another example of failed Russian promises to provide security for Syrians and how Moscow uses temporary reconciliation settlements as a step to execute its longer term, wider agenda in the country.'

Syrian exiles forced to prop up régime with fees

 'Early this year, Yousef, a 32-year-old Syrian living in Sweden, found himself faced with an impossible choice: either enlist in the army of the government that made him a refugee, or risk his family losing their home back in Syria.

 Military service is mandatory for Syrian men between the ages of 18 and 42, and the stakes rose significantly in February when an army official announced on Facebook that a new regulation would allow authorities to confiscate the property of “service evaders” and their families. Pressure was mounting on Yousef to decide.



 And so, in June, he made his way to the Syrian embassy in Stockholm with $8,000 (£5,876) in cash, ready to pay the fee to have his name taken off the conscription rolls. A shiver ran down his spine as he collected his receipt.

 “This money will be used by the Syrian régime to buy weapons and kill more people,” Yousef told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), his voice trembling.

 He is far from alone. About a fifth of Syria’s population of 17 million are men of military age, according to data from the World Bank, and studies have shown that the threat of conscription is a major reason many refugees fear returning.

 The Syrian régime has been able to leverage this anxiety into revenue, harvesting foreign currency from the roughly 1 million Syrians who have settled in Europe to help prop up its ailing budget after US sanctions cut the country off from the international banking system last year.



 Syrian embassies, which used to only process paperwork for the military exemptions, have recently begun collecting cash payments. Two researchers, an airport official, and a former diplomat interviewed by OCCRP and the Syrian Investigative Reporting Unit (Siraj), said they suspected the cash made its way back to Syria via diplomatic pouch. Such a move would violate the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, which says “packages constituting the diplomatic bag […] may contain only diplomatic documents or articles intended for official use.”

 Government documents and official statements show Bashar al-Assad’s government projected the policy would raise substantial income, revealing the lengths the Syrian government is going to in order to raise cash. Syria’s army, finance ministry, foreign ministry, central bank, and military recruitment service did not respond to requests for comment.

 The US sanctions implemented in 2020 under the Caesar Act have worsened an already difficult financial situation for Syria. Processing payments for vital imports such as wheat and oil products have become even harder as a result, and the Syrian pound, now worth barely 1% of its pre-crisis value against the dollar, has suffered further losses.

 “Shortage in foreign currency has become an acute problem, especially after the Caesar Act came into force,” said Armenak Tokmajyan, a researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “The régime needs foreign currency. The more it has, the longer it will survive.”

 The government has leaned increasingly on its diaspora to fill its coffers. A Syrian passport is now one of the world’s most expensive to obtain abroad, at about £220 for a new passport, and about £600 to get it expedited.

 Syria’s 2021 budget projection predicts revenues from the military exemption fees to reach 240bn Syrian pounds (£140m), up from 70bn Syrian pounds in 2020, according to copies published in Syria’s Official Gazette.

 The estimated revenue makes up 3.2% of this year’s budget revenue, up from 1.75% in 2020, the Syrian economist Karam Shaar told OCCRP.

 Sweden illustrates how the new amendments have played out among Syria’s diaspora. The Scandinavian country hosts about 114,000 Syrian refugees and is home to tens of thousands of relatively new arrivals.

 Between June and August, OCCRP reporters made three visits to the Syrian embassy in Stockholm. They counted an average of 10 applicants a day waiting in the queue for military service exemption.

 Another hint of how many people were paying the exemption fees came a year earlier, in June 2020, when the embassy website published the names of 43 Syrians cleared to pay the fee. It is unclear exactly when those on the list applied, but for other procedures, such as passport issuance, the embassy usually issues its lists once a month. The June post was the last such public announcement.

 An embassy employee, speaking to an undercover OCCRP reporter, said he could not say exactly how many had applied for the service exemption, but that there had been a “significant increase” in the first half of 2021, which he attributed to the February announcement.

 “On some days, 10 come to us and on other days the figure can go up to 50,” the employee said. If accurate, this would mean the embassy could be taking in as much as $400,000 in cash on some days.

 OCCRP spoke with 10 Syrians, eight in Sweden, one in Germany, and one in Lebanon, who decided to pay the conscription fee. Some, like Yousef, were frightened by the prospect of asset seizures in Syria. But others had more practical reasons.

 One 29-year-old named Ali said he paid the fee at the encouragement of his family, who considered the payment to be “a form of direct participation in the Syrian war effort”.

 Gian, a Syrian who works at a home for elderly people in Frankfurt, Germany, said he had no issue in paying the money. “I am getting a monthly salary, the exemption process is easy, and I want to safeguard my family’s property in Syria from being seized,” Gian said. He said three relatives with asylum status in Germany also paid the fee.

 But many Syrians are still leery of funding the government they feel was responsible for sending them into exile.

 Abdullah Jaafar, a 35-year-old who has been living in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, for eight years, said he saw the exemption payments as a kind of extortion.

 “I have the full amount, and I can pay it, but I will not do it,” Jaafar said. “This government is illegal.” '

Afrin attacks show political solution with régime impossible

 

 'The latest attacks by the Bashar Assad régime and its backer Russia on Syria’s northern Afrin prove that reaching a political solution with the régime is impossible, Abdurrahman Mustafa, head of the Syrian Interim Government said on Sunday.

 In a written statement, Mustafa said that in a dangerous escalation “confirming the continuity of the criminal approach of the régime and its allies against the Syrian people” warplanes targeted a school in the village of Barad, in the south of Afrin province, which lead to deaths as well as injuries.

 The attack also caused material damage to surrounding buildings, he added.

 “The crime adds to the criminal record of the murderous régime and its allies, and confirms the impossibility of reaching with them any political solution on the future of Syria,” Mustafa said.

 He also accused the international community of not being able to deter the regime from carrying out such attacks.



 Mustafa underlined that “the régime must be held accountable for all war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Syrian people.”

 Condemning the attack, Mustafa said that these acts will not undermine the determination of the Syrian people to achieve victory.

 The increasing attacks on Afrin and Idlib come ahead of a meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to take place in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

 Russia is the main ally of the Syrian régime, while Turkey supports groups that have fought to unseat Bashar Assad.'

The Assad Régime’s Business Model for Supporting ISIS

 'The régime of Bashar al-Assad consistently supported the Islamic State (ISIS) when the group controlled significant amounts of territory, even as the régime struggled to retake control of Syrian territory from the various rebel groups engaged in the Syrian civil war, including ISIS. One key tactic of the régime’s strategy was to focus its military efforts against the moderate Syrian rebel groups opposing the Assad dictatorship, in particular the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and not the Islamic State group. Assad typically would be involved in any major decisions, and government officials would be wary of the consequences of making sensitive decisions or taking sensitive actions without Assad’s prior approval. It is therefore inconceivable that Syrian intelligence could have assisted, facilitated or tolerated ISIS operatives without prior decision-making at the highest levels of the Syrian government. The Syrian régime made this strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.”

 In May 2011, in the wake of some of the early Arab Spring protests in Syria, the Syrian government began to release hardline Islamist terrorists in the first of a series of official government amnesties. Decree No. 61, for example, issued in May 2011 covered “all members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other detainees belonging to political movements.” Several of the terrorists released in these first amnesties went on to head Islamist extremist groups in Syria, including Hassan Abboud, a founder of Ahrar al-Sham; Zahran Alloush, the commander of Jaysh al-Islam; and Ahmad `Aisa al-Shaykh, the commander of Suqour al-Sham, as well as senior figures in ISIS such as Ali Musa al-Hawikh (aka Abu Luqman). Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat with Syria’s foreign ministry who later defected to the opposition, told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 that “the fear of a continued, peaceful revolution is why these Islamists were released. The reasoning behind the jihadists, for Assad and the régime, is that they are the alternative to the peaceful revolution. They are organized with the doctrine of jihad and the West is afraid of them.”

 By housing the jihadists together in the notorious Sednaya prison before the rebellion, the régime effectively networked together formerly disparate and unconnected jihadists, who came to refer to themselves as Sednaya graduates. According to one released Sednaya jihadist, “when I was detained, I knew four or five or six, but when I was released I knew a hundred, or two or three hundred. I now had brothers in Hama and Homs and Daraa and many other places, and they knew me. It took only a few short weeks—weeks, not a month—for us, in groups of two or three, in complete secrecy, to start.”

 Beyond strategically and intentionally releasing jihadists from Syrian prisons, the Assad régime also frequently refrained from attacking ISIS positions. At times, the Assad régime and ISIS agreed to several evacuation deals, and sometimes the régime appeared to collude with ISIS in an effort to encourage the group to attack moderate rebels rather than the régime. In other cases, ISIS appeared to take actions favorable to Syrian government interests. For example, in July 2014, ISIS forces withdrew from the northern suburbs of Aleppo just as the Syrian régime was trying to outflank FSA forces in the city. The ISIS withdrawal enabled régime forces to take the city’s northern suburbs without firing a shot and then outflank FSA forces in the city from three sides.

 One reason the Assad régime may have elected not to target ISIS positions in Eastern Syria was the régime’s business dealings with the organization. The U.S. State Department has stated unequivocally that “the Syrian régime has purchased oil from ISIS through various intermediaries, adding to the terrorist group’s revenue.” This started around 2014, when ISIS seized control of the Deir al-Zour region of Eastern Syria, and gained control of more than 60 percent of the country’s oil fields, including Syria’s largest, the al-Omar oil field. By September 2014, ISIS’s daily income from oil from Iraqi and Syrian oil fields was estimated to total some $3 million a day, with sales of around 50,000 barrels a day in Syria alone.

 Reports emerged in 2015 that the Islamic State was selling at least some of its oil to the Syrian government. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, in 2014 “ISIL may have earned as much as several million dollars per week, or $100 million in total, from the sale of oil and oil products to local smugglers who, in turn, sell them to regional actors, notably the Asad régime.” In March 2015, the European Union blacklisted prominent Syrian businessperson George Haswani, explaining that “Haswani provides support and benefits from the régime through his role as a middleman in deals for the purchase of oil from ISIL by the Syrian régime.” Meanwhile, according to a Financial Times investigation, there were reports that Haswani’s company, HESCO, “sends ISIS 15m Syrian lira (about $50,000) every month to protect its equipment, which is worth several million dollars.” Haswani’s son denied this but confirmed that ISIS did, in fact, “partly” run the company’s Tuweinan gas plant.

 The Assad régime’s business dealings with ISIS did not end with oil and gas, however. The régime also purchased and sold grain from areas under ISIS control. Samer Foz, a Syrian businessman blacklisted by the European Union in 2019 for providing financing and other support to the Assad régime, reportedly transported grain from Syrian government-controlled areas to territory controlled by ISIS. According to other reports, he also moved wheat from ISIS-controlled areas through Turkey into Syrian régime-controlled territory.

 The Syrian régime also supported the financing of ISIS by allowing Syrian banks to continue to function and provide financial services within ISIS-held territory. In a report on ISIS financing issued in February 2015, the Financial Action Task Force—the multinational body that develops and promotes policies to counter illicit financial activities—found that “more than 20 Syrian financial institutions with operations in ISIS-held territory” continued to do business there. Moreover, these bank branches remained “connected to their headquarters in Damascus; and some of them may maintain links to the international financial system.”

 The Assad régime also looked the other way and allowed ISIS to conduct financial transactions through informal financial networks, even once these illicit terror-financing channels were publicly exposed. For example, in April, September and November 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department designated a series of ISIS financial facilitators and money service businesses that had been enabling ISIS activities in Syria and beyond. But the Syrian government took no action against these publicly outed ISIS financial intermediaries, which continued to function unmolested.

 The ISIS financial networks in question were not insignificant, making the Syrian government’s decision not to act against them, even once their activities became public, all the more galling. They included, for example, the ISIS “general financial manager” Abd-al-Rahman Ali Husayn al-Ahmad al-Rawi, who according to information released in the Treasury Department press release announcing his designation in April 2019, “was one of a few individuals who provided ISIS significant financial facilitation into and out of Syria.” Moreover, “Abd-al-Rahman had a hard-currency liquidity of several million dollars in Syria. He served as ISIS’s general financial manager, and prior to his relocation to Turkey, he traveled around Syria on behalf of the group.”

 The territorial defeat of ISIS, coupled with the relative increase of the Syrian régime’s strength, means the group’s utility to Damascus has largely run its course. ISIS cells primarily attacked régime-aligned forces in the Badia (the Syrian desert) in 2020, régime forces have carried out operations targeting ISIS forces rather than letting them relocate as before, and the group has become even more reliant on illicit money service businesses in the region to transfer funds internationally.

 While ISIS remains an insurgent threat in Iraq and Syria and a global threat as a terrorist network, it no longer controls significant territory and the risk it poses is a fraction of what it once was. But there is no clear global coalition—political or military—to address the threat posed by the Assad régime, which has killed exponentially more people than ISIS, facilitated the group’s terrorist activities, and caused population displacement, migration flows, and tremendous regional instability. The international community stepped up to the challenge of ISIS, but it has failed miserably to address the multifaceted challenges presented by the Assad régime, let alone address the calamity that is the Assad régime itself.'

Torture after returning to government-controlled Homs

 

 'The Assad régime with the support of its Russian ally has blocked aid into the Rukban camp along the border with Jordan since September 2019, forcing some 21,000 people to leave the desperate situation in Rukban.

 The estimated remaining 12,000 people are left with next to no food or water and a lack of sanitation in the camp.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokeswoman Danielle Moylan, 88 individuals have registered to leave the camp as part of the UN-supported mission.

 “On September 11, a convoy of five trucks entered Rukban with the sole purpose to support these registered families to voluntarily leave Rukban with their belongings,” Moylan claimed.

 “However, while inside Rukban a small group of individuals obstructed the convoy and assaulted a driver. As a result, the mission was cancelled and the convoy immediately departed Rukban.”



 A 28-year-old Rukban camp resident, who asked to be identified by his initials IA, told Al Jazeera there were many Syrians protesting at the gates of the camp against the entry of transfer trucks.

 “I am one of those people who would never return back to areas under Assad’s control, no matter how bad my situation gets,” IA, originally from al-Qaryateen village in eastern suburbs of Homs, said.

 “I will never return to an area ruled by the criminal régime who still kills civilians and treats them brutally.”

 Rukban lies in an arid “no-man’s land” between the border of Syria and Jordan, close to the US military base al-Tanf.



 The majority of the displaced Syrians in Rukban fled from the armed group ISIL (ISIS) when it controlled Raqqa in 2014, and once Jordan stopped accepting refugees into the country in 2016 it became a de facto camp.

 Living in the camp since 2015, IA explained the conditions in Rukban could not get any worse because of the blockade of aid. On some days, he, his wife, and three daughters do not get anything to eat, and generally, there is a shortage of basic items.

 “For example, today we ate rice with some yoghurt on the side, and we thank God for that,” IA said.



 The thousands who have already left the camp were sent to “transition centres” set up by the régime in Homs, though they more resemble detention facilities where people are interrogated and sometimes forcibly disappeared.

 Amnesty International recently documented that some of the returnees were transferred to intelligence centres where they were tortured.

 In its latest research on human rights violations in Syria, Amnesty said Syrian security officials detained 10 individuals who returned from Rukban camp, and three were “subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, and two were forcibly disappeared”.

 SACD also documented the arrest of 174 people who were sent to “terrorism” courts following their transit from Rukban to the Homs centres, despite Russian and Syrian régime safety guarantees.

 As Atassi from SACD pointed out, the Syrian regime “really enjoys humiliating” opposition areas and civilians previously critical of it.

 “We think the UN in Syria is failing to properly inform Syrians of the situation and their activities in returning Syrians,” Atassi said.

 “The research shows a pattern with which the regime treats people coming back from Rukban. These people are not coming back to their homes, they’re going to their death.”



 IA said he is at an increased risk of being detained if he left Rukban because he joined “the revolution” in 2011 and protested against al-Assad’s régime.

 “Many of our friends who returned from Rukban were actually detained and until this day, no one knows anything about them,” IA said.

 “Some were taken to Sednaya prison and it is still unknown whether they will come out alive or not,” IA added, referring to the Assad régime military prison known for its torture and execution of thousands of Syrians.



 The UN said it was aware of reports, including the recent Amnesty research, on detentions and abuse of individuals who returned to government-controlled areas.

 Moylan said the UN continues to make every effort to independently verify reports and to follow up with Syrian officials.

 “It remains the UN’s position that conditions in Syria are not conducive for large-scale, organized returns,” Moylan said. “The UN is not in a position to make security guarantees and has not made any such guarantees to people living in Rukban.”

 There are no follow-up mechanisms for the UN to assess the fate of people they assisted in leaving Rukban and access to the centres are blocked by Syrian authorities.

 “The UN at this point in time have the responsibility to inform people that it is not safe to return, rather than facilitating their return,” Atassi said.

 “When you’re left between two choices – of either staying in a camp and dying from starvation or cold, or going to Assad detention centres and dying under torture – they choose the lesser evil,” Atassi said.



 IA expressed his interest in returning to Homs with his family, “but not with the presence of killers and criminals”.

 “Homs is very dear to our hearts. It is the most beautiful city, but without Assad.” '

Idlib residents fear renewed Russian-backed offensive

 'On Sept. 1, eight raids targeted a Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) camp in the forest of al-Hamamah village in the western countryside of Idlib, while four raids hit two frontlines in Kabana in the countryside of Latakia and Duwayr al-Akrad village in the northwestern countryside of Hama.

 The following day, six Russian raids targeted the hills of Kabana and Tallat al-Khoudur in the countryside of Latakia, as well as Sarmaniya in the countryside of Hama. And from Sept. 3 through Sept. 6, daily raids by Russian aircraft targeted locations in the Idlib countryside, with raids intensifying on Sept. 8 and showing no signs of slowing down.

 The ongoing Russian airstrikes raised the concerns of residents over the possibility of the Syrian government carrying out military action in those areas. As a result, some families decided to flee; others preferred to get rid of their furnishings to make it easier for them to leave in the event of battles.

 Hardly a day goes by without Russian planes carrying out a number of raids, especially in western Idlib and the Jabal al-Zawiya area.

 Omar Jumaa from the town of al-Bara in Jabal al-Zawiya said, “I fled to the northern camps near the Turkish border as the régime bombarded on a daily basis my town and the villages in Jabal al-Zawiya. Add to this the daily Russian airstrikes. Most of the residents of those villages fled to safer areas. Despite the so-called cease-fire reported in the media, it looks like there is war on the ground.”

 For his part, Sameh Nabil, a Free Syrian Army leader residing in Idlib, said, “As factions, we expect the régime to launch military action in Jabal al-Zawiya. After settling the Daraa issue, régime forces may head toward Jabal al-Zawiya. We have braced ourselves for such a possibility and developed appropriate military plans.”

 He added, “Unfortunately, Turkey is sitting idly by even though it is a party to the cease-fire that was agreed to on March 5, 2020, in Moscow. However, the Turkish side in Jabal al-Zawiya is merely watching as Russian planes bombard the towns of Jabal al-Zawiya near the positions of the Turkish army.”

 Naji Abu Hudhaifa, an Idlib-based spokesperson for the National Liberation Front, which includes several armed opposition factions in northern Idlib, said, “The escalation carried out by the Russian planes and the régime’s artillery has been ongoing. We responded by bombing several régime positions in Saraqib from where régime forces launch their attacks against civilians in Idlib.”

 He added, “We have declared full readiness to confront any military operation on the part of the régime, and we are monitoring the movements of the régime forces at the lines of contact.”

 Abu Muslim al-Shami, an Idlib-based military commander in HTS,said the "factions of Al-Fatah al-Mubin (Great Conquest) operations room, which is led by HTS, directly deal with the sources of aggression. After the bombing of Idlib city, we targeted locations deep within the régime [areas] inside the city of Saraqib, which resulted in several explosions inside the city. We also targeted several other areas. We, the military factions, are bracing ourselves for all kinds of possibilities. We are aware that our enemy is [murderous].”

 Majd Kilani, an Idlib-based researcher at the Jusoor Center for Studies, said, “Turkey supports the factions to confront any infiltration in the wake of the recent Astana meeting, where it was agreed to support the factions’ bombing of régime sites in response to the escalation. However, field and political indicators do not point to a Russian or régime plan to start battles neither in Idlib nor elsewhere. Russia presents itself as a guarantor of the political track. On the ground, there are no indications of the régime’s intention to open battles, at least in the near future.”

 Kilani further warned, “The humanitarian situation is catastrophic in Idlib as winter draws near amid another possible coronavirus wave and more possible rounds of bombing operations.”

 Muhannad Darwish, a resident of Idlib, said, “I think the régime has settled the Daraa issue and is close to settling the issue of Syria’s Badia, which has been combed in search of Islamic State cells. I believe the calm that previously existed [in Idlib] was due to the régime’s plan to settle the issues of Daraa and the Badia desert. But since those issues have been settled, escalation will return to Idlib.”

 Darwish believes “Turkey is working hard to have the cease-fire hold in Idlib. Turkey has specific interests and is the weakest link in Syria, so it believes an escalation would not be in its interest. However, I believe if the cease-fire collapses and the battles resume, the Turks will not stand idly by. The quality of their military deployment is different today.” '

Nobody is safe under Assad

 

 'Things couldn't go any better for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The whole world watches with horror the takeover of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan and hardly anyone notices what Assad's henchmen are up to. These days they are doing what they have been doing for years, bombing them, driving them away and torturing them, but more unleashed than they have been for a long time. This is a popular strategy used by autocrats in the Middle East: as soon as global attention is focused on another region, they take action against their critics even more brutally than usual.

 For the people in Daraa, a province in southern Syria , on the Jordanian border, this is a disaster. They have been attacked by Assad's henchmen for weeks. For a long time it was relatively peaceful in Daraa. But now Assad is using the moment to submit the province and the provincial capital of the same name.



 Daraa was a center of the opposition for a long time, and protests against the régime began there in 2011. A couple of young people in town had sprayed the sentence "It's your turn, doctor" on a house wall, an allusion to the trained ophthalmologist Bashar al-Assad. He had her arrested and mistreated for it. The anger of family members and residents in Daraa sparked a peaceful uprising that soon spread across the country. But instead of resigning or introducing reforms, the dictator had the demonstrators beaten, arrested and killed. And with it started a destructive war that continues to this day.

 The Assad régime retook Daraa in 2018, but the rebels retained some areas under their control, including the southern part of the provincial capital, Daraa al-Balad. Most recently, Assad's henchmen had besieged it. The residents trapped there endured under inhumane conditions, with dwindling supplies of food, drinking water and medicines.



 With this looming humanitarian catastrophe behind him, Assad was able to blackmail his opponents into surrendering. Russia, the closest ally of the Assad régime, has now negotiated a ceasefire with the rebels, which has been in force for a few days. The agreement provides for a withdrawal of all fighters, the surrender of their weapons and an oath of allegiance by the residents to Bashar al-Assad.

 Since then, Assad's henchmen have been advancing further and further into Daraa al-Balad. Tens of thousands of people are on the run, whoever stays risks death. Assad regards all people who have lived in an opposition area as terrorists who need to be eliminated, even if they have never fought. As a result, many civilians fear massacres and acts of revenge by the régime.



 Their fear is justified. The régime has used tactics similar to those in Daraa in recent years, for example in eastern Aleppo and in eastern Ghouta. Assad and his Iranian and Russian helpers surround the opposition districts, drop more and more bombs on homes and hospitals and leave people starving. After taking the places, Assad's henchmen mistreat or kill many opposition fighters and civilians.

 These crimes are well documented. The fact that the régime is still committing and can commit them to this extent shows one thing very clearly: as long as Assad's régime is in power, there will be no peace, on the contrary. Assad will not stop his attacks until he has control of the whole country again.



 This is also evident in northwest Syria. In Idlib, the last province still controlled by rebels, the Syrian and Russian air forces have been massively bombing the civil infrastructure for a few days. Actually, there is a ceasefire between rebels and régime troops in the province. The attacks now are the worst in almost a year.

 According to the Syrian civil defense, more than five people were killed and at least eleven injured in the bombings, including children. The Syrian and Russian air forces attacked a refugee camp near the Turkish border and houses in the provincial capital of the same name, Idlib, where hundreds of thousands of people live. They also attacked a medical facility in Marayan village, which was one of the few medical centers in the area that served thousands of people.



 Around three million people live in Idlib, many of whom have previously fled there from other provinces. Many are now on the run from the bombs again. Even before the new attacks, the situation in Idlib was dire. Many people have set themselves up in tented camps or makeshift shelters without protection from rain or heat. Most of them just make ends meet.

 The supply situation in Syria and especially in Idlib is catastrophic. The country is struggling with an economic crisis that is exacerbated by the collapse of the financial system in neighboring Lebanon. Due to the currency depreciation, the prices for many products have multiplied. Even basic things like bread and gasoline have become priceless for many, and in some areas people are threatened with famine. According to the World Food Program (WFP), 12.4 million people in Syria can only find food with great difficulty .



 In addition to hunger and poverty, the lack of security affects people, especially in Assad's territory. Assad, who was re-elected president in May after a sham election, is punishing anyone who dares to question his rule. Intimidation, torture and extrajudicial executions are cruel everyday life for many people in Syria.

 Not only those who stayed in Syria suffer from this. In the course of the war, millions of Syrians fled, most of them to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon, and many to Europe. There some politicians and parts of the public are increasingly convinced that now that the fighting in Syria has allegedly subsided, the people should return to their homeland.



 The Danish government, for example, has recently withdrawn residence permits from Syrian refugees because it considers parts of Syria to be safe. At the end of 2020, the federal government suspended the ban on deportation for Syrians in order, as it emphasizes, to be able to deport only serious criminals. Even in countries like Turkey and Lebanon, which are struggling with severe economic crises, resentments against the refugees are growing, and attacks on Syrian accommodation and restaurants are increasing. It is not safe for anyone in Syria, especially not for returnees. Assad regards people who have fled the country as apostates and traitors.

 A recently published report by Amnesty International shows how cruelly he is taking revenge on them. Assad’s secret services have arrested, tortured and disappeared Syrians who returned to Syria after fleeing. The human rights organization documented cases of Syrians who returned to Syria between mid-2017 and spring 2021. The result: 66 people were severely ill-treated upon arrival, including 13 children. Five people were killed and there is no trace of another 17. The report proves that Syria is not a safe place for returnees, said Markus N. Beeko, Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany, at the presentation of the study. Rather, the secret services are specifically targeting returned Syrian refugees, and deportations to Syria are therefore "irresponsible, prohibited under international law and humanly disgusting".

 In the Amnesty report, the Syrian Sema, who returned to Syria in 2019, has a say. "I didn't flee because of the bombs, but because of the threats from the Syrian régime," she says. "The reasons I left my country are still there." '