Extracts from AKs and Lollipops by Paddy Vipond

 

  'This book has been written in an attempt to turn a collective gaze towards a crisis we have all too readily turned our back upon.'
[Introduction, page i]

 'There were even "like" pages for certain units fighting in the FSA. They were just people, the same age as me, some younger, why shouldn't they have Facebook and actively use it? Rather than hearing of a neighbour's breakfast choices, you would instead read about recent movements of troops in the area, or the number of martyrs that had passed that day. In the revolution people were not killed, they were martyred. This was because everyone was fighting and dying for a cause.'
[pp 8-9]

 'Assad and his military regularly use barrel bombs throughout the country. They are comprised of barrels packed with explosives and sometimes shrapnel and/or oil, and are dropped from helicopters. Barrel bombs are highly inaccurate, and in built-up urban areas kill indiscriminately. The Syrian Nation[al] Council predicts that over 20,000 people have been killed by them, and despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to their usage earlier this year, incidents involving barrel bombs have only increased. Many believe Assad has intensified such attacks whilst the world's attention has been focused on the threat of ISIS.'
[pp 9-10]



 ‘After a few hours, the bombing fell silent. I was told that Assad’s forces were specifically bombing at that time, with that intensity, because people would be going to Mosque. At 12.30, on Friday’s, people go and pray and if a bomb were to hit its target, it would maximise casualties.

 For Muslims, such an action is a moral and religious outrage. A Mosque is considered holy, and even in times of war it would be assumed to be a place of refuge and safety.’
[p17]

 ‘Since the start of the conflict in Syria, Turkey, and their current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have passionately called for régime change, and action to be taken by the West and its allies..’
[p24]

 'Despite the tragedy and the danger that was all around, there was something rather beautiful about all of it, something quite romantic. It was you and your closest friends, seemingly against the world, fighting for your freedom and willing to do anything to get it. The war itself was hated, but you could feel the connection these people had.'
[p42]

‘My eyes were drawn to a piece of paper with a drawing on either side. On the front was a drawing of a smiling woman playing a drum and surrounded by instruments. On the reverse was a young girl with vibrant red hair sitting contentedly either side of what appeared to be a pair of strawberries. Drawings of happier times, when children did not have to worry about being bombed by Assad’s forces.’
[p56]

‘For Assad and right-wing media outlets in the West, the sight of bearded Muslim men forming militias and attacking government forces appears to tick all the boxes that would justify the use of the label terrorist. But these people are farmers who have taken up arms after years of oppression. Bombed, tortured, and forced from their homes, these people want to be free from the grasp of the dictator that has ruled their lives for decades.’
[pp65-66]

 ‘The discussion of terrorism prompted the Police commander to remove a phone from his pocket. He said he wanted to show me the terrorism that the state was using against the people of Syria. On the phone, he had a video that showed a man tied up and being attacked, tortured, and subsequently killed by one of Assad’s soldiers wielding a chainsaw.’
[p67]

 'As we crossed into Free Syrian territory we entered a chaotic scene. The sight of various groups of camouflage-clad military men greeted us, an abundance of roadside shops and stalls were present, and a host of makeshift refugee camps had been established.

 A man offered us a ride into Azaz. He and Abdulrahman spoke as we slowly drove into the city passing destroyed buildings, burnt out tanks and cars, and upturned lorries. Almost everything in the city appeared to be rubble, at least in the districts we were visiting. Outside of war films, I have never seen never seen devastation like it.

 A child was playing amongst the rubble of a building where just a few months previously as many as 75 people had been killed. Where once there was a thriving, bustling community, now there was only devastation. The concrete jungle, which had been home to so many, had become a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape. There was no glory, and no glamour to be found.'
[pp 88-89]



 ‘We sat and drank chai, and ate fresh oranges from their garden. Basel told me that the man was born in 1937. His father had previously fought for the house, and he refused to leave, even if Assad’s tanks were quite literally at his front door. All alone, in their house on top of that hill, the couple was resisting Assad in their own personal way.’
[pp132-133]

 ‘This group of soldiers were the first line of defence, and miles away from any other FSA fighters. They had no tanks, no military vehicles, and very little in the way of home comforts.’
[p135]

 ‘The media only shows you what they want you to see, so you have to turn to eyewitnesses and first-hand accounts. When these eyewitness accounts show deliberate targeting of civilians, the practice of torture, the use of barrel bombs, and evidence of communities being starved of food and water, you begin to get a better understanding of what is going on. When such accounts number in the hundreds and thousands, it becomes abundantly clear that what the Syrian government says is happening is, in fact, far from the reality.’
[p144]

 ‘In a shameful example of giving a platform to Assad, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen visited Damascus in February 2015 to conduct an interview. Despite numerous questions, on a range of topics, not once is Assad confronted and his version of events challenged.’
[p190]



 ‘Though I do not believe military intervention to be the right course of action, I do believe some sort of intervention is required. It could take the form of a no fly zone, it could mean creating humanitarian corridors, or it could mean creating buffer zones where citizens can relocate to, safe in the knowledge they will not be caught up in any fighting. Ultimately the fight for freedom belongs to Syrians. As Mikheil Saakashvili states: “The main forces of change come from within society. Some support from abroad is nice. But nobody can come from abroad and do your own job.” ‘
[pp194-5]

How Syrian refugee survived torture during revolution

 

 'He says he can’t really describe torture or the night terrors that still creep up on him years later, but he’ll try. He starts out with a picture: a prison cell the size of a rug and a creaky door that he couldn’t help but stare at. Every time it opened, he knew he’d either be released or tortured once again.

 When Emad Mahou tells the story of being imprisoned in Syria during the 2011 revolution, his voice has a heaviness.

 “Syria today is a country torn by civil war and I hate to say that,” Mahou said. “To leave my town, you have to go through a checkpoint where there is a tank and they will pull you over if you’re wanted, and they will shoot you on the side of the road like a dog. Who lives like that? My cousin was pulled out of a bus and shot. That’s the Syria I left.”



 Mahou and his father were part of the rebellion during the Syrian revolution, which started roughly in February 2011 with the early stages of protests against Syria’s government, which was led by President Bashar Assad. The rebels, as they called themselves, were taking to the streets to object to the authoritarian tactics of Assad’s régime, which was known for its pervasive censorship, surveillance and brutal violence against those who disagreed.

 The uprising was noncombative at first, Mahou said, but by March, hubs of protesters were frequently met with heavy military weaponry.

 Mahou said he and his family always had a target on their back, dating to when his paternal grandfather refused a high-ranking government appointment by Assad’s father. Mahou said his father was arrested several times for protesting, as was he.



 During a raid toward the second half of 2011, military police came looking for Mahou. At that time, Mahou’s resistance entered a new phase. He was tapped by media outlets, likely because of his strong English skills, and became sort of a “boots on the ground” source, though his face and name were hidden anytime he was on air with reporters.

 Mahou was hiding at a distant cousin’s house. She was a widow without children, therefore her home was an unlikely place for police to come barging in.

 “But somehow they got a tip that I might be hiding in this area,” Mahou said. “I was watching from the third-floor window and thinking ... there’s no way I’m making it out of there. I see a truck full of army men coming and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do? I’m gonna get killed.’ From the roof, I jumped from her building onto the building next door and twisted my foot.”

 Mahou hid in a water tank until the sounds of footsteps and clunking AK-47s subsided.

 “It’s like a movie — you won’t believe what happened to us. And this is a story out of millions of stories similar to this,” he said.



 Mahou said from 2011 to the present day, he lost several loved ones.

 Sitting forward in his seat, Mahou starts counting on his fingers, his immediate family members who died in protests, run-ins with military police and in jail.

 He shows eight fingers. He then starts counting extended family, but quickly stops. “I’ll get to like 50 people if I keep going,” he said.

 His father, upon hearing the names of those who died, starts crying again.



 Mahou’s memories of some of his arrests are blurry, except for one in which he was detained and tortured for three months. In June 2011, he said he spent 100 days in an underground cell the size of a rug. He didn’t know it when he was thrown in, but this would also be the last time he’d be imprisoned.

 “The torture was really over the limit at that point. I was really struggling with the pain,” Mahou said. “It was daily, continuous, degrading. One day in particular, they took turns urinating on me. It got to a point where mentally I was broken. You smell yourself and I felt really, really bad. I am used to a nice life. I showered daily. I was in college to be an architect.”

 Mahou stops and reminds himself that he had a full life in Zabadani, Syria, before the revolution. They all did.

 “At that point, I was almost done with college and I had a whole future ahead of me. And I just looked at where I am now. That day was my weakest day mentally. I was shattered. The humiliation went too far — like they’re using you as a toilet ... so I banged my head on the wall.”

 Mahou recalled falling to the ground after that and feeling the door open.

 He felt a breeze. He remembered his cat, Sasha; he visualized the marble tiles of his family’s home, the comforting chaos of his kitchen, his mom cooking a meal. “It was a message that I shouldn’t be dying here today. And I didn’t die. I made it all the way out of Syria and I made it to Chicago,” he said.



 “We all have those moments when you remember something and it saves you,” Mahou said. “I don’t think God talks to us directly but I think God can guide us somehow. I think that was probably my guidance that, you know what, you’re not dying here.”

 That’s when he was released from prison. But knowing that he could get picked up again by another security branch, Mahou, like many others in the rebellion, needed an escape.

 Syrian security services began to increase pressure on activists and crack down on protesters. With the help of fellow rebels, Mahou was escorted to the southern border of Syria, where he fled to Jordan.



 “I have been struggling with what is home for the past 12 years,” Mahou says. “How can I define home? Where can I find home? I can’t say my daughter is my home because she’s just too little to carry that burden. ... I have a passport that has the United States of America on it, I have my picture, my name — everything. And I still feel I’m not from here. Is there a point when I am no longer not from here?” '

Syrians protest Assad participation in Arab League summit

 

 'Thousands of Syrians have protested across the country against some Arab countries’ normalisation of relations with President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the country’s return to the Arab League.

 The protests on Friday coincided with al-Assad’s participation in the Arab League summit taking place in Saudi Arabia, marking the Syrian president’s return to the summit after 12 years.

 Thousands protested in Idlib, al-Bab, Azaz, Jarabulus, and Afrin, among other cities, under the slogan, “Criminal al-Assad Never Represents Syria”.

 Demonstrations also took place in six cities outside Syria: Vienna, Amsterdam, London, Vaile, Stockholm and Lyon.



 In the northwestern Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, hundreds participated in the protests.

 “We demonstrated today to remind those who are seeking to normalise their relations with the al-Assad régime that the Great Syrian Revolution started spontaneously as a response to the internal suffocation we endured under the Assad régime,” said Ibrahim Aboud, one of the participants in the demonstration and a displaced civilian from Maarat al-Numan in northern Idlib.

 “When we first protested in 2011, we didn’t ask permission from anyone, and we didn’t take into considering the regional and international environment surrounding Syria.”

 Aboud said he could not accept the Arab countries’ move, whether it was political, diplomatic, military, or economic, considering that the government has killed, displaced and imprisoned millions of Syrians for 12 years.

 “We are determined to achieve the goals of the revolution and liberate Syria from the Assad régime and its thugs,” Aboud said.



 The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in May 2011 following the brutal way al-Assad handled the protests, as well as the civilians who started the Syrian revolution that year.

 “Today, we send a message to the Arab and international community rejecting the return of the criminal Bashar al-Assad to the Arab League. They should have held him accountable instead of shaking his hands, which are stained with the blood of the Syrian people,” said Naif Shaban, a human rights activist and displaced civilian from Wadi Barada in the Damascus countryside.

 “The normalisation will not change anything for us because this has been taking place under the table for the last 12 years. Today, it is happening publicly,” Shaban said.



 In the Syrian city of Al-Bab, about 1,000 people staged a similar protest.

 Jalal Talawi, one of the protest organisers in the city, said demonstrators were showing their firm rejection of al-Assad’s presence at the summit and normalisation with this “malicious régime”.

 “Many people today were displaced by al-Assad’s régime and its supporters,” Talawi said.

 “Our message is crystal clear: Our revolution will continue until we achieve its goal and that’s freedom and liberation from this régime. Al-Assad doesn’t represent us as Syrians and we sent a clear message today to everyone supporting or opposing the revolution, that we will not accept this régime and are continuing until it falls and until we get all of our detainees back. We will continue despite the entire world standing in our way.”

 In Azaz, a refuge for Syrians who fled from other parts of the country amid the war, 700 people gathered to protest.



 Nor was Syria’s return to the Arab League universally embraced in the Saudi city of Jeddah where the meeting took place.

 Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani departed the city after leading the Qatari delegation at the summit. The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Arab official as saying that Sheikh Tamim left the summit before the start of al-Assad’s speech.

 Qatar had previously opposed Syria’s return to the Arab League. Following its return to the Arab League, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said the country’s position “on normalisation with the régime had not changed”.

 The spokesperson added that Qatar will still support the “Arab consensus and will not be an obstacle to that”.

 Shaban, a protester in Idlib, added that people “appreciated Qatar’s stance against normalisation and their support for the rights of the Syrian people”.

 “We wish other countries had a similar stance,” Shaban added.'

Under torture they forced me to say I'd killed policemen

 

 Omar al-Shogre:

 'I have lost my father, my brothers, and I spent three years in these prison cells, but even so, this revolution is worth making: we have monsters in power.

 When they arrest you and take you to prison, they interrogate you and ask you questions that are impossible to answer. For example, how many police officers have you killed in your life. I answered none. Not just because I didn’t kill any, but because none had died. But under torture they forced me to say that I had killed policemen, in order to designate me as a criminal and a terrorist. I was 15 years old. And while you are being tortured, you hear other prisoners begging to be killed due to the pain they are suffering.

 I was in prison 215, in Damascus. My assignment was to move the corpses of the dead prisoners to the room where their deaths were certified. You are in shock. You don’t understand what’s going on. How is it possible for a guard who looks like a father to treat you like this? But, being so young, you are more likely to adapt to the situation. There is a routine.

 You got up at 4 a.m. Then they forced you to remove the corpses. They fed you, once a day. You went to the bathroom. Then they tortured you. And then you had 14 more hours in the cell with other prisoners. They weren’t criminals, they were good people. On the right, you might have a doctor who helps you heal the wounds. On the left, a psychologist who helps you too. Opposite from you, a lawyer and a professor. If you spend three days in prison, you don’t worry about learning anything. But if you spend years in prison, you have to adapt, you have to learn.



 I had tuberculosis, I weighed 34 kilos. My mother bribed the guards and judges with a lot of money to get me out of prison. They took me to Turkey and from there I went to Greece by boat and then to Sweden, where I got medical treatment. I was arrested for the first time at 15, released shortly afterwards, arrested again at 17 and released at 20.

 Instead of having the normal experience of a high school student, I had to become an adult quickly. I learned to survive. I had to fight for a cause that I was too young to understand. That being said, prison made me who I am today. It gave me the strength to fight against the dictatorship and injustice.



 The idea that the Syrian régime fought against ISIS is false, because ISIS emerged in 2014 and the régime killed people from 2011 until now. The world becomes desensitized to bad news: this has been going on for 12 years, but it is allowed to continue. We shouldn’t get used to it. Behind these photographs and these corpses there are emotions, feelings, families. Grief affects not only incarcerated people, but also their families and friends. The Syrian régime has imprisoned and tortured more than 1.5 million people over the years, and right now there are more than 100,000 people in these prisons. In other words, there is not a single family in Syria that does not have someone imprisoned or tortured. It is a régime that has killed more than half a million people, displaced 14 million and continues to torture. This régime should not stay in power, Assad must fall: he is the worst war criminal we have ever had. Did ISIS commit worse crimes than Assad? No. It didn’t kill that many people. Both are terrible, but the Syrian régime is the reason we had ISIS in Syria.

 The West should help the opposition. Do you know what the West is doing today? Hoping that the opposition alone will change everything, but we can’t do it without support. The régime has survived because it has allies: without Iran, Russia and China, it would fall in two weeks.

 It’s not like the Assad régime has won the war: they don’t control the whole country, more than seven million people are out of their control. But he is trying to sell the story that he has won the war to force the world to accept it.

 The most disappointing thing is that the Arab population does not take to the streets to protest the return of a dictator who killed not only Syrians, but also Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians... These leaders despise human rights violations. Bringing Assad back will not make things better: a political solution cannot be negotiated with a government that continues to use violence and kill. This régime takes advantage of the weakness of the international community and the lack of pressure from governments such as the United States on countries that normalize relations with Assad.'

Syrian refugees fear normalization with Assad

 

 Arwa Damon:

 ' “We would always hear talk about how Lebanon would start forcing Syrians to go back,” Safa, a twenty-year-old Syrian refugee in Lebanon, tells me. “But we never took it all that seriously. Not until now. Now it’s a rollercoaster.”

 The news of the Arab League bringing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad back into its fold after a decade of civil war has exacerbated a constant, almost paralyzing fear that Syrian refugees have felt for years. No one who lived through this era can forget the barrel bombs indiscriminately raining hell down on civilian neighborhoods; the roar of Syrian and Russian fighter jets bombing schools and hospitals; the massacres of entire families—including children slaughtered for no apparent reason other than evil itself—and the months-long sieges of neighborhoods that left populations so hungry they ate grass.

 But it would seem that it’s now in the interest of Arab League nations to move past these crimes. They argue that Assad’s isolation did little to alter his behavior and that re-opening communication is the best way to tackle the threat of terrorism, the growing drug trade flowing through Syria, and the headache caused by Syrian refugees. After all, if Syria is no longer a pariah state in the eyes of Arab nations, then surely its citizens can return. It’s a prospect that terrifies Syrians who fled.

 They fear that this “normalization” of ties between the Arab League and Syria will boost the narrative that “Syria is safe now,” giving further justification to governments, politicians, and citizens of countries who have wanted to rid themselves of their Syrian refugee population for years. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in its neighboring countries. This does not count those who fled and made it to Europe, where many countries would like to—and in some cases have already—sent them back home.

 The “Syrians can go back home” narrative is nothing new—it has been parroted for years. This action by the Arab League will potentially give any country wanting to deport Syrians the smokescreen it needs to justify its actions.

 Safa is a university student who has lived as a Syrian refugee in Lebanon longer than she has lived in her homeland. As a child, she lived with the fear of being forced to go back home. As a young adult, it now permeates every aspect of her existence, growing by the day, and launching her into a constant state of anxiety.

 “It’s crazy what is happening now,” she laments. “Imagine, they have a curfew for us now. As Syrians, we’re not allowed outside after 7 pm in my village in the south. They say it’s for the security of the Lebanese.”

 The Lebanese army has been carrying out increasing raids across the country in areas inhabited by Syrian refugees, detaining and deporting hundreds, according to Amnesty International and other rights organizations.

 Individuals detained are dumped straight into the hands of Syrian authorities, where enough are reportedly arbitrarily detained, forcibly conscripted, or just disappeared that it sends waves of fear through the refugee population.

 Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has already cited a “decline in intense military tension in many areas” in Syria, as he called on the international community to facilitate a new approach to rid Lebanon of Syrian refugees, whether it be sending Syrians back home or to a third country. Lebanon has been increasingly scapegoating its refugee population, leading to a stunning increase in aggression and hatred.

 Safa and her family live in fear within their own home. They recently moved towns and were visited by the Lebanese security forces, who informed them that they must register with all their documents or be deported immediately.

 It’s not just fear of the possibility of deportation, even though their papers are in order. It’s the hatred that serves as an equally strong driver of the fear: “How secure is my life here?” It permeates every aspect of Safa’s life to the point that her insides clench each time she steps outside. She’s a university student working after class to help support her studies and her ten-person family.

 “Our neighbors, even my friends at school, my boss at work, you feel their hatred of Syrians,” she explains. “They say things like, ‘Oh, you came, and now you’re leeching off of us. Go back to your country. Half of you are thieves.’”

 Anti-Syrian refugee sentiment has been snowballing lately, especially in the two countries that host the largest number of refugees: Lebanon—where Safa lives—and Turkey—where the refugee crisis is in the top three concerns driving voters in Turkey’s razor-thin presidential elections, which are going to a run-off scheduled for May 28.

 “I cried, I cried, and I asked my father about all of this.” Weam, a twenty-seven-year-old Syrian woman living in Turkey, explains to me. “First, it was Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and even Turkey is talking about it.”

 The Assad régime killed Weam’s brother, uncle, and grandfather. She can’t erase the memory of seeing her brother’s lifeless body in an ambulance on her laptop; of knowing, at that moment, that she would never get a chance to say goodbye. Weam will never forget the way that her family found her grandfather’s scorched corpse after régime forces burned down his home, knowing that he was still inside.

 “I am angry, frustrated,” Weam says, her voice shaking with emotion. “Twelve years of fighting, being displaced within Syria and outside of Syria. All of this, just to be erased, to go back to normal ties?”

 The pain is coupled with the uncertainty of the fate of those she loves. Weam is among the Syrians who successfully pursued a path to citizenship in Turkey. Her sisters are still waiting.

 “They are terrified,” Weam says. “They are just waiting to see what will happen after the elections.”

 Weam is unsure who to vote for or if she should even vote at all.

 “Safe repatriation” of Syria’s more than 3.5 million refugees in Turkey is the rhetoric swirling around and is an openly-stated pledge of the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. But it’s worth remembering that talks were started with the Syrian régime by the government of the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Add to that Syria’s ascension into the Arab League, and the argument of “Syria is safe, people can go back home” takes on a new life no matter who wins.

 “Me as a Syrian, I have no hope in the Arab League,” Malik, a thirty-year-old Syrian refugee in Turkey, who has been waiting for his citizenship to go through, explains. “I was more upset by the rapprochement between Syria and Turkey. And, now, if it’s the party that says it supports refugees that wins, there will be a backlash against us, and they will have to do something. And if it’s the party that wants to kick us out, they will have to demonstrate that they are doing that. We don’t know how it’s going to materialize.”

 For many, going back to Syria is a non-starter. Safa’s family, for example, is seriously considering having her take the deadly journey to Libya and then to Italy. It’s not something she wants to do, but her family is pressuring her to try, thinking that it might lead to a chain of events that will allow them better and safer prospects.

 Safety for those who fled is not just defined by whether bombs and bullets are falling. Much more terrifying than that is the fear of disappearance; fear of régime forces that arrive in the dead of the night to whisk someone away; fear of being stopped at a checkpoint and disappearing only to languish in Assad’s prisons; fear of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person only to be recuperated by loved ones as a corpse; fear of all of the factors that were the drivers of the revolution in the first place. None of that has changed.

 It’s why Syrians who fled endure the misery of being in Lebanon. It’s why internally-displaced Syrians stay in a tent rather than return to their cities and towns. It’s why Syrians in Jordan would rather live in limbo than return. And it’s why Syrians in Turkey will suffer the blatant racism, aggression, and politicization of their plight.

 No global power, no politician, no population has ever really understood what it is to be a Syrian refugee. Their life and suffering is merely rhetoric to be manipulated. What better way to manipulate the Syrian refugee “crisis”—to justify sending Syrians back home—than to be able to point to the Arab League’s acceptance of Assad and say, “But, look, things are going back to normal, relations are normalizing, things are fine. You can all go back home.” '

Time is running out for northwest Syria

 

 'As soon as we crossed the border into Syria, the fields of olive trees stretched as far my eyes could see. Row after row, until we reached Atmeh. Over the past 12 years of conflict, what was formerly a village has grown into a town, with a mixture of permanent buildings and tents spilling down the hillsides.

 Our destination was Aqrabat Hospital, where I was leading a surgical mission to train local doctors and provide specialist orthopaedic and plastic surgical care to survivors of February’s devastating earthquake.

 The need is astonishing. After hearing that specialist doctors were visiting, 2,000 patients had travelled to the hospital over the previous week. In the rooms above the operation theatres, doctors are trained in skills to enable them to manage complex trauma injuries, whether inflicted by earthquakes or the ongoing conflict.

 Aqrabat sits in Syria’s northwest, a region sustained by a remarkable network of civil society organisations and NGOs, yet one that is also uniquely vulnerable. The hospital is among a network that serves a population of around four million, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid.

 Some 2.6 million of those residents have already been forcibly displaced from their homes several times before by the conflict, from places we remember as headlines from years ago: Ghouta, Dara’a, Homs, Aleppo. People have faced a series of crises including food and fuel shortages and a cholera outbreak.



 Northwest Syria is the last territorial outpost of the Syrian Revolution and its quasi-independence is a source of irritation for the régime of President Bashar Assad, whose goal is to enforce his government’s rule over the whole of Syria again.

 What protection the northwest had is being eroded at speed as the United Arab Emirates welcomed Assad to Abu Dhabi in March, and Jordan, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia have indicated a willingness to resume diplomatic ties with Damascus. On Sunday, the Arab League began the process of allowing Syria back into the fold.

 Colleagues in northwest Syria have welcomed the United States’ and United Kingdom’s stated opposition to the normalisation of Assad, but question why the US Caesar Act and UK and EU sanctions régimes have not been used to deter those extending the hand of friendship.

 As the Turkish election heads towards a likely run-off, the stakes for northwest Syria could not be higher. Both Presidential candidates have said that Syrian refugees will be returned and suggested that the nature of the Turkish security presence in the enclave could change.

 Turkey hosts some 3.6 million Syrian refugees and has supported them over the past 12 years, but Syrians I met spoke to a change in atmosphere. The environment had become more hostile, with their children being bullied in school and several had applied for visas for other states as an insurance policy, to avoid being returned back to Syria.

 The UK must not abandon Syria.



 Cuts to the UK Development budget are being felt in the northwest. Time and again I heard from those I met that the UK was a valued friend but they were increasingly forced to do more with less in the face of soaring demand.

 But, as Minister of State for Development Andrew Mitchell identified, returning to 0.7 per cent is not the whole story. New approaches that reflect the changing world around us are just as necessary.

 Criticism is growing of the Western-led, expeditionary model of humanitarian aid. When making funding decisions, the UK should look beyond the big UN agencies and established International NGOs and diversify to give greater support to locally-led humanitarian organisations.

 Such organisations are better placed to understand the needs of the communities they serve and effect change that is sustainable. It will also better empower civil society leaders, who are frequently a bulwark against more radical players, thus furthering stabilisation goals.

 Local healthcare and humanitarian workers are also uniquely positioned to bear witness to crimes against humanity and have done so at critical junctures of the Syrian conflict, including the chemical weapons attack on eastern Ghouta in 2013 and the siege of eastern Aleppo in 2016.

 Supporting open societies and defending human rights are oft-stated goals of UK foreign, development and defence policy on the basis that these create a more secure global environment.

 The most effective examples of these are found at the community level and the UK should focus on providing targeted support to them alongside the larger UN agencies and INGOs.

 UK diplomacy and aid cannot deliver open societies, but as former DfID staffers Graham Teskey and Tom Wingfield state in their 2021 paper, we should understand how power is organised, where the plausible sources of positive change lie, and tuck in behind locally-driven change processes.

 Examples abound in northwest Syria, including UOSSM, the Independent Doctors Association (IDA), the Syrian Board of Medical Specialties (SBOMS) and our friends and long-standing partners at Syria Relief-Action for Humanity.

 Among my meetings in Syria was with a group of women who were leading initiatives to encourage female political participation, among them a lawyer, activist, journalist and pharmacist. Their clear message to me was that they knew best how to reform their society in a way that was authentic and true to their values: “We can do this ourselves. We will find the solutions within, they will not come from outside.”

 Their work and that of Syria’s healthcare workers is an inspiration, but they are vulnerable. Northwest Syria is in danger and the region awaits the outcome of the Turkish elections with trepidation.

 Now is the moment for the UK to assemble a coalition of sympathetic states and organisations to ensure that northwest Syria is not abandoned to its fate. Those living there have endured enough and have despite all they have encountered created networks and institutions that are serving the people.

 A future political settlement must include security guarantees for northwest Syria, no compulsory return of refugees and the preservation of unconditional humanitarian access to Turkey regardless of any Syria-Turkey rapprochement.

 We must not let them down.'

Idlib, the last Islamist rebel bastion in Syria

 

 'The road leading from the Turkish border to Idlib, recently taken by UN delegations visiting the areas struck by February’s disastrous earthquakes, has been freshly paved and is lined with plants and palm trees. It is intended to showcase Idlib’s so-called “salvation government” – the administrative arm of HTS, the armed Islamist group controlling Syria’s last rebel stronghold.

 Situated between two checkpoints, it is impossible to advance any further on this stretch of road without an HTS escort as well as a guide in charge of accompanying journalists. Visitors entering the province are greeted by a giant Syrian revolutionary flag and a large banner with the declaration of the Islamic faith written in black letters on a white background.

 From the first months of the Syrian uprising against Assad’s régime in 2011, Idlib was the scene of brutal fighting that quickly ascended into civil war. The province also became a transit hub for many of the foreign fighters who travelled to Syria to wage jihad, and the stage for some of the most brutal abuses committed by jihadist groups against civilians, especially against the Druze and Christian minorities.

 As you enter the city – which fell under control of a coalition of rebel, Islamist and jihadist groups in 2015 – there’s no sign of either jihadist black banners nor the HTS group’s logo. Apart from two roadblocks manned by masked men in khaki uniforms representing the city’s “roadblock services”, you’re almost astounded by the lack of armed men in the streets. No one can be seen wearing traditional Afghan outfits, and there are no signs of any fighters patrolling or even just circulating.

 "We made sure people understood that the place for fighters is at the front, not among of the population," my guide told me.



 At first sight, the massive number of revolutionary flags fluttering in the city might seem insignificant, but it is actually a tell-tale sign: the HTS wants to distance itself from the jihadists, who denounce all kinds of national symbols. All that is left now are a few faded profanities written on the walls targeting Shiites and democracy, both detested by the jihadists.

 Idlib teems with life. The Kitap Café, a bookstore-library located between the al-Tawhid mosque and the former Carlton hotel, has become a “haven of peace" for readers and students alike. Women and men are separated from each other in the cafe, just as they are in the city’s restaurants. In Idlib’s public spaces, however, such as its gardens or shopping centres, mingling between the genders is tolerated, as are cigarettes and the revolutionary songs which can be heard playing in the shops.

 The war has displaced millions of people, and in the past few years Idlib has seen its population almost double. According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the number of people living in the province has now surpassed 4.5 million. For the past three years, a vulnerable truce with the Assad régime – occasionally broken through incursions and air strikes, but much less often than before – has rendered the city much safer.



 HTS, which is classified as a terrorist group by the United Nations, has somewhat of a peculiar backstory, much like its leader. Prior to heading HTS, Joulani was a high-ranking member of the Islamic State group of Iraq (from which the Islamic State (IS) group then splintered) and publicly broke with global jihadism. In 2012, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then-leader of the Islamic State group of Iraq who would later head the IS group, assigned Joulani to Syria along with some of his men to benefit from the contacts and networks his group already had in the country and form a sub-branch called the al-Nusra Front.

 Once in Syria, Joulani gradually began to break away from Baghdadi's authority and began to refuse orders. In 2013, he went so far as to pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda and its then-leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

 Three years later, Joulani severed his ties with al-Qaeda, turned against Zawahiri and purged the al-Nusra Front of its most radical elements.

 Today HTS, a fusion of several Islamist and rebel groups, has ensured its dominance in the last redoubt of Idlib and is actively fighting both al-Qaeda and the IS group present in the area.

 HTS says it is working to ensure that the areas under its control cannot be used as platforms to prepare attacks against the West. Many of the higher-ranking members of the group that I met with during my journey also said that the war waged by Russia in Ukraine is directly in line with Moscow's involvement in the Syrian conflict since 2015.



 Since 2012, the Christian villages of Idlib province have been hit hard and their inhabitants subject to the true horrors of war: extortions, hostage-takings, rapes, property confiscations; their churches have been bombed, destroyed, burned, and in some cases, converted into mosques. The horrors forced some 90 percent of their inhabitants to flee.

 But in the past two years, and in what might resemble an attempt at self-criticism, HTS claims it has launched a process to return confiscated property to Christians who come forward "with the exception of those linked to the Syrian régime". This is a long and complicated process whose framework is still being worked out.

 The Christian representatives highlighted these challenges and discussed ways they could potentially be overcome. One such example is the use of filmed witness statements to prove ownership in cases where ownership documents no longer exist.

 So far, several houses have been returned to their rightful owners, some by force. According to HTS, in the village of Qunaya, this concerns "56 empty houses, 42 houses returned to close relatives, (and) 41 houses in the process" of being returned. In the village of Yacubiyeh, the figures are "90 empty houses, 120 houses returned to close relatives, (and) 109 in the process" of being returned. Negotiations are still underway for the return of farmland – the villagers’ main source of income. Following the devastating earthquakes in February, however, these plans have been put on hold until August 1, 2023.

 Properties have also been returned to people living in the city of Idlib, but the Christian community there has refused to take back their church due to a “lack of resources to maintain and guard it”.

 In zones controlled by the rebels, Christians can practice their religion, but not without restrictions. Christians are allowed to hold daily masses and restore some of their churches, but they are banned from ringing church bells or putting crosses on buildings.

 “The situation is certainly delicate for us Christians, but it’s been improving for the past two years,” a resident I meet confides. The fact that the situation has improved has prompted some to try to bring their family members back into the region. While some of those who fled sought refuge in other parts of the country, others now live abroad.

 Some Christians are also campaigning for the opening of a direct crossing between Idlib and the areas controlled by the Assad régime to make it easier for them to travel and visit their relatives. Today, such journeys are not only complicated, but also carry exorbitant price tags, costing at least $700 – a huge sum for most Syrians. Those who can afford it must enlist a series of smugglers to first try to cross the areas controlled by pro-Turkish rebels and then those controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia before reaching régime-held territory.

 The giant Atmeh camps (which many Syrians refer to as “dignity camps”) are located on the edge of a buffer zone wedged between the areas controlled by HTS and pro-Turkish armed groups.

 One of the “salvation government’s” greatest challenges is to keep a census of and manage the refugees living there. “Some accommodations that were supposed to rehouse displaced people from illegal camps have been given to earthquake victims,” Minister Mohamed Bashir, in charge of the administration’s development and humanitarian aid services, said.

 For Idlib residents, it is important that the relations between Turkey and HTS – which essentially boil down to a permanent balance of power – stay functional. While Ankara must acknowledge the authority of HTS (although it probably would have preferred to govern Idlib in the same way it governs other areas in northern Syria), HTS must acknowledge Turkey’s influence in the region, since it is its only cordon to the outside world and still has a military presence in Idlib.



 Both Islamist and Syrian representatives said it would be difficult "for Ankara, Moscow and Damascus to impose an agreement that has been negotiated without the HTS”. If they did, it would be perceived as a diktat against not only their interests, but those of the revolution.

 HTS holds several strategic cards it can use if it needs to, and still considers itself in a position of strength in its commanding position. One of the most precious cards it holds is the threat of hostilities resuming, which would send a flood of refugees to Turkey – where they are less and less welcome – and in the longer term, potentially also to Europe. Such a surge of refugees would not only consist of civilians but also of local and foreign jihadists, who HTS up until now has somehow managed to control and contain. Several dozen of the jihadists are French nationals.

 HTS may not have softened on its religious rigour, or the laws it has forcefully imposed on Idlib’s population, but it has taken a clear stance against global jihadism. Twelve years after the revolution began, HTS’ “salvation government” is a last-ditch attempt at achieving independent governance of Idlib.

 Civilian representatives repeatedly said that “We are not rebuilding. Rather we’re building everything up from scratch, and we need the international community’s help to do that… If HTS and Joulani are considered terrorists, does that mean that all of Idlib’s children are considered terrorists, too?” '

A US civil case gives us, Syrians, a glimmer of hope

 

 Mayassa Sheikh Ahmed:

 'On April 12, the US-based Centre for Justice and Accountability revealed that it has filed a civil case against the Syrian régime for the widespread torture of Syrian citizens it has carried out over the past 12 years. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Obada Mzaik, a Syrian American who survived torture while in detention and was able to get out of the country.

 The news of this court case reached me in my home in one of the camps for displaced people in northwest Syria. Amid the devastation of war, the aftermath of the deadly earthquake that hit us in February, and the personal loss I have suffered, this was much-needed good news.

 It was an important moment, for not just me but all of us Syrians, whose loved ones have been forcibly disappeared by Bashar al-Assad’s régime, kept in arbitrary detention without charge, tortured and even killed.

 On January 5, 2012, my husband Muhammad, a real estate contractor, was arrested and forcibly disappeared by the Syrian régime because he had helped to organise peaceful demonstrations at the start of the Syrian revolution. It has been more than 11 years and still, I know nothing about where he is or how he is doing.

 Some survivors of detention, who met him in detention, told me he was killed under torture in 2014, but when his parents, my in-laws, inquired of officials, they said he was not detained by them. We don’t know what to believe.

 My daughter Maryam was just two months old when her father was arrested. She only knows his face from pictures I have of him. She loves drawing and since she discovered her love of art, she constantly sketches his face. Maryam’s brother Abdulsalam was six when his father was forcibly disappeared and her sister Zahraa was four and both speak of him often.

 We have very little left to remind us of the happy life we had before Muhammad’s detention. Our house where we lived in Maarat al-Nu’man was bombed several times, the last time it was destroyed. I still have a letter that Muhammad gave me when we were engaged in January 2004. I have my engagement ring and one playing card with the words “I love you” written in his handwriting.

 The word victim is sad and terrifying, but unfortunately, my children and I are victims of a cruel régime. Living in Syria and with no international tribunal in place to investigate all the crimes that have been committed during the Syrian war, we have no way to seek justice.

 That is why the US court case is important to us as well as all others that have been undertaken by foreign courts. For example, in early April, a French court announced that it has charged three Syrian régime officials with complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes. France has even issued an international arrest warrant for them.

 Last year, a German court sentenced to life Anwar Raslan, a former officer in the Syrian army, for crimes against humanity. And in 2021, victims of the Assad régime’s chemical attacks filed a case in Sweden against Syrian officials.



These court cases expose the system of detention and torture used to control and suppress the Syrian population.

 Although Syria has disappeared from international news headlines, the Assad régime continues its horrific practices of forcibly disappearing and abusing Syrian citizens. Anyone who dares to stand up for freedom or democracy, utter even a word of criticism against Assad or even find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time can be arbitrarily arrested.

 This also happens to Syrians who decide to return voluntarily or are deported from countries where they have sought asylum. Syria is not a “safe place” for refugees to return.

 Many Syrians would rather live in legal limbo in camps for refugees or displaced people than brave entering régime-controlled areas to obtain travel documents. I myself do not have a valid passport any more and cannot travel with my children to a place where we would feel safer.

 These court cases in the US, France, Germany and Sweden give us some hope. They keep us going in our fight to get our loved ones released from Assad’s prisons. As many as 135,000 people are believed to still be in detention.

 I and hundreds of survivors of detention, members of the families of detainees, and activists are working hard to build a global movement to get them released. We have launched the campaign Free Syria’s Disappeared to draw attention to their plight and put pressure on the international community to act.

 These court cases filed in foreign countries help us fight the normalisation of the Assad régime, remind the world of his heinous crimes and hopefully encourage efforts to establish real peace. For it is only when Syria is at peace that we will be able to attain true justice for the crimes committed against us.'

NW Syria earthquake survivors struggle for medical care

 'In the night, February 6th, death seemed a certainty... and life, a revelation.

 Through northwest Syria, 10 thousand buildings crumbled. In towns that stood for millennia, the catastrophe was biblical.

 But rescue did not assure survival. Ambulances raced to a medical system in critical condition itself after 12 years of bombed hospitals and murdered doctors.



 Dr. Samer Attar: There's a chilling saying I learned in Syria that you kill one doctor it's like killing a hundred soldiers. Because if you kill a doctor, you kill a nurse, you kill a paramedic, you blow up an ambulance, you destroy a hospital -- you're not just killing those individuals, or group of individuals, you're just taking away hope from a community.

 Samer Attar is an orthopedic surgeon from Chicago who volunteers for the Syrian American Medical Society -- a U.S. charity that operates 13 hospitals in the warzone with a Syrian staff of 23-hundred.

 Dr. Samer Attar: So, when the war broke out in Syria -- health care providers, the health care infrastructure, came under attack because war crimes work. Crimes against humanity work. If you can get away with it, you can win.

 He's talking about relentless attacks on health care ordered by Syria's Bashar al-Assad and his ally, Russia's Vladimir Putin who sent his military to Syria in a prelude to Ukraine. The war began in 2011 with an uprising to end the Assad family's 52-year dictatorship. but Assad responded by leveling his country with artillery, chemical weapons and explosive barrels dropped from planes. Fourteen million have lost their homes. Half a million are dead. Northwest Syria is in rebel hands and this is where we met the Syrian American Medical Society known as SAMS.

 Scott Pelley: How many surgeries did you do?

 Dr. Samer Attar: So, I did 23 on my first day. And I remember crying myself to sleep the first night. Because, it was just, the suffering was just so overwhelming.



 We had met Samer Attar six years earlier where SAMS was building a hospital in a cave to shield it from attack. Today, the hospital is complete and proved its endurance in the quakes. Amany Jaqlan is a SAMS nurse in the black and white hijab headscarf.

 Amany Jaqlan: I was shocked at the scene... Bodies were scattered on the floor, and there were [so many]. I couldn't have imagined the extent of destruction and the number of victims.

 The number, in northwest Syria, was 45-hundred dead. In the cave hospital, the lost were laid in hallways where a quick examination could change a life forever and disbelief suspended sorrow if only for a moment.



 Dr. Samer Attar: I remember a 22-year-old that got engaged the day before the earthquake and the next day his whole family was gone. I remember a 16-year-old who was paralyzed from the neck down, and her family was gone and she's on a mechanical ventilator in a hospital in Syria. Who's going to take care of her? And two orphaned teenage sisters, both with wounds in both legs requiring multiple surgeries, and a four-year-old kid with a traumatic brain injury on a ventilator.

 Dr. Samer Attar: These nurses and doctors are the bravest people I've ever met. They were already traumatized by barrel bombs and chemical weapons. But when they talk about the earthquake, I'd never really seen so much fear, and panic and anxiety.



 We found those emotions in the story of a woman rescued from this collapsed apartment building. Thirty five-year-old Zainab Ali al-Najib arrived at the cave hospital to tell Amany Jaqlan a story she could hardly believe.

 Amany Jaqlan: I remember a woman who came to me to say that all of her children were dead.

 Rescue workers were digging for the woman's six children.



 Abdo Tarek: We arrived at the collapsed building and heard a noise. We tried to reach the sound quickly, but our equipment and capabilities were limited.

 The rescuers included Abdo Tarek and Sameh Fakhori, volunteers for the White Helmets, a force of 3,000 civil defense workers formed nine years ago to save victims from Assad's attacks.

 Sameh Fakhori: The girl was the first one we reached by digging through the roof. Two kids were behind her.

 Abdo Tarek: I went down to her and cleared the debris from her hands and feet, and after an hour and a half, we were able to pull her out.

 The surviving children were rushed to the cave hospital -- including 8-year-old Mohammad and 6-year-old Safaa.

 Amany Jaqlan: After about fifteen minutes…a girl arrived, followed by another girl. There were three of them.

 Three surviving children of six. We found them with their mother, Zainab.



 Scott Pelley: When your surviving children came in, it must have seemed like a miracle to you?

 Zainab Ali al-Najib: Imagine thinking you've lost all your kids, that everyone is gone, and then some of them are returned to you.

 She told us that she had to leave one child in surgery so she could attend the funeral of another.

 Zainab Ali al-Najib: I try to talk to them, but nobody answers me. The silence is unbearable. I miss seeing them and hearing their laughter. If only I could meet them for just an hour. I pray that God reunites us as soon as possible. They must miss us as much as we miss them. I hope to see them soon in heaven.



 Her tent stands where her apartment fell. In northwest Syria, the quakes left 53 thousand families with nowhere to go, expanding the war's aging camps of the homeless.

 Scott Pelley: What are their needs?

 Dr. Mufaddal Hamadeh: Whew! What do they not need? I mean look at this. Food security is one thing.

 Mufaddal Hamadeh is a Chicago oncologist and former president of the Syrian American Medical Society. He told us SAMS spends $28 million a year in syria. About 10 million of that is contributed by U.S. foreign aid.

 Scott Pelley: What is your hope for Syria's future?

 Dr. Mufaddal Hamadeh: I hope that they can find hope, that they will be able to believe in the future. They feel so much left behind and the world have forgotten about them. I wish they could feel again that there… that there's some people that really care.



 We found moments of hope even amid the unholy damage in Idlib, a city, remembering 12 years of war, and still in rebel hands. Here, SAMS built a hospital from an office building. and in surgeries weeks before, Samer Attar repaired 12-year-old Suzanne's arms and legs.

 Scott Pelley: What does that moment of progress mean to you?

 Dr. Samer Attar: It means that there are days where you fight bouts of helplessness and hopelessness, and you wonder what exactly you're accomplishing-- and you feel like you're trying to empty the ocean with a small cup because it never ends, and the suffering never ends and it never seems to be going away. But it's those, it's those brief flashes that are enough to keep you going for another month.

 There will be many months ahead with no end in sight to the war.

 Scott Pelley: Have there been airstrikes since the earthquake?

 Sameh Fakhori: Yes, there have been airstrikes. This area experienced an artillery bombardment four days after the earthquake.

 Scott Pelley: How do you explain the cruelty of conducting airstrikes against people who have just survived this terrible catastrophe?

 The question, they thought, had an obvious answer. They told us, Assad is a criminal. With no prospect of peace, Dr. Attar worries now about vital follow up surgeries, physical therapy and prosthetic limbs.



 Dr. Samer Attar: They're gonna struggle. And what future do they have? I keep thinking of that girl on a mechanical ventilator, who's paralyzed from the chest down. Who -- what happens to her? Who -- who takes care of her? Normally in, in Syria, a big part of your community is family, but what do you do when your entire family's been killed, and there's nobody else around. Who takes care of you?

 Scott Pelley: You have volunteered at this hospital during the war, you came rushing back after the earthquake, you have treated battlefield injuries in Ukraine as a volunteer. And I have to ask, why do you do this work?

 Dr. Samer Attar: It's not just about showing up to help out. A lot of these missions for me are about bearing witness. They're about connection, and solidarity, and advocacy. Just being able to be here, be there, and look these nurses, look these doctors in the eye, and shake their hand, and be present with them, be on the ground with them. It just lets them know that it's a small world, they're not alone, we're all connected and when the world is literally crashing down around you and collapsing, all we've got is each other. And that's part of the reason why I keep coming back.

 'Each other' and courage have been enough to steal moments of triumph.

 But northwest Syria will be forced to ration mercy. Eleven thousand wounded from the quakes are on a long journey—victims of a vicious and forgotten war — sustained only by the compassion of humanitarian hearts.'

Syrians in Idlib protest Arab détente with régime

 

 'Hundreds of Syrians protested Sunday in the rebel northwestern city of Idlib against a thawing of ties between several Arab countries and President Bashar al-Assad's régime.

 "We have come today to reject normalisation with this murderous, criminal, terrorist régime," said Fahad Abdel Karim, 49.

 "We came to send a message to the whole world that with this normalisation, you will gain Bashar al-Assad the criminal, and you will lose the Syrian people," said Abdel Salam Mohammed Yussef, who heads a camp for displaced people.

 Several hundred Syrians, some displaced from other parts of the country by the 12-year war, took part in the protest.

 Assad has been politically isolated in the region since the war began in 2011, when the Syrian president launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters. Consequently, around 500,000 Syrians have been killed, with millions more displaced.

 However, the devastating February 6 earthquake that struck Syria and neighbouring Turkey which killed thousands sparked Arab outreach, notably from the UAE.

 A flurry of diplomatic activity has also been underway in past weeks as Middle East rivals Saudi Arabia and the Syrian government's ally Iran patched up ties last month, shifting regional relations.

 On Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with Assad in Damascus on the first trip by a Saudi official since the conflict began, less than a week after Syria's top diplomat Faisal Mekdad visited the Gulf kingdom.

 Also this month, diplomats from nine Arab countries met in Saudi Arabia to discuss ending Syria's long spell in the diplomatic wilderness, while Mekdad visited Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt in a diplomatic push.

 However, at least four Arab League states - Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and the internationally-recognised Yemeni government - have opposed the Saudi-led efforts to reinstate Syria to the organisation.

 "We will never ever reconcile. What Saudi Arabia and the other countries are doing in terms of normalisation is nothing but an affront," said university student Hanifa al-Hammoud, 22.

 "It's not their business, it's ours. This revolution is ours, it's not theirs".

 Rebel-held Idlib is home to about three million people, around half of them displaced by the war.

 Some demonstrators held signs, including one that read: "Whoever forgives and reconciles (with Assad) is a criminal traitor, and is like him".'

'Gravedigger' pleads US to pressure against normalisation

  'An anonymous witness, described as a Syrian who witnessed and was forced to dig mass graves on orders from the Bashar al-Assad government, urged a congressional hearing on Tuesday to help pressure regional Arab countries from normalising with the Assad government.

 In a hearing hosted by the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, the Syrian witness called on the administration of US President Joe Biden to strengthen American sanctions on Assad.

 "The Syrian people look to the United States to ensure that there are consequences for those who normalise with the criminal régime," said the witness, who attended the hearing virtually.

 The witness told the room of US lawmakers that he was forced by Syrian authorities to be a gravedigger for the Assad government.



 "I was not prepared for the horror of my new duties. Every week, twice a week, three trailer trucks are rock packed with 300 to 600 bodies of victims of torture and starvation and execution from military hospitals and intelligence branches around Damascus," he said.

 “Twice a week we received three to four pickup trucks with 30 to 40 bodies, still warm, of civilians that had been executed in Sednaya prison. After seven years of bearing witness to these atrocities, I was able to escape Syria and follow my family to Europe.”

 The congressional witness called on the US to pledge not to re-establish relations with Assad, and to strengthen the existing sanctions régime currently in place against Damascus.

 "It is vital that the law is implemented to its fullest extent to hinder the region's chances of benefiting from things like the Arab gas pipeline. Under President Biden's administration, we have yet to see any real implementation of the Caesar Act," he said.

 "Those who normalise the Assad régime are complicit and accomplices in Assad's war crimes."

 The hearing comes as Syria has been on a diplomatic blitz in the wake of two deadly earthquakes. In addition to a steady drumbeat of visits to regional capitals by the country’s foreign minister, Assad has travelled to Oman and the UAE. However, Damascus appears to have received little tangible gains so far.

 The US also eased some sanctions on Syria for 180 days for transactions related to earthquake relief efforts, but the country has not been able to tap its energy-rich neighbours and regional investors to begin funding reconstruction, which the UN estimates will cost around $250bn.

 And while Saudi Arabia has been leading the most recent charge at normalising ties with Syria - Assad met with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Tuesday - a regional summit to discuss the prospects of re-establishing relations with Damascus last week ended inconclusively.

 The US has repeatedly stated that it is opposed to normalising with the Assad government, it recently has taken a softer approach to countries in the region working to re-establish ties with Damascus.

 The congressional hearing comes several weeks after Barbara Leaf, the US assistant secretary for Near East affairs at the State Department, said that if Arab countries are to normalise with Assad, they should "get something" out of it.

 "They want to try engagement," she said. "And our approach on that score is to say, then make sure that you get something for that engagement.

 "I would put ending the Captagon trade right at the top, alongside the other issues ... that go to providing relief to the Syrian people from the terrible decade of oppression that they suffered."

The grave digger described the comments by Leaf and the comments by the Biden administration as a "betrayal of the Syrian people".'

Rally organizers put spotlight on Syrian bombing

 

 'Hoping to end what it calls the ongoing bombing of civilians in northern Syria by that country’s government, organizers of a rally held Saturday outside Windsor city hall called on the Canadian federal government and others to speak out.

 “We’re doing this protest mainly to show people what’s going on and hope that the Canadian government and other organizations can also speak about this,” said Mohammad Alhammoud, youth leader at the Syrian Community Centre of Windsor.

 “Today is the 12th anniversary of the Syrian revolution against the Syrian regime. It started on March 18, 2011.”

 As civilians try to rebuild after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in February that killed at least 54,000 people in Turkey and northern and western Syria, Alhammoud said the Syrian government is bombing the north.

 He said Syria’s northwest region is controlled by the Free Syria Army, “a group of armed forces that came together to protect the people,” though the government continues to bomb those areas.'

Assad flees to the embrace of his master

 

 Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh:

 'On the twelfth anniversary of the wounded Syrian revolution against which those closest to it conspired, the Syrian butcher fled to his protector and master, the de facto president of Syria, to escape from the memories of the people's revolution that almost overthrew him and his corrupt family. The butcher of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad, was on the verge of being overthrown if it were not for the Russian intervention that saved him from falling, instead preferring Syria to fall into the hands of the Russian occupation and to sit on Syria's ruins, rubble and wreckage, instead of following in the footsteps of the oppressors before him.

 The meeting between the butcher Bashar Al-Assad and the criminal, his protector Vladimir Putin, pains of the Syrians, both those who remained under his rule and became, thanks to his policies, one of the poorest people in the world, those outside his control in northern Syria, whom he is still targeting with bombing, threats and assassinations, or refugees in neighbouring countries who suffer various forms of violence, racism and abuse. This is in addition to the threats made by the authorities of these countries to forcibly return them to the fascist authority they fled!



 Bashar divided Syria into three governments and, with his loss of power, he lost his legitimacy to represent the Syrians after he killed nearly a million Syrians and displaced more than half of the Syrians. He also refused the Arab mediations at the height of the revolution's victories and, instead, resorted to Iranian and Russian forces and militias. This marginalised Syria from the Arabs and isolated it from its Arab, regional and international surroundings.

 The butcher, Bashar, has stated that he would welcome the presence of more Russian forces in Syria, and that their presence "should not be temporary", meaning that he is explicitly calling for an eternal occupation of his country. This statement is a public acknowledgement of his régime's fragility, which cannot survive without begging foreign forces to protect it.

 The Syrian killer was not the only one who trembled in fear of the revolution. He was joined by all of the kings and emirs of the rest of the Arab countries. They feared that their people would be infected with the desire of freedom, dignity and democracy and that the winds of change would reach them, prompting them to attack their thrones and overthrow them all. They immediately allied themselves with the Zionist enemy, which was also disturbed by the revolutions, especially in the surrounding countries, which were its border guards, and they formed a centre in the UAE from which the counter-revolutions would be launched against all the countries that witnessed the Arab Spring. They turned it into a violent autumn, especially in Syria, in order to intimidate anyone who would dare to organise a protest or even think of it to demand freedom, democracy and a decent life!

 The Syrian revolution is the greatest Arab revolution ever. Never in history has a nation made such sacrifices as the Syrian people made during their revolution that everyone conspired against, in order to abort and attack. All of the world's hyenas preyed on Syria's wounded body to take what they could for themselves and flee with their spoils, leaving it to drown in its blood.



 The oppressed Syrian revolution was abandoned by all those who called themselves "Syria's friends" and, instead, they claimed their share of the spoils. If only the Syrians had remained reliant on God, chanting what they said at the beginning of their revolution, "We have no one but God", and did not give themselves to countries who claimed to support them, and provided them with money and weapons until they became captives carrying out their orders. However, they ultimately betrayed them and stopped their victories for the sake of regional calculations and the interests of their countries, which was the case in Daraa, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.

 When we recall the memories of that wounded revolution in which the Syrian security forces were unable to disperse the demonstrations, despite the hail of bullets they were firing from their guns, after which the army descended with its armoured vehicles and tanks, killing thousands of martyrs. We see that this is where the course of the peaceful revolution that lasted more than six months, shifted to an armed revolution defending its people. The Syrian authority itself helped shift this path, as it placed weapons in front of homes, on the streets and in cafes, and released Islamists from prisons in order to transform the scene of the revolution and the uprising of the people everywhere across Syria, into a completely different scene that it planned with great cunning and calculation.

 The régime turned the popular revolution, which included all groups of the Syrian people, and impressed the world and they sympathised with it into a war against terrorism, claiming that those leading these protests were armed terrorist groups, matching the international tune sung by the West, so that it would side with it and support it, especially after the rebels managed to make incredible victories against Assad's army and liberated many cities, taking them out of the control of the Assad régime. In the beginning, the régime resorted to Hezbollah militias and some of the Shia militias in Iraq and Afghanistan to help it in its war against its people and, when it failed to terminate the revolution, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard descended with its weight under the leadership of the criminal Qasem Soleimani and burned and destroyed entire villages, killed thousands of Syrians, and displaced thousands of Sunni Muslims, turning it into a Sunni-Shia war. Despite all of this, they could not stop of the revolution, and the Assad régime became doomed to fall had it not been for the Russian military intervention, which shifted the balances on the ground, with its planes and missiles that brought to mind the scene of its war on Chechnya and the scorched earth policy, that it also applied in Syria. Meanwhile, the killer Bashar's régime used chemical weapons and explosive barrels against the Syrian people who died under the rubble.



 With the entry of Russia, the balance began to tilt in favour of Bashar's régime and the liberated cities began to fall, one after the other and, while the régime had controlled only 20 per cent of the area of Syria, it now controlled about 80 per cent of it. The revolution was confined to Idlib, and revolutionaries from other cities flocked to it after international interventions, understandings, and agreements between Russia and Turkey. however, Idlib has not yet been spared the crimes of Bashar's militia and the continuous raids by the Russian occupier despite the agreements.

 This is the story of the Syrian revolution in a nutshell; the story of the struggle of a great nation which fought for its freedom and dignity and sacrificed everything it hold dear. They sacrificed over 2 million martyrs and wounded, and over 10 million Syrians were expelled from their homeland and their homes.

 The Syrian revolution is a revolution that revealed the treachery and betrayal of those closest to Syria and their own people, but the story is not over yet and the ending has not yet been written. Revolutions are like wars, they have rounds and battles, until the final hour arrives and the curtain falls. Do not be fooled by the killer Bashar remaining in his position until now, as the embers of the revolution are still burning in the conscience of every free Syrian, as they wait for the moment these embers ignite. It is only a matter of time.'

Thousands in Idlib mark 12 years since Syria uprising

 

 'Thousands of people in opposition-held northwestern Syria have taken to the streets to mark the 12th anniversary of popular protests calling for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad and his government.

 The demonstrations that began on March 15, 2011 swiftly took on a revolutionary nature. The uprising, however, soon morphed into a full-on war after a violent crackdown by security forces, with foreign powers also drawn in.

 Twelve years on, al-Assad still controls most of the country, largely thanks to military backing from Iran and Russia, after hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions were forced from their homes.

 The conflict is currently largely frozen, although fighting continues intermittently, particularly in the opposition-held northwest. The region is home to more than four million people, most of them displaced from other parts of Syria during previous bouts of violence. Last month, it was hit by devastating earthquakes that killed thousands of people.

 “We want to send a message from this demonstration to the whole world that we are continuing our revolution against the al-Assad régime, despite the attempts of some countries to normalise relations ” Salma Seif, a former detainee in a government prison, said at Wednesday’s main protest in Idlib city.

 Seif’s comments echoed the views of other demonstrators denounced efforts by some Arab countries to facilitate Syria’s reintegration into the regional diplomatic fold in the wake of the February 6 earthquakes.

 “We have no alternative to overthrowing this régime so that the detainees in its prisons can see the light again,” said Seif, a displaced person from the capital, Damascus.

 Hundreds of civilians from towns and villages surrounding Idlib travelled to the city to take part in the demonstration.

 Ahmed Hayhan said he had come from Jisr al-Shughour with others “to confirm that we are continuing against the régime that brought other war criminals to Syria to contribute to our killing”.

 Hayhan called on the international community to hold al-Assad accountable for the bloodshed.'

 “The world must take responsibility after all this destruction and killing that took place because of the criminal Bashar al-Assad.”

 Abu Suhaib al-Hamwi, a displaced civilian who was among those leading the anti-government demonstrations in the city of Hama in 2011, said: "Despite all that we have witnessed in terms of killing, arrest, displacement and destruction, we are still continuing our revolution against this criminal régime and to affirm our demands for freedom and justice."