Syrian sees favourable dynamics in frozen conflict

 

 'When veteran Syrian dissident Ahmad Tumeh first took part in Russian-supervised peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana six years ago, he was accused in opposition circles of having sold out in the struggle against Bashar al-Assad.

 The former political prisoner has attended all 20 or so rounds as head of the opposition delegation to the Astana talks, the last of which concluded last month without any progress on ending Syria's 12-year internal conflict.

 The talks are a by-product of the Russia military intervention in Syria in 2015, which reversed the balance of power in the war in favour of Assad.

 Moscow's move forced the US to acquiesce to a Russian diplomatic approach that focused on ceasefires and undermined previous international agreements on reaching a political solution preceded by a transitional period. Turkey and Iran were brought in as so-called guarantor states.

 Mr Tumeh says Russia used the talks to restore Assad's control over Syria by promising reprieves to rebels in besieged areas, then bombing them into submission.



 The opposition kept counting on a more assertive Turkish position, which in 2020 saved the last rebel areas in north-west Syria from falling to the régime and its allies, after Turkey and Russia came to the brink of war over Syria.

 “Without Astana, the Russians and Iranians would have taken over all of Syria,” says Mr Tumeh, speaking in Istanbul.

 A veteran of the mostly underground Syrian dissident movement from the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, he fled to Turkey a year after the peaceful anti-Assad uprising in 2011 escalated into civil war.

 He became head of the opposition Astana delegation, composed mostly of rebel commanders, because of his connections with Turkey and his moral sway over forces on the ground.



 Mr Tumeh believes the opposition's best chance of extracting any concessions from world powers lies in strengthening relations with Turkey, especially after the US and some Arab countries abandoned support for the rebels in 2015.

 Washington maintained support only for Kurdish militias in the north-east, which the US military employed as the main ground component of the war on ISIS in Syria.

 The opposition, he says, has not lost any territory since 2020 as Astana became mainly a forum to deal with ceasefire violations and Turkey bolstered rebel military capability in the north-west.



 The invasion of Ukraine has also bolstered the position of anti-Assad forces in the area, with Russia reportedly having moved troops and equipment from Syria to Ukraine to prop up their position there.

 “The Russians got mired in Ukraine and it became more difficult for them to pressure us to achieve political gains,” says Mr Tumeh, a dentist by training who studied Islamic theology.

 In the 1980s, he became a disciple of the late Syrian Islamic thinker Jawdat Saeed, a proponent of non-violence who opposed the fanaticism of some of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideologues.

 Mr Tumeh was sentenced to three years in jail in Damascus in the 2000s for "undermining national morale’" and headed a provisional government, formed in 2013 in Turkey, to fill the vacuum in the areas that fell out of Assad’s control.



 The north-west is divided into areas controlled by Tahrir Al Sham, an Al Qaeda offshoot with open channels with Turkey, and the Syrian National Army, formed by Turkey in 2017.

 The Syrian National Army is comprised mainly of rebels who were defeated after Russia intervened in Syria in 2015.

 Using mainly air power, Russia helped to push back a march by an alliance of rebels and militants from the north-west to coastal strongholds of Assad’s Alawite sect.

 Many of those fighters became part of Tahrir Al Sham, the most powerful anti-Assad faction in Syria.



 Dealing with Tahrir Al Sham is “complicated”, Mr Tumeh says, especially considering it is widely designated a terrorist group, even by Turkey.

 He says “strategic ideological issues” need to change for any chance to regain international support for political change in Syria.

 “Without moderating the ideas of all the parties in the conflict, a political solution is not possible,” says Mr Tumeh.

 The cafe in the middle-class district of Al Fatih where he spoke is full of young Syrians, with whom Mr Tumeh often debates, as well as on his visits to the north-west and on social media forums.

 “Syrians are intertwined with civilisation, progress and love of life. We need to return to our moderate roots,” he says.



 Over the past decade, Syria has become divided into zones controlled by ideologically opposed militias, owing allegiance to Turkey, Russia, the US or Iran.

 In the past three years, a stalemate between the big players has largely frozen the conflict on the ground as well as rival international diplomatic tracks on Syria – the Astana talks and a UN peace process in Geneva.

 In a surprise move, Kazakhstan last month proposed the Astana process should end because of the changing picture of Mr Al Assad's international isolation.

 Mr Tumeh said Kazakhstan's move could be related to its ties with Russia, which have been changing amid the Ukraine war. He expected the talks to continue in another location, as Moscow has indicated.

 "Kazakhstan's proposal was not accepted," he says.



 Russia also is facilitating talks between Damascus and Ankara to re-establish relations and find ways to jointly undermine the Kurdish militias that control large swathes of north-eastern Syria with US support.

 The militias are composed of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG), a group that traces its origins to the Syrian branch of the PKK, which is designated a terrorist entity by Turkey and a number of other countries.

 But Turkey regards the two groups, which allow bases for Syrian intelligence and government operations in their areas, as mortal enemies.

 Arab states have also sought accommodation with Assad, culminating in the readmission of Damascus to the Arab League in May.

 But Mr Tumeh insists the situation remains in the opposition's favour.

 He refers to a more active US posture against Iran in Syria, such as a so-far unrealised American effort to form an alliance of Arab Sunni tribes in the north-east as a buffer against pro-Iranian militias in the area.

 The main players in the Arab League, he says, might further improve ties with Mr Assad but "will not support him to recapture Syria, with all of its resources, and resume exporting crisis to the region".



 The Arab normalisation is opposed by the US and most western powers. These countries have also resisted Russian efforts to raise international funding for rebuilding in areas controlled by Mr Al Assad and to lift sanctions on his government.

 The sanctions were first imposed in response to the state violence used to crush the 2011 demonstrations.

 But the US has not sought to make Syria part of the deepening confrontation with Russia over the Ukraine war, Mr Tumeh says.

 He pointed out that Washington had made little effort to revive the Geneva track, which is supposed to find a political solution to the war and to produce a transitional governing body in Syria.



 The Geneva process is divided into constitutional and political paths, with Badr Jamous, a Syrian businessman with connections in Eastern Europe, leading the opposition delegation on the dormant political track. Hadi Al Bahra, another businessman who worked in Saudi Arabia, heads the opposition group taking part in the sporadic talks on a new constitution, without much progress to date.

 Both men, together with Mr Tumeh, are members of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, an organisation based in Istanbul. It was formed with western and Arab support in 2012 to represent the opposition and unite the rebel brigades but has been undermined by divisions from its inception.

 Although the Geneva meetings have been symbolic, they remain crucial for the case, Mr Tumeh says.

 "We are there to preserve the core of the Syrian revolution," he says. "We cannot allow the Syrian file to turn into a mere humanitarian issue and the political solution forgotten." '

Biden tells Syrian activists he still thinks Assad must go

 

 'Three Syrian American activists took advantage of their audience with Biden at a private fundraiser on June 27 in Maryland to implore him to do more to oppose Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and protect innocent Syrian civilians. Encouragingly, these activists said, Biden not only seemed to care deeply about the plight of Syrians but also seemed to want to do more about it. Yet they also noted that the president’s statements on Syria don’t match his own administration’s current policies. They are right on both counts.



 Alaa Tello, a Syrian American from Massachusetts, said she told Biden, “Assad must go.” Biden then responded, according to Tello, “I agree.” That contrasts sharply with his administration’s own recent actions, which include telling Arab gulf countries that the United States won’t oppose their normalization of Assad and failing to implement U.S. sanctions against Assad’s enablers.

 Biden was vice president when the Obama administration first declared in 2011 that “Assad must go.” Current administration officials don’t say that anymore, due in part to the fact Assad doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But the activists’ conversations with the president was a sign that Biden still believes it, Tello said afterward.

 Tello pressed the president to help the Syrian people free themselves from the grip of Assad and his Russian and Iranian partners, whose campaign of mass atrocities is now in its 13th year.

 “He said, ‘I can’t promise you, but I will do the best I can,’” Tello said. “He cared. He engaged in the conversation with a high level of empathy and I felt a lot of hope that the United States and the president will help the Syrian people.”



 Tello’s husband, Muhammad Bakr Ghbeis, a physician, said he implored Biden to pay more attention to Syria’s northwest Idlib province, where more than 3 million internally displaced civilians are living in squalor, cut off from the world, and enduring constant attacks from Syrian and Russian forces.

 “We have to save Idlib,” Ghbeis told Biden. “Please save Idlib, Mr. President.” Biden responded: “I hear you, but I can’t send U.S. soldiers to Syria.” Ghbeis answered, “Mr. President, no need to, we can do it, we can protect ourselves, we just need more support from the U.S.”

 Ghbeis spelled out the specific asks of the Syrian American activists in a Wednesday op-ed in the Hill that he co-wrote with former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.). Ghbeis and Engel want the Biden administration to actively oppose Assad’s further diplomatic rehabilitation, including his possible attendance at an international climate conference later this year in the United Arab Emirates. The Arab League welcomed Assad back as a member this year.

 Syrian activists also want the administration to publicly support a bipartisan bill called the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act that would stiffen penalties on any entity that aids the Assad régime, until or unless the Syrian government ceases its atrocities. Lastly, they want Biden to give Syrians living outside Assad’s rule more humanitarian aid and economic support.

 Ghbeis is active in a nonprofit organization called Citizens for a Secure and Safe America, which advocates on behalf of the Syrian opposition. The group’s spokesperson, George Stifo, another Massachusetts resident, was also at the event, where he had his own interaction with Biden.

 “Mr. President, if we had stopped the Russians in Syria, we would not have seen the war in Ukraine,” Stifo told Biden, arguing that Putin became emboldened after getting away with atrocities in Syria. Stifo says that president responded by saying he would not permit the Russians to succeed again.



 One might think that the president was just telling the Syrian activists what they want to hear. But Syrian Americans know from experience that these quick chats with the commander in chief can have real influence. In 2018, after a different Syrian activist met with President Donald Trump at a fundraiser, he took her story to heart. Trump ended up changing U.S. policy, directing his officials to use diplomatic tools to prevent a Syrian attack on Idlib at the time — which they did with some success.

 Biden officials like to think they run a tighter ship and that the president won’t change U.S. policy after a few conversations. But you never know.

 What comes out of this particular exchange remains to be seen. But all the Syrians’ specific policy asks are part of a broader, valid concern about the Biden administration’s Syria policy. They see the administration as lacking initiative and willingness to get deeply involved in the diplomacy needed to negotiate a just end to the war.

 “We really need to push the political process and the U.S. needs to lead on that front,” Ghbeis said. “That has not been the case for the last six years.”

 In the past, Biden has expressed the view that the United States should lead the international diplomacy on Syria and use pressure to stop Assad from slaughtering civilians with impunity. Perhaps his encounter with the activists will lead him back to this position. Even after all this time, it’s still the right thing to do.'

The Wagner Mutiny Could Strengthen Iran in Syria

 

 'As Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, began on June 23, Russian military police in Syria apprehended at least four of the Wagner Group’s top leaders and flew them to the Hmeimim air base on the country’s west coast as a precautionary measure. Multiple sources told Foreign Policy via messages over an encrypted messaging app that all were still being kept at a closed facility at Hmeimim; however, no public indication of their whereabouts has yet been made.

 Home to several thousand Russian soldiers and contractors, Hmeimim is Russia’s command and control center in Syria and the logistics headquarters for all Wagner operations abroad.

 With its two large landing strips, it is the largest Russian facility outside the former Soviet Union capable of servicing and refueling heavy aircraft transporting large quantities of weapons and personnel. Wagner flights to Libya, Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and even Venezuela depart from Hmeimim via Russian defense ministry aircraft before arriving at their final destinations. Should the Kremlin deny Wagner access to this facility, Prigozhin’s global empire would grind to a halt.



 As in Russia itself—where the police and Federal Security Service have raided the group’s headquarters and shut down its subsidiaries—Wagner’s leaders in Hmeimim have reportedly been given an ultimatum to sign new contracts with the defense ministry or return home. However, following years of attrition within the ranks of Russia’s proxies in Syria, Wagner forces form one of the core components of what’s left protecting Moscow’s interests in the country, granting Prigozhin significant leverage that will likely delay an abrupt dismantling of his influence.

 Currently, Wagner has between 1,000 and 2,000 troops deployed in Syria, who sit at the center of a much larger network of more than 10,000 local private military contractors who help guard oil, gas, and phosphate infrastructure in the country’s desert.

 Wagner pays Syrian private military contractors in part from the revenues generated from these facilities, most of which are owned or operated by companies linked to Gennady Timchenko—one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest confidants who experts claim has overseen the latter’s personal wealth—and Wagner shell companies.

 As Russia is one of the world’s largest energy and commodities exporters, revenues earned from Syria’s natural resources are negligible to the Russian state. However, for Syria’s régime, they are a desperately needed source of foreign currency, and Moscow’s control over them grants Russia leverage that it can use to ensure that Damascus does not renege on its geostrategic commitments to the Kremlin in any postwar scenario.

 These commitments include preserving Russia’s right to use Hmeimim as a launching pad to project power in Africa and, more importantly, to dock nuclear-capable vessels in Syria’s Tartus port. The latter has been one of Moscow’s greatest geostrategic achievements since the 1970s and enables Russia to project nuclear deterrence along NATO’s southern flank.

 Regardless as to what individual Wagner leaders decide, ensuring that Russia retains leverage over Damascus means securing the loyalty of the thousands of Syrian private military contractors whom Prigozhin commands. Any pause or reduction in incentives for these forces caused by confusion in Moscow will be seized on by Russia’s main rival, Iran, which could offer these fighters weapons and better pay.



 Despite partnering to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Iran have been viciously at odds in Syria since 2017. In 2018, their proxies had violent clashes over control of Syria’s phosphate reserves and have continued to battle over other strategic assets.

 This struggle to protect its position has worn on Moscow, particularly as its hopes for a political solution to the conflict have fallen flat; Russian companies would likely earn a massive windfall if sanctions on Syria were lifted and Putin has exerted pressure on Assad for years to ensure this. But such a resolution and an injection of Western development aid have failed to materialize.

 By 2021, Russia began to cut support to many of its proxies in parts of the country it no longer viewed as strategic, many of which switched their loyalty to Iran to replace lost salaries. This process accelerated following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

 The rapid normalization seen in recent months between the Assad régime and Arab League states is itself a last-resort strategy by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan to contain Iran after accepting that Russia may no longer possess the means to do so.

 Currently, Wagner mercenaries and their network of contractors at oil and gas sites across Syria are one of several core components of what’s left of Russia’s bare-bones occupation. Supported in part by an independent and sustainable revenue stream, they have so far proved largely resistant to Iran’s overtures.



 However, should another pillar in Putin’s régime fall, that could change, with Wagner’s Syrian mercenaries following the same path as many other former Russian proxies. Examples abound.

 In April 2021, Russia ignored requests for support from a tribal-backed militia fighting U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria. After being defeated and expelled from their homes, tribal fighters opened their doors to Iran, which flew in large quantities of heavy weapons and equipment and replaced the group’s lost salaries.

 The Syrian Army’s 8th Brigade was once Russia’s most loyal unit within the armed forces in southern Syria. However, by late 2021, Moscow became frustrated with its failure to send sufficient troops to fight the Islamic State and halved the group’s salaries. By 2022, it ceased contact altogether, and now the 8th Brigade fights for Syria’s Military Intelligence Directorate, one of Iran’s most powerful proxies and which is heavily implicated in regional drug trafficking alongside Hezbollah and other groups.

 Similarly, in July 2022, National Defense Forces militias in eastern Deir Ezzor led by Hassan al-Ghadban broke with Moscow after the latter failed to pay their salaries for six months. The group shortly after merged with the 4th Division, one of Syria’s top elite Iranian-backed units led by Maher al-Assad—brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—which sits at the top of Syria’s drug trade.

 Should Russia lose the loyalty of Syrian mercenaries guarding the country’s energy infrastructure, Moscow would no longer be able to guarantee that it could continue coercing Assad to allow the Kremlin to use Syrian territory to threaten NATO and expand throughout Africa.



 Following the defeat of the Islamic State in 2018, Russia undertook an aggressive campaign to overhaul and reform Syria’s decrepit military, which Moscow hoped to partner with as its main client in a postwar scenario. Syrian generals who spoke Russian were promoted and purged hundreds of senior officers, seized weapons and military IDs from Iranian-backed militias, and arrested their financiers.

 The program provoked a wave of violence against Russian forces and their proxies by Iranian-backed groups that refused to disarm and instead accelerated their infiltration of Syria’s institutions.

 By 2020, Russia had given up. Limited by the economic contraction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its failure to achieve any semblance of order, Russia’s defense ministry scaled back its efforts and turned to its own network of private military contractors to build an irregular force to manage its now narrowly defined interests.



 This shift was hastened by Russia’s belligerent stance toward Turkey, whose proxies Moscow fought two separate conflicts with in 2020, creating an urgent need for new recruits. Between December 2019 and August 2020, Wagner recruited thousands of Syrian mercenaries through more than a dozen private security firms to fight in Libya against the Turkish-backed government alongside renegade warlord Khalifa Haftar.

 During the fighting, Wagner seized control of two large oil fields and export facilities and a petrochemical complex—key leverage that the group has used to selectively manipulate energy markets by imposing blockades. During the same period, Wagner-backed militias took part in a shorter conflict against Turkish-backed rebels in Syria’s Idlib province that resulted in large territorial gains for the Assad régime.

 Following these campaigns, Russia was soon forced to mobilize again, this time against the Islamic State in central Syria. In the eight months from August 2020 to March 2021, the group exploded out of remote parts of the desert and killed more than 460 soldiers and civilians and injured hundreds more. The majority of attacks were concentrated around the country’s gas-processing plants and oil fields, an attempt by the Islamic State to extort payment from the companies that managed their production.

 The Islamic State’s attacks posed a direct threat to Russia’s core interest, and Moscow exhausted all options in response. The private military contractors used to recruit Syrians to fight in Libya were revived across the country, with recruits trained in Suqaylabiyah, a large Orthodox Christian town on the outskirts of the desert where Russia has recruited its most loyal mercenaries. Russia’s defense ministry issued an ultimatum to loyal units within the Syrian Army: Send fighters, or stop receiving salaries.

 Lastly, for the first time since 2017, Russian units fighting in the desert partnered with Iranian proxies including Afghan Shiite militias. For the first three months of 2021, this combined force supported by Russian air power bombarded the Islamic State, driving many of its fighters to Iraq or Kurdish-controlled parts of northeastern Syria.

 Now, preserving this network of mercenaries built up throughout 2020 is key to ensuring the smooth running of Syria’s energy and phosphate reserves, which has since become Russia’s main priority. Iran has meanwhile seized the opportunity to chip away at Moscow’s faltering facade and pick off former proxies that the Kremlin can no longer afford to patronize.



 Wagner forces and the Syrians they contract are mercenaries and by definition fight for material gain. Some, such as Orthodox Christians in Suqaylabiyah and neighboring towns, either feel some affinity with Russia or view it as a bulwark against encroaching Iranian Shiite sectarianism. However, should Moscow pull the rug entirely from under Prigozhin, all of Wagner’s proxies will be forced to make practical decisions.

 Of the four Wagner leaders in Syria detained late last month, two were based in Hmeimim, one in Damascus, one in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor, and the last in Suqaylabiyah. Should their detention drag out, the Christians of Suqaylabiyah and other groups may find themselves on the receiving end of enticing Iranian offers.

 Iran may also soon be in a better position to make such offers. Following months of quiet negotiations, in late June the United States resumed indirect talks with Tehran to explore relaunching the nuclear deal or replacing it with an interim agreement. As a measure of good faith, the United States recently agreed to unfreeze and release $2.7 billion of debt from Iraq to Iranian banks. Tehran has similarly requested that $7 billion in South Korean debt frozen by sanctions be released, offering to free detained U.S. citizens in exchange.

 However, Russia’s current weak position may delay any brash steps to rein in Prigozhin’s position in Syria. Russia’s occupation is not driven by profit-seeking, and allowing Prigozhin to continue reaping a modest fortune is a small price to pay to ensure Moscow’s presence on the Mediterranean is kept intact. Should it do the opposite, the Kremlin risks creating a gap that Iran’s proxies would soon step in to exploit.'

Syrian régime organised feared ghost militias

 

 'In the early years of Syria's brutal conflict, top government officials established and directed paramilitary groups known as shabbiha to help the state crack down on opponents, war crimes investigators have documented.

 The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) published seven documents its investigators said showed that the highest levels of Syria's government "planned, organised, instigated and deployed" the shabbiha from the start of the war in 2011.

 Dating from as early as January 2011 - the first days of the protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule - the documents detail the creation of so-called Popular Committees, groups that incorporated régime supporters already known as shabbiha into the security apparatus, and trained, instructed and armed them, the report said.



 The documents include instructions on March 2, 2011 from military intelligence to local authorities via Security Committees run by Assad's Baath party leaders to "mobilise" informers, grassroots organisations and so-called friends of the Assad government. In further documents in April they are ordered to form them into Popular Committees.

 They also contain instructions in April, May and August, 2011 to Popular Committees from the newly-established Central Crisis Management Committee (CCMC), a mix of security forces, intelligence agencies and top officials that reported directly to Assad, the report said.

 One of the CCMC's first directives, dated April 18, 2011, and included in full in the report, ordered the Popular Committees to be trained on how to use weapons against demonstrators, as well as how to arrest them and hand them over to government forces.



 A German regional court in 2021, in a case against a Syrian intelligence services official, said in its judgment the CCMC was established in March 2011, reporting to Assad as an ad hoc body composed of senior leaders of the security forces.

 A U.S. district court found in 2019 in a civil case that Assad himself established the CCMC, which the court called "the highest national security body in the Syrian government" and "comprised of senior members of the government".

 The documents showed the government created the militias "from day one", rather than latching onto pre-existing grassroot groups, as scholars of the Syrian war previously thought, said Ugur Ungor, an expert on Syrian paramilitaries and a professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies at the Dutch NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, who has reviewed the documents in CIJA's new report.



 Some human rights scholars who have studied the role of the shabbiha in the Syrian war say the Assad régime initially used the groups to distance itself from violence on the ground.

 "The régime did not want the security forces and army to be pictured doing these things," said Fadel Abdul Ghany, chair of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based advocacy group.

 No shabbiha members have been brought to trial in international courts. Ghany, who reviewed the documents, said they could help build such cases.

 "Here you have the paper trail that shows how these units were mobilized", said one of CIJA's directors, Nerma Jelacic.

 CIJA is a nonprofit founded by a veteran war crimes investigator and staffed by international criminal lawyers who have worked in Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia. Its evidence on Syria has previously been used in court cases against régime officials conducted in Germany, France, Sweden and the Netherlands.



 CIJA named nine massacres in Syria the reports said involved pro-government militias, including in the neighbourhood of Karm al-Zeytoun in the city of Homs in March 2012.

 One Syrian man, who asked not to be named as he feared reprisals against relatives still living in government-held zones in Syria, said his wife and five children were among those killed there.

 "The shabbiha put them up against the wall, tried to violate them, then shot them," he said. At the time, he had joined a rebel group and was in a nearby district, al-Adawiya - where another massacre had just taken place, also cited by CIJA.

 "The moment I heard that my kids were dead, I was holding a six-month-old baby that had just been killed in Adawiya. So, I was imagining what had happened to my kids," he said, speaking by telephone from within a rebel-held enclave in northern Syria.



 The CIJA documents showed tensions between some branches of the security forces and some Popular Committees as reports of abuses spread - but rather than rein-in the militias, the security forces issued instructions to not oppose them.

 CIJA's Syria team of 45 people studied the documents to detail the growth of the shabbiha groups from neigbourhood-level loyalist groups to a well-organised militia and later a parallel wing of the army called the National Defence Force (NDF).

 While there is no international war crimes court with jurisdiction over Syria's conflict, there are a number of so-called universal jurisdiction cases in countries like the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Germany which have laws allowing them to prosecute war crimes even if they are committed elsewhere.

 Ghany said the documents were "necessary" pieces of evidence linking the shabbiha to the state in international justice cases.

 "These documents make it possible to pursue people legally - if there are individuals in European countries, then a case can be brought against them," he said.'

What’s behind the latest Russian airstrikes in Syria?

 

 'Each morning, Yasser H. and his brother sell what they harvest at the market in Jisr al-Shughur in the west of Syria’s Idlib province. But last Sunday, everything suddenly happened very quickly, the 39-year-old recalled.

 “Here we are the vegetable market … we were surprised today by the Russian bombing,” he said. “The scene was very terrifying and cruel. Suddenly you see the wounded and martyrs on the ground, and there is no one to help or carry, the majority were injured and there was no one to help.”

 “We were civilians and farmers — nothing more, nothing less,” he added.

 Ahmed Jasigi, from the city’s Civil Defense, also spoke of several deaths, condemning the attack on a market “that is an important source of income for farmers.”

 Haifa, 25, from Jisr al-Shughur, was also near the market that day, though able to take cover. “But our neighbor didn’t make it. He is dead now, and he had just gotten married. We are all shocked and sad,” she said.

 At least nine people were killed and dozens injured in the Russian airstrike on the market last Sunday in the rebel-held area, with the death toll expected to rise.

 Four more people were killed in another attack in a suburb of Idlib.

 A third rocket attack reportedly killed eight members of the Hamza Brigade, a paramilitary group affiliated with the militant Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Syria’s main insurgent group.

 The Idlib province in northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border, is the last region held by Syrian rebels and Islamists. It is mostly under the control of Islamist militias from the Hayat Tahrir al Sham group, which grew out of the Nusra Front. Around 4 million people, most of them internally displaced several times over, live in poverty amid extremely difficult conditions.

 Bente Scheller, Middle East analyst at Germany’s Heinrich Böll Foundation, a Green Party affiliated think tank, also sees the airstrikes as a show of force by Russia, especially since Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was readmitted to the Arab League.

 “There are plenty of autocrats who reinforce each other’s belief that brute force is a proven way to get their way — Putin is underlining that with the increased attacks,” Scheller said. The conflict between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group who recently staged a mutiny, may also have played a role. “Since the Wagner private military company has shown Putin up and exposed that his strength isn’t in great shape, the attacks in Idlib may also serve to reassure Putin himself,” Scheller said.

 Turkey has supported armed opposition to Assad throughout the war in Syria, much to the displeasure of Damascus, while Moscow has expressed impatience with Ankara for not doing enough to drive the jihadists out of the buffer zone. That is also making a rapprochement with Damascus less likely, according to a diplomatic source.

 Moscow is now apparently ramping up the pressure. “Russia wants Turkey to normalise its relations with Syria because that would once again be a much greater signal to Europe and also NATO,” said Scheller. At the end of 2022, during the most recent Russian-brokered talks with Ankara, as well as at the recent Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan, Damascus had demanded that Turkey completely withdraw its military presence from northern Syria. A statement by Turkey, Russia, and Iran said the latest round of talks had been “constructive,” and that they had discussed “preparing the roadmap for the restoration of relations between Turkey and Syria.”

 But the Turkish and Syrian leaders have different interests. “Turkey does not want to withdraw from Syria — quite the opposite,” Scheller said, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hoping to create a larger security zone on Syrian soil. Additionally, Erdogan needs the territories he occupies to enable the repatriation of some the 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

 “Assad, on the other hand, wants to recapture every inch of Syrian soil,” Scheller added. And while the Kurdish-Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) is a thorn in Ankara’s side, Assad sees the PYD as a partner. “For Assad, but also for Russia, as part of a rapprochement, it would be more important to act together against the Islamist HTS that controls Idlib, or other forces,” she said, referring to Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an insurgent group that rules much of northwest Syria.



 So far, the presence of Turkish troops has prevented Damascus and Moscow from using full military force to retake the rebel enclave around Idlib.

 Back at the recently bombed market in Jisr al-Shughur, farmer Yasser H. said he just wants to live in peace, and not as a pawn of political interests. “But Russia does not distinguish between civilians and military.” '

Assad’s property grab continues

 

 'In May 2023, numerous residents of the Yarmouk Camp, an informal Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus that was recaptured by the Syrian régime in 2018, were summoned by the General Intelligence Branch following notifications from local mukhtars, or district heads. One of the attendees, an aid worker during the opposition control period, said that each attendee underwent a 30-minute interrogation before receiving a judicial order from the Anti-Terrorism Court, resulting in the confiscation of all the respective individual’s movable and immovable assets. Similar cases have been reported in recent months in other parts of the country, including Homs and Eastern Ghouta.

 While estimating the total number or value of confiscated properties in an area like the Yarmouk Camp is challenging, the occurrence of at least 50 cases in a single day offers an indication of the scale. Paradoxically, these campaigns coincided with a conference, sponsored by Russia and organized by the Syrian régime in Damascus, focusing on the issue of refugee returns. While calls for the immediate return of Syrian refugees have increased at the regional and international levels, it is imperative to closely examine the direct link between property confiscation and the possibility of refugee returns. Indeed, property confiscation does not only impact the direct owners and their immediate families’ livelihoods but also hinders the ability of thousands of displaced Syrians to return while leading those who still reside under régime rule and have lost their property to consider migration.

 Property confiscation has been a longstanding policy of the Syrian régime since the 1960s, often employed to achieve specific economic objectives or as a means of political control and punishment. During the present conflict, which exploded in 2011, this policy has been extensively used to dispossess Syrians of their lands and properties. In essence, confiscation strategies can be categorized as either selective or collective. Selective confiscation is primarily applied through the Anti-Terrorism Court, which targets individuals involved in political or civil society activities deemed by the state to be “terrorism.” For instance, in 2017 alone, the Anti-Terrorism Court oversaw at least 8,200 confiscation cases, with 24,000 individuals yet to be tried. Other individuals, such as military evaders or those accused of corruption or tax evasion, may also face asset freezes or seizures.

 Collective confiscation occurs through urban development that specifically targets entire communities residing in informal or unregulated areas. These practices are often backed by a series of laws and regulations that empower the state to seize lands for urban planning and development purposes. Confiscation may also take place without a legal basis. For example, agricultural lands owned by displaced individuals in Hama, Homs, Idlib, and Deir ez-Zor have been subject to auctions for investment. These auctions overtly favor individuals connected to militia group leaders and the security apparatus, while relatives of displaced landowners, who are typically labeled as terrorists, are prohibited from participating. Moreover, the revenue generated from these sales is seized by the régime rather than being rightfully credited to the original owners.

 In theory, properties confiscated through official channels are transformed into state-owned assets that can be left vacant, utilized by public institutions, or sold through public auctions. However, the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Law introduces a potential loophole whereby properties can be given as compensation to “individuals affected by terrorism,” creating an opportunity for the transfer of properties to régime loyalists. Furthermore, properties confiscated for urban development projects are ultimately incorporated into the capital accumulation process, leading to economic benefits for the régime’s cronies and inner circle. This allows the régime to exploit Syrians’ properties as a mechanism for consolidating power and a means to repay its business associates, external allies such as Iran and Russia, and its political, military, and security apparatuses.

 The impact of property confiscation on refugee returns and economic recovery is profound. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have already been or are at risk of being stripped of their assets, including vital resources like farmland, factories, vehicles, and shops, while many individuals have been forced to transition from homeowners to tenants. This loss greatly hinders their ability to rebuild their livelihoods. The pervasive fear of confiscation has coerced others to sell their properties at significantly reduced prices to individuals allegedly connected to the régime or Iranian militia groups. The constant threat of asset seizure or property demolition discourages many Syrians from rehabilitating their properties or returning to their original neighborhoods. On a larger scale, collective confiscation policies predominantly target and seek to depopulate informal areas to include them in urban development plans, which are primarily inhabited by the working class. This is evident in the case of Aleppo City, where the decline of these laborers’ neighborhoods serves as a barrier to the recovery of the industrial sector.

 The issue of property confiscation should not be treated as a purely domestic legal matter but must be recognized as a critical political factor in Syria’s future recovery. Countries advocating for safe refugee returns must prioritize addressing this issue during negotiations with Damascus. Reversing policies that undermine Syrians’ property rights and impede their ability to rebuild their lives upon return should be a fundamental requirement in any process involving refugee returns, early recovery, and reconstruction funding. The existing legal and economic framework imposed by the régime is highly detrimental to Syrians and their properties. Therefore, investing in Syria’s reconstruction without reforming these laws and curbing similar practices would only serve to reinforce the régime’s war economy. When it encountered enough political pressure in 2018, the Syrian régime was forced to revise certain terms of Law No. 10, which allows the régime to repossess properties of those who fail to claim their ownership within a month (later amended to a year) following the designation of an area for development. A similar level of pressure is urgently needed today to repeal laws and regulations that threaten Syrians’ property and livelihoods.

 The international community can no longer afford to overlook this issue, as Syrians continue to lose their properties on a daily basis to a rapacious régime. This organized campaign of asset theft will not only deter Syrian refugees from returning, it will also prompt those who are still in Syria to desperately seek ways to leave, including trying to cross the Mediterranean in unsafe conditions. Tragedies like the one that took place last week off the coast of Greece will continue until the root causes of migration are addressed.'

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.'