Syria 2019 – 15 December 2024

Syria 2017 – 2018
Trump administration U.S. – Russia relations
ISIS/ISIL/DAESH 2019

15 December
Foreign powers jockey for control in Syria, risking new conflict
In the days since the collapse of the Assad regime, multiple countries have bombed targets in Syria, as the power vacuum unleashes a battle for the heart of the Middle East.
In Syria’s first week without Bashar al-Assad, the longtime despot who has since fled to Moscow, three foreign powers bombed targets in the country in pursuit of their strategic goals: the United States against Islamic State remnants in the east, Turkey against Kurdish forces in the northeast and Israel against Syrian military assets in multiple locations.
Russia and Iran, Assad’s key supporters and the biggest losers from the change of power in Damascus, were meanwhile rushing to withdraw or reposition their forces in the country. Iran has evacuated 4,000 personnel from Syria since Assad’s fall

13 December
Syrian rebels reveal year-long plot that brought down Assad regime
Exclusive: Abu Hassan al-Hamwi’s HTS group coordinated rebels to create a unified war effort that included a specialist drone unit

11 December
Humbled Iran Weighs Next Steps After Assad Exit ;
‘A blow to Putin’s prestige’: What al-Assad’s fall means for Russia ;
How Turkey Won the Syrian Civil War — Assad’s Downfall Is a Boon for Erdogan—at Least for Now ; and,
Preparing for potential ‘chaos’ in post-Assad Syria, Israel goes on the offensive

10 December
(BBC) The prime minister of Syria’s new transitional government has said it is time for people to “enjoy stability and calm” after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohammed al-Bashir, the former head of the rebel administration in the north-west, was speaking to Al Jazeera after being tasked with governing until March 2025 by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
Bashir chaired a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday attended by members of his new government and those of Assad’s former cabinet to discuss the transfer of portfolios and institutions.
It came as the UN envoy for Syria said the rebels must transform their “good messages” into practice on the ground.
Mohammed al-Bashir: Who is Syria’s new interim prime minister?
The former engineer headed the HTS-controlled salvation government in Idlib before becoming interim premier
Mohammed al-Bashir, the head of the administration that ran Idlib in northwest Syria, has been appointed as the country’s interim prime minister following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
The decision came after Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani met with outgoing Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss a transitional government on Monday.
“The general command has tasked us with running the transitional government until 1 March,” Bashir said on Tuesday, according to state media.

9 December
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq condemn Israel’s ‘dangerous’ land grab in Syria
(Al Jazeera) Qatar, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have decried Israel’s seizure of land in Syria near the occupied Golan Heights as the Israeli military continues to launch air strikes across the country.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Doha considers the Israeli incursion “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity as well as a flagrant violation of international law”.
A long road ahead to decide Syria’s future after rapid end to Assad’s rule
(AP) — For the first time in 50 years, the question of how Syria will be governed is wide open. The end of the Assad family’s rule is for many Syrians a moment of mixed joy and fear, of the total unknown.
The insurgency that swept President Bashar Assad out of power is rooted in Islamist jihadi fighters. Its leader says he has renounced past ties to al-Qaida, and he has gone out of his way to assert a vision of creating a pluralistic Syria governed by civil institutions — not dictators and not ideology. BUT
The insurgency is made up of multiple factions, and the country is riven among armed groups, including U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters controlling the east. Remnants of the old regime’s military — and its feared security and intelligence services — could coalesce once again.
Foreign powers with their own interests have their hands deep in the country, and any of them — Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States and Israel — could act as spoilers.
Syria’s multifaith and multiethnic population sees itself poised on a moment that could tip either into chaos or cohesion. The country’s Sunni Muslims, Shiite Alawites, Christians and ethnic Kurds have often been pitted against each, whether by Assad’s rule or a 14-year civil war.
Rebel factions celebrate in Damascus, try to assure rattled residents

8 December
‘In chaos, there is opportunity’: Journalist Austin Tice’s family finds hope

Finally, Hope for the Syrian People
At last, an event the world’s humanists might celebrate.
Jeremy Kinsman
– Today’s Syria is a failed state: 90% live beneath the poverty line, and 7.2 million remain internally displaced.
– The fall of Assad will enable some international humanitarian attention to reconstruct the country, but the massive rebuilding needs in Gaza and Ukraine are already extremely daunting.
– However, this triumph in Syria – if it is real, and if it is genuinely a triumph of the people – sends a message of hope to repressed people everywhere. And it will remind Putin, Ayatollah Khamenei, Lukashenko, Burmese generals, and even Beijing, that people who can’t take it any more sooner or later, and often suddenly, do rise up and make history.
(Policy) Finally, one of the world’s entrenched authoritarians has been defeated by a suppressed people. In 2011, when Bashar al-Assad crushed the peaceful democratic protests inspired by the Arab Spring, he did so ruthlessly, with extreme force. Dictators across the world, the military junta in Myanmar, Lukashenko in Belarus, the Chinese state in Hong Kong, Putin in Moscow, many others, took the lesson – crush the protestors without mercy and their cause will collapse.
The demise of the Assad regime after more than a half-century doesn’t prove that the arc of history necessarily bends toward justice – Assad will likely never face true justice – but it may validate the belief that repressed people will find their way.
How did it happen so fast? The Syrian Army was an empty shell, staffed by alienated draftees, and dependent on partnership with Hezbollah, which had just been decapitated and decimated by Israel in Lebanon. Russia tried some more bombing but then read the tea leaves, stretched as they are in Ukraine – Russian warships based in the Syrian port of Tartus have headed for home. And Iran, Bashar’s principal state ally, has other fish to fry, with the US especially.
So, collapse when it happens, happens fast.
Moreover, to whom will the regime fall? The rebels who today occupy the second city, Aleppo, and others on the road to Damascus, Homs, and Hama, are spearheaded by a militant Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, not known for democratic impulses. (The US has a $10 million bounty on its leader, a dissident from Al-Qaeda but still hard-line Islamist, al-Julani). The Kurd forces want a separate Kurdish state in the North, anathema to Turkish President Erdogan, who remains in a protracted, bitter conflict with Kurdish separatists.
This morning, Syria’s ruthless dictator is said to have fled to Moscow. He has certainly fled Damascus. He may dream of eventually taking refuge in the relative security of his tribal Alawite heartland on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, in a new Syria partitioned among its diverse inhabitants: Syria’s 2011 population, before the Arab Spring ignited the civil war, was 22 million: about 70% Sunni Arab Muslims, Christians about 10%, Alawites (a more relaxed form of Shia Muslims) also 10%, and almost 2 million Kurds.
The Syrian Regime Collapsed Gradually—And Then Suddenly
Assad’s fall offers the possibility of change.
By Anne Applebaum
(The Atlantic) …after a well-organized, highly motivated set of armed opponents took the city of Aleppo on November 29, many of the regime’s defenders abruptly stopped fighting. Assad vanished. The scenes that followed today in Damascus—the toppling of statues, the people taking selfies at the dictator’s palace—are the same ones that will unfold in Caracas, Tehran, or Moscow on the day the soldiers of those regimes lose their faith in the leadership, and the public loses their fear of those soldiers too.
The similarities among these places are real, because Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and, until now, Syria all belong to an informal network of autocracies. Russian troops and mercenaries have spent the past decade fighting in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa. Russian political and information operations actively seek to undermine, dominate, or overthrow democratic governments in Moldova, Georgia, and most recently Romania. Starting in 2015, Russian troops propped up Assad in partnership with Iran and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. In Ukraine, Russia’s war is made possible by drones from Iran, soldiers and ammunition from North Korea, and covert help from China. Russia, Iran, Cuba, and China collaborate to keep in power a regime in Venezuela that has catastrophically failed its people too.
… Brutality is meant to inspire hopelessness. Ludicrous lies and cynical propaganda campaigns are meant to create apathy and nihilism. Random arrests have driven millions of Syrians, Ukrainians, and Venezuelans abroad, creating large, destabilizing waves of refugees and leaving those who remain in despair. The despair, again, is part of the plan. These regimes want to rob people of any ability to plan for a different future, to convince people that their dictatorships are eternal.
But all such “eternal” regimes have one fatal flaw: Soldiers and police officers are members of the public too. They have relatives who suffer, cousins and friends who experience political repression and the effects of economic collapse. They, too, have doubts, and they, too, can become insecure. In Syria, we have just seen the result.
Assad gets asylum in Russia, rebels sweep through Syria
Lightning rebel advance ends Assad family rule
Rebels say they entered capital with no sign of army
Russia gives asylum to Assad and his family
Assad’s fall deals major blow to allies Russia and Iran
Western states will have to deal with triumphant Islamists
(Reuters) – Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday after a lightning advance that sent President Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia after a 13-year civil war and six decades of his family’s autocratic rule.
In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad’s government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave him and his family asylum, Russian state media said.
His sudden overthrow, at the hands of a revolt partly backed by Turkey and with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran’s ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It may pave the way for millions of refugees scattered for more than a decade in camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to finally return home.
The fall of Bashar Assad after 13 years of war in Syria brings to an end a decades-long dynasty
(AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers.
The exit of the 59-year-old Assad stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. At age 34, the Western-educated ophthalmologist appeared as a geeky tech-savvy fan of computers with a gentle demeanor.

6 December
Bloomberg: President Bashar Al-Assad, who with the help of Vladimir Putin has killed hundreds of thousands of his own people during a long Syrian civil war triggered by calls for democracy, is now desperate for Kremlin and Iranian help. In recent days, rebel forces have suddenly made major advances and are closing in on the strategically important city of Homs. This time, however, Assad’s friends in Moscow and Tehran are otherwise occupied. The military resources of both are stretched thin by their own conflicts, Iran in the Middle East and Russia with its own brutal war of aggression on neighboring Ukraine. After capturing Hama on Thursday, the Syrian rebels are now mere kilometers from Homs, the last major city on their path south to Damascus. Taking Homs could close the land route between Assad’s government and his Alawite sect’s Mediterranean strongholds, which are also home to a Russian naval base. That would further undermine his chances of holding onto power.

5 December
Syrian rebels take Hama, a second major city, in another blow to Assad
The Islamist rebels’ breakneck advance has redrawn the country’s front lines and revealed the fragility of the government’s security forces.
(WaPo) The Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which is leading the offensive, released a series of short statements Thursday afternoon, saying it had entered neighborhoods in Hama after days of fighting on its outskirts and freed inmates from the city’s central prison. Around the same time, the Syrian army announced it had withdrawn.
Remembering the Hama Massacre
…the Hama massacre during which Syrian president Hafez al-Assad’s security forces killed tens of thousands of citizens to quell an Islamic uprising. For three weeks, from February 2 to 28, 1982, the Syrian regime cracked down on insurgents and the innocent residents of Hama in what Robin Wright termed “the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East.”
The Hama massacre began in the middle of the night on February 2, 1982, when a Syrian army unit triggered a Muslim Brotherhood ambush in the old city of Hama. The conflict sparked a general uprising in the city, turning the night into one of killing and looting as hundreds of Islamic fighters raided regime leaders’ homes and offices in a bid to seize control of the city.

4 December
Max Boot: Aleppo’s sudden fall reveals stark realities in Syria
The United States can’t overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, but it shouldn’t prop him up.
(WaPo) The Syrian civil war began in 2011 and never really ended. The fighting has claimed about half a million lives and forcibly displaced more than half of Syria’s inhabitants. But, following a ceasefire agreement negotiated in 2020 by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, combat subsided and Syria fell off the front pages. Bashar al-Assad, the Russian- and Iranian-backed strongman, was left in control of all of the major cities and roughly 70 percent of the country. A variety of opposition groups ran the rest — including Kurdish forces in the northeast assisted by the U.S. military.
…the geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically following the news that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group, has captured Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, which Assad had reclaimed in 2016. The Syrian government is desperately trying, along with its backers in Tehran and Moscow, to stanch the rebel onslaught. The front lines have already shifted south of Aleppo. The Syrian regime is now in a battle to hold onto the city of Hama (site of a notorious massacre carried out by Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, in 1982).
There is no indication that rebel forces will march on Damascus, more than 200 miles from Aleppo. But the speed with which the Syrian army collapsed in and around Aleppo — reminiscent of the collapse of Afghan forces fighting the Taliban in 2021 and of Iraqi forces fighting Islamic State in 2014 — is a reminder of just how unpopular and illegitimate the Assad regime remains and how little loyalty it commands even from its own soldiers.

3 December
Why Syria Matters to the Kremlin
It is not just a military outpost. It is a cornerstone of Russia’s claim to great-power status.
By Nicole Grajewski
(The Atlantic)…Russia’s commitment to Syria has not actually wavered, and Russia is not really distracted. The advance of Syria’s rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) reflects the degradation not of Russian attention but of the multinational ground forces supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Russia is not only not contemplating withdrawing from Syria—it looks poised to double down on its investment there, even if it has to rely on Iranian-backed forces and the cooperation of regional powers to do so.
… Syria is important to Moscow because intervening there in 2015 allowed Putin to reverse the narrative of Russian decline that had taken hold since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia would no longer be what then-President Barack Obama dismissed as a declining “regional power”—it was to be a decisive great-power patron of the Assad regime, and as such, it would rewrite the playbook of outside intervention in the Middle East. American-led interventions, such as the invasion of Iraq and the NATO campaign in Libya, shattered states and bred chaos. Russia would have the opposite effect, preserving Syrian sovereignty and regional order.
To understand Russia’s military position in Syria, consider that when Moscow first intervened there, in September 2015, it did so with a surprisingly light footprint and a long-term plan to modernize and strengthen the Syrian military. …
Moscow sent some special-operations units, military police, advisers, and artillery teams to Syria. But to retake territory from the rebels, it relied almost entirely on a network of Iranian-backed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units, the Afghan Fatemiyoun, the Pakistani Zeinabiyoun, and Hezbollah. Ultimately, the Kremlin sought to build the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) into a professional fighting force capable of independently securing Assad’s rule, and so it poured resources into modernizing the SAA’s command structures, improving battlefield coordination, and equipping units with advanced Russian weaponry. …

Syrian rebels advance close to Hama city, piling pressure on Assad and his allies
Northeastern Syria is crowded battlefield; US, Turkey, Iran, Russia all have interests
Rebels advance north of Hama city
Iran minister says Tehran will send troops if asked
(Reuters) – Syrian rebels advancing against government forces pushed close on Tuesday to the major city of Hama, rebels and a war monitor said, after their sudden capture of Aleppo last week rocked President Bashar al-Assad.
The front lines of the conflict have been frozen since 2020 after Assad clawed back most of the country from rebels, thanks to help from Russian air power and military help from Iran and its network of regional Shi’ite militia groups.
Now, however, Russia has been concentrating on the war in Ukraine, while Israeli strikes over the past three months have decimated the leadership of Hezbollah, the strongest Iran-backed force fighting in Syria.

2 December
Kurdish-led force in Syria says seeking to evacuate Kurds from Aleppo
A US-backed, Kurdish-led force in Syria is seeking to evacuate Kurds in parts of Aleppo to safe areas, its chief said Monday, after pro-Turkey armed opposition factions seized a town where tens of thousands of Kurds were living.
“We are actively coordinating with all relevant parties in Syria to ensure the safety of our people and facilitate their secure relocation… to our safe areas in the northeast of the country,” Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said in a statement.
A Syria war monitor said late Sunday that around 200,000 Syrian Kurds were “besieged by pro-Turkey factions” who took over the town of Tal Rifaat and nearby villages.

1 December
Ian Bremmer: Syrian rebel forces take Aleppo
…Syria, a country that is far from stable and not really a country, really a patchwork of different controls in the best of times. But now we have active war fighting, a new front opening up with lots of territory being taken from Bashar al-Assad and his dictatorial regime by Syrian Rebels, particularly a group called HTS, which is the most powerful of the military opposition groups in the country. They have swept, in a matter of hours, through the country, taking over Aleppo, the major city, and moving towards Hama. There is lots of humanitarian concern here. Not a surprise. You don’t have hospitals functioning in Aleppo. You’ve got all sorts, thousands and thousands of people fleeing and nowhere obvious to go.
This should not be an enormous surprise in the sense that HTS has been agitating the Turkish government who support them to march on Aleppo for months. And in the same way that the Iranians had been green-lighting support for all of their proxies across the region to engage in strikes against the United States, against Israel, against shipping, all of that, Turkey did not want to do that. They didn’t want to back and offensive. They were pretty split on it. The hawks inside Erdogan’s government in Turkey, like the idea in order to expand opposition, put more pressure on a side, facilitate the return of more Syrian refugees from Turkey back into Syria, and also strengthen Erdogan’s hand in bringing Assad back to the negotiating table for a normalization of ties under Turkey’s terms. But a lot of people inside Turkey were saying that Russia would carpet bomb Turkish-backed forces and Turkish forces on the ground in Syria, of which there are thousands, which would humiliate Erdogan and cause broader tension with Russia that could well have major economic implications. We’ve seen that before, and this is a time when Turkey doesn’t really want to afford that. They’re trying to rebuild their economy from what has been a lot of damage.
Meanwhile, the Iranian-supported proxies across the region are getting utterly hammered, as we’ve seen from the United States, and more importantly from Israel and the successful war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. So in that regard, the changing of the geopolitics has really given the upper hands of the hawks in Turkey to tell HTS, “Go for it. This is an opportunity, unique time to improve your position.” … Now, Russia has been humiliated on the ground. These Syrian troops in Aleppo folded and ran away immediately. The Russians have sacked senior soldiers in charge of operations on the ground, and it looks like they are preparing to send troops into Syria directly in the next 24 to 48 hours to shore up Assad. There’s a lot of land that HTS would have to take before they were a direct threat to regime. Hard to imagine they’re going to be able to overthrow him. Also, the Iranians are providing support. We already see that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Core, aligned militias across the region, are saying they will enter Syria to engage in the fight against HTS in favor of the Assad regime. I expect you’ll see significant numbers of actual IRGC advisors showing up as well.
So it doesn’t look like this is the end of Assad, and frankly, it’s hard to imagine that Turkey itself even wants to have Assad out because filling the void completely left by a weakened Iran would be challenging for Turkey and would also lead to more conflict with the Russians, rather, who importantly have a military base, a port in Tartus that is very important for them having influence in the Mediterranean

In Syria, a sudden reminder of a war that never ended
The dramatic unraveling of the past days might show how hollow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s supremacy was.
by Ishaan Tharoor
(WaPo) Syria’s smoldering civil war has roared back onto the world stage. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist militant group, launched a lightning strike from its northwestern redoubt late last week to capture most of Aleppo, the country’s largest city, and advance south toward the central city of Hama, as my colleagues have reported. Videos posted by HTS appeared to show its fighters raising a flag near Aleppo’s historic citadel and setting up checkpoints in and around the city.
A decade ago, Aleppo was the charnel house of Syria’s civil war — the nation’s economic capital was torn asunder by brutal regime crackdowns, Russian bombardment and the predations of the jihadists. Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with support from Russia and Iranian proxies, reclaimed the city in 2016. The victory came at a hideous cost to the Syrian people and seemed to underscore Assad’s wider success in staving off the 2011 pro-democracy uprising that he’d turned into a sprawling, years-long series of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. A tangled set of factions and outside powers drove the conflict, which left roughly half a million Syrians dead and forced some 5 million more to flee the country.
Rebels behind Aleppo’s surprise fall took advantage of Russian and Iranian distraction
Dan Sabbagh
Forces only took three days to take the city from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but the Middle East’s newest conflict looks set to last
(The Guardian) It was not Kyiv that fell in three days, but Aleppo. A surprise offensive launched by Syrian rebels from the north west of the country last week has reignited a dormant conflict – and revealed a change in the balance of power caused not by one but two nearby wars, in Ukraine and Lebanon and the Middle East.
Aleppo was the scene of fierce and destructive fighting between 2012 and 2016 when the Syrian civil war was at its height. Rebel groups were forced out as Syrian government forces supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad, were able to capture the country’s second city, with the help of Russia and its air force.
The Idlib region of Syria in the north-west, with a population of around 5 million, remained outside Assad’s grip, however. An intervention by Turkey in 2020, propped up the position of Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist Sunni group that broke from al-Qaeda from 2016, but remains proscribed by the UK and other western countries.
A ceasefire had remained in place since March 2020, but Assad’s backers have been weakened, and with it the Syrian regime.
What’s next for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his allies? (video)
(Al Jazeera) A surprise rebel offensive surges onwards after taking control of the city of Aleppo.
A lightning offensive by opposition fighters in Syria is sweeping ahead after Aleppo has fallen.
Syrian rebels advance after wresting control of most of Aleppo
(WaPo) Syrian rebel fighters are advancing southward after capturing much of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, posing the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad in years amid the country’s civil war, which began after an uprising against the government in 2011.
The rapid assault is being led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group based in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province. Government forces, which are supported by Russia and Iran, appeared to have withdrawn from some areas. As the rebels tightened their grip on Aleppo on Sunday, they posted photos and videos of themselves at various military installations in and around the city. Insurgent fighters also said they seized territory around Aleppo, including areas in the north previously controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.
After capturing Aleppo, Turkey-backed militants attack Syria’s Kurds

Russian, Syrian jets intensify bombing of Syria’s rebel-held northwest
Russian jets hit Idlib, rescuers say seven killed
Rebels say they push south of Aleppo, take town
Syrian army says it is gaining ground after losses
(Reuters) – Russian and Syrian jets struck the rebel-held city of Idlib in northern Syria on Sunday, military sources said, as President Bashar al-Assad vowed to crush insurgents who had swept into the city of Aleppo.
Residents said one attack on the second day of raids hit a crowded residential area in the centre of Idlib, the largest city in a rebel enclave near the Turkish border where around four million people live in makeshift tents and dwellings.
On Saturday, Russian and Syrian jets bombed other towns in Idlib province, which had fallen completely under rebel control in the boldest rebel assault for years in a civil war where front lines had largely been frozen since 2020.

2023

25 May
Bashar al-Assad’s hollow victory in Syria
Analysis: With Syria’s return to the Arab League, the noise of Assad’s ‘victory’ resounded loudly across the world, but a closer look reveals the regime’s fragility as it continues to face insurmountable challenges that do not have a quick fix.
(The New Arab) Many Syrians were incensed last week at the appearance of Bashar al-Assad at the Arab League, twelve years after he was suspended due to his brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011.
On the day of the Arab League meeting, thousands of Syrians took to the streets in over 15 towns across northern Syria in mass protests against the decision.

23 May
Assad Comes in From the Cold
His Rehabilitation Will Only Encourage More Brutality in Syria and Elsewhere
By Emile Hokayem
(Foreign Affairs) After many years of equivocation and handwringing, Arab states have decided to bring Syria in from the cold and back into the fold. Arab foreign ministers announced earlier this month that Syria would be readmitted to the Arab League, the regional organization that suspended the country’s membership in 2011. At the time, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime had become a regional pariah because of its brutal crackdown on a popular uprising in the country, which eventually claimed roughly half a million lives and displaced another 13 million people. That period of ostracization is now over.
This decision marks the culmination of a tortuous debate among Arab governments about how to handle the Syrian tragedy. But it promises to create more problems than solutions. Even Arab officials who support a gradual diplomatic normalization with the Syrian regime are uneasy about the disorganized way this process has occurred and are wary of its outcomes.
Syria’s readmission to the Arab League allowed Assad to travel to Saudi Arabia to attend the group’s summit on May 19. His appearance provides a glimpse of the drawbacks of the current rush to normalization: he appeared relaxed and triumphant during the visit, sharing grinning handshakes with prominent Arab leaders. His speech denounced Western hegemony and called for the protection of Arab identity—Syria’s own misery and the circumstances of its people went unmentioned. He also failed to mention the issues that most concern his Arab hosts: Syria’s emergence as a major exporter of drugs throughout the region, its sluggishness in taking back refugees, and the freedom with which Iran-backed militias operate across its territory.
Assad has benefited from the Middle East’s fragmented political landscape, which has prevented his many enemies from uniting around a common military or diplomatic strategy toward him. Since 2018, several countries launched initiatives to “return Syria to the Arab fold,” but those efforts did not gain traction because of inter-Arab divisions and Western opposition.

21 May
How important is Captagon in al-Assad’s return to the Arab fold?
The billions of dollars that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is believed to be making from Captagon have given him a financial lifeline.
(Al Jazeera) From changing regional dynamics to a desire to put an end to a refugee crisis, a variety of factors have contributed to Syria and President Bashar al-Assad’s return to the Arab fold.
But a narcotic substance has also increasingly been at the centre of the issue. Syria is by far the world’s largest producer of Captagon, an addictive amphetamine-type stimulant pill that is being smuggled to countries across the region.
9 May
What is Captagon, the addictive drug mass-produced in Syria?
The drug, often smuggled to Gulf states, has been a key topic in discussions over Syria’s re-entry to the Arab League.
Captagon has featured large in regional diplomatic discussions as some Arab countries look to normalise relations with Syria.
The addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant mass-produced in Syria and smuggled to the Gulf states seemed to be a bargaining chip for President Bashar al-Assad in talks on reinstating Syria’s Arab League membership as nations looked to curb the illicit drug trade.
9 May
Syria’s return to Arab League leaves opposition dismayed
By Husam Hezaber and Ali Haj Suleiman
Syria has been devastated by 12 years of war, and though many Arab countries initially froze out President Bashar al-Assad for his attacks on the Syrian opposition, his government has now been readmitted to the Arab League
Residents and members of the country’s political opposition alike are angered by the Arab League’s decision.
(Al Jazeera) The decision to allow Syria back into the Arab League has sparked anger among many residents of opposition-held northern Syria and members of the country’s political opposition, who see it as a vindication of the government’s attacks against them during a now 12-year war.
Several Arab League members decided this week to reinstate Syria’s membership, under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad, after more than a decade of isolation at the organisation’s headquarters in Cairo on Sunday.
7 May
Arab League brings Syria back into its fold after 12 years
Ties with Damascus are being normalised, as the bloc hopes for an ‘Arab-led political path’ to solve the Syrian crisis.

5 May
US says it will not normalise relations with Syria’s Assad
The United States will not normalise relations with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the State Department has said, as many of Washington’s Arab allies re-establish ties with Damascus.
The State Department said late on Thursday that top US diplomat Antony Blinken discussed a recent meeting in Amman between Syria and its Arab neighbours during a phone call with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi.

18 February
US conducts helicopter raid in Syria capturing ISIS official
By Gregory Clary and Michael Callahan, CNN
The US military and Syrian Democratic Forces conducted a helicopter raid in eastern Syria early Saturday, capturing an ISIS official, according to a statement from US Central Command.
Batar, “an ISIS Syria Province Official involved in planning attacks on SDF-guarded detention centers and manufacturing improvised explosive devices,” was captured in the raid, CENTCOM said in the statement.
The development comes on the heels of an earlier helicopter raid in Syria on Thursday night that the US military said killed Hamza al-Homsi, a senior ISIS leader, as well as wounded four US troops and a working dog. 4 US service members wounded in helicopter raid that killed ISIS leader in Syria
Several killed in Israeli raids on Syria’s Damascus: Report
(Al Jazeera) Syrian media say Israel fired missiles on Damascus’s Kafr Sousa neighbourhood, killing five and wounding 15
It was not immediately clear whether the raid was aimed at a specific individual.
For almost a decade, Israel has been carrying out air attacks against suspected Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments in neighbouring Syria. Israeli officials have rarely acknowledged responsibility for specific operations.
The raids — which in recent months have targeted Syrian airports and air bases — are part of an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict whose goal was to slow down Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria, Israeli military experts say.

16 February
‘Assad can’t clean up his act with a natural disaster,’ US Amb. to UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield says
(The World) After a catastrophic earthquake destroyed northwest Syria, assistance is slowly trickling in. It took a full week for the UN to strike a deal with the Syrian regime to open two additional crossings into the region. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield talks with host Marco Werman about the situation.
Syria’s Assad Uses Disaster Diplomacy to Inch Back Onto World Stage
“A tragedy for Syrians is a boon for Assad because nobody else wants to manage this mess,” one analyst said of President Bashar al-Assad, who became a global pariah for his regime’s abuses during a civil war.
By Declan Walsh
A powerful earthquake last week catapulted Syria’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad, into the global spotlight, creating an opportunity for him to inch further back onto the international stage through disaster diplomacy.
As the death toll soared from the region’s deadliest quake in a century, Mr. al-Assad, long a pariah for bombing and torturing his own people during Syria’s civil war, received a steady flow of sympathy, aid and attention from other countries.
Arab leaders who had shunned him for a decade picked up the phone and called. Senior United Nations officials trooped through his office, offering assistance and posing for photographs. Planeloads of aid landed from more than a dozen countries — allies like Russia, Iran and China, but also Saudi Arabia, which previously had only sent aid (and weapons) to the rebels seeking to topple Mr. al-Assad.
The disaster has bolstered a slow-burn effort by a handful of Arab countries to draw Mr. al-Assad back into the international fold. On Monday, the United Arab Emirates, which is leading the push, sent its foreign minister to the Syrian capital, Damascus, to meet Mr. al-Assad for the second time this year.

15 February
‘Where are they?’ Anger in north-west Syria at slow earthquake response
Survivors in Jindires feel forgotten by the world, and have particular scorn for UN’s dealings with Assad
(The Guardian) As aid bosses travelled to regime-held Damascus and Aleppo, desperation in opposition-held north-west Syria had turned to anger, then grief.
With no one now left alive under the devastation in Jindires, a scramble is under way to source life-saving supplies. Not for the first time, residents of northern Syria feel forgotten – by a world inured to their suffering after more than a decade of civil war, and by unresponsive global bodies that defer to political process.
A UN announcement on Monday that it had won the approval of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to open border crossings into the opposition-held north-west drew particular scorn
Jindires was home to displaced people from all corners of Syria, especially those who had defied Assad and been forced into exile as a result. Tareq Aamer was one of them. “Assad is worse than the earthquake,” he said. “And the UN is killing us more by its policy towards Bashar. We don’t need to wait for them to open the borders. They are already open. Why are people asking for their permission?”
The first non-scheduled aid convoy crossed the border at Bab al-Salam on Tuesday carrying tents, medicines and blankets – a speck in the collective needs of a province ravaged by more suffering over the past decade than most other places in the Middle East.
Northwestern Syria suffers economic stagnation after quakes
With a lag in the transport of basic, commercial goods through border crossings, NW Syria faces a spike in food prices.

2020

24 June 2020
Gwynne Dyer: Syria the newest poster child for futile sanctions
Last week the United States imposed new sanctions on Syria: a “sustained campaign of economic and political pressure” to end the nine-year war by forcing President Bashar al-Assad to UN-brokered peace talks where he would negotiate his departure from power.
Ordinary Syrians’ incomes are collapsing (down by three-quarters since the beginning of the year). The price of food in Syria has doubled. Lebanon next-door, already in financial meltdown, is now seeing its large trade with Syria vanish as well.
The Syrian tragedy is mainly due to endless foreign interventions. The Syrians who called for an end to Assad’s regime in the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011 were just like the young men and women who started demanding the fall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak at the same time. They were both genuinely popular movements, not fronts for jihadis.

28 February
Turkey-Syria tensions escalate after troops killed: Live updates
(Al Jazeera) Turkey officials met with a Russian delegation in Ankara on Friday and said a sustainable ceasefire in Idlib region must be established immediately.
“We stressed to the Russian side the necessity of declaration of a sustainable truce, de-escalation [of the situation on the field], and withdrawal of the regime forces to the borders agreed in the Sochi deal,” Turkish Foreign Minister spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement.
Erdogan, Putin discuss Syria as Turkey demands truce in Idlib
Both presidents seek to ‘normalise situation’ as international concern grows over killing of 33 Turkish troops in Idlib.
After a Face-Off in Syria, Turkey and Russia Try to Pull Back From the Brink
(NYT) Turkey and Russia tried on Friday to step back from the brink of a war that neither side wants, after 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in northwest Syria by forces backing the government in Damascus.
But tensions between the two nations — one a nuclear power, the other a NATO member — remained high, not just because of the fight in Syria, but more broadly as a contest over who will be the pre-eminent regional power as the United States scales back its global role.
Turkey wants to protect its border with Syria, while Russia wants show that its military intervention has preserved Syria as a client state. Both sides have said they want to de-escalate, but neither side has been willing to back down, leading to fears of sliding into war. Emotions are running high and the source of their antagonism — the fate of Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in Syria — festers dangerously.
Will an attack on Turkish troops in Syria change the course of the war?
The battle for Idlib is raising fears of a big-power conflict
(The Economist) Diplomats have hoped for years that Russia might be able to restrain Mr Assad. They have consistently overestimated both its will and its ability to do so. Though the Russian foreign ministry is unhappy about the Syrian offensive in Idlib —because it complicates ties with Turkey— Russia’s defence ministry would be happy to see the regime conquer the province. Even Iran, Syria’s other key foreign ally, has been dragged into Idlib, a fight it had little interest in. It has dispatched planeloads of militiamen to aid the regime.

25 February
Turkey-backed rebels say they’ve seized town in Syria’s Idlib in first advance
Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military seized the town of Nairab in northwest Syria’s Idlib, Turkish and rebel officials said, the first area to be taken back from Syrian government forces advancing in the province. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, supported by Russian air power, are trying to retake the last large rebel-held region in Syria after nine years of war. Nearly a million Syrians have been displaced by the latest fighting.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, supported by Russian air power, are trying to retake the last large rebel-held region in Syria after nine years of war. Nearly a million Syrians have been displaced by the latest fighting.
Turkey has responded by sending thousands of troops and equipment into the region to support the rebels in resisting the offensive.

2019

2 November
Car bomb explodes in Syrian town captured by Turkey from Kurds
A car bomb exploded in a northern Syrian town along the border with Turkey on Saturday, killing 13 people. Turkey’s defence ministry said about 20 others were wounded when the bomb exploded in central Tal Abyad, which forces backed by Ankara captured from Kurdish-led fighters last month.
The ministry harshly condemned the attack, which it blamed on Syrian Kurdish fighters, and called on the international community to take a stance against this “cruel terror organisation”. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

28 October
Syria Peace Talks to Open After a Long, Strange Month
A United States pullout, a Turkish invasion and a newly strengthened Syrian leader have reshaped the board for negotiations in Geneva.
(NYT) On Thursday, after months of intensive but low-key diplomacy, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, plans to bring 150 Syrians to Geneva. There, they will begin work on a constitutional committee intended to shift attention from the battlefield to what happens when, sooner or later, the fighting in their country stops.”
The Geneva talks are meant to be a first step under a United Nations Security Council mandate that calls for a nationwide cease-fire and elections under United Nations supervision.
A senior State Department official said Monday that the United States and other nations had several points of leverage to try to get Mr. Assad to work on a political settlement. The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that could include keeping reconstruction assistance from Mr. Assad’s government, barring Syria’s re-entry into the Arab League and refusing to restore diplomatic ties with Damascus.

25 October
U.S. sending armored vehicles into Syria to protect oil fields, Pentagon chief confirms
(Politico) The Pentagon plans to use armored vehicles to defend northeastern Syria’s oil fields from attack by Islamic State fighters, Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed today, minutes after President Donald Trump tweeted that the troops are coming home.
Esper this week said the U.S. forces leaving Syria would head into western Iraq. But after Iraqi leaders said those troops can’t stay there, Esper said they will be deployed in Iraq only temporarily before coming home. The defense chief also said today that Kurdish troops are recapturing ISIS members who escaped from Kurdish-run prisons in the northeast since the start of Turkey’s incursion into Syria.

President Trump Is Obsessed With Stealing Syria’s Oil
(New York) …there is one thing about the chaotic situation that does seem to preoccupy the president: oil. Precious, precious oil. Over the past weeks, through tweets and public statements, he has made it clear that he considers the protection of it a very high priority.
As the Washington Post explains, oil production in Syria has plummeted during the course of its devastating civil war, which began in 2011. But the country is still rich in the resource — that ISIS managed to turn into a moneymaking enterprise when it swept across parts of the country in 2014. The Kurdish force that was until recently backed by the United States still controls oil fields in the northern and eastern parts of the country; in 2018, hundreds of Russian mercenaries and pro-government Syria forces were killed when they clashed with U.S. soldiers and Kurds in an attempt to wrest some of the oil fields away. But it’s not clear whether the Kurdish-controlled fields are currently functional.

24 October
Russia and Turkey agree to carve up northern Syria
(The Economist) America’s retreat cleared the way for Turkey to invade and dislodge a Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), that controlled the region. Backed by a raggedy crew of Syrian Arab mercenaries, the Turkish invasion was a fatal blow to Kurdish autonomy. The YPG had no choice but to seek protection from Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, and surrender most of its self-rule in return.
At first Mr Trump acquiesced to the Turkish offensive. Then he dispatched his vice-president, Mike Pence, to Ankara, where he secured a five-day ceasefire laden with concessions to Turkey. But that agreement was merely a sideshow. The real diplomacy took place on October 22nd in Sochi, where President Vladimir Putin of Russia hosted his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They struck a deal that leaves Turkish troops in a zone between the Syrian towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain, much of which they already control.
Russian military police and Syrian border guards will enter areas to the east and west to ensure that the YPG vacates them as well. The Kurds will have until October 29th to withdraw to a depth of 30km along the whole border and disarm. Russian and Turkish forces will then begin patrolling the border together.
Implications of the new order in Syria
(Brookings) The new situation upends the region and has potentially profound consequences for the United States and its allies. However, and without dwelling on this point, President Trump’s actions suggest a different conception and prioritization of traditional U.S. interests in the Middle East. The U.S. departure helps Iran and the Islamic State, hurts Israel and Saudi Arabia, and otherwise goes against historic U.S. concerns. The president, however, appears to prioritize removing U.S. troops from active war zones over these long-standing interests.
… All of these are negative outcomes. Many are not primarily caused by the Trump administration’s latest decisions, but they all are exacerbated by them. Should a different administration take office, it will have to navigate far more difficult terrain in the Middle East as a result.

23 October
Russian police deploy in Syria’s Kobani, Trump says ceasefire permanent
(Reuters) Russia warned Syrian Kurdish YPG forces they face further armed conflict with Turkey if they fail to comply with a Russian-Turkish accord calling for their withdrawal from the entire length of Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey. Moscow’s warning came shortly before Russian and Syrian security forces were due to start overseeing the removal of YPG fighters and weapons at least 19 miles into Syria, under the deal struck by presidents Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan.
A complete pullout of the YPG, which Ankara considers terrorists because of their links to insurgents inside Turkey, would mark a victory for Erdogan who has said he is seeking to create a “safe zone” for the return of Syrian refugees.
Kobani, where the Russian military police deployed, is of special significance to the Kurdish fighters, who fought off Islamic State militants trying to seize the city in 2014-15 in one of the fiercest battles of Syria’s conflict.
Turkey, Russia agreement cements power in Syria in place of U.S. forces

22 October
Putin, Erdogan agree to share patrols in northeastern Syria
Bashar al-Assad, angered by Turkish incursion, calls Erdogan ‘a thief’
(AP via CBC) Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also agreed that their troops will conduct joint patrols of the border area after meeting Tuesday in Sochi.
The agreement gives Kurdish fighters another 150 hours beginning Wednesday afternoon to clear all remaining areas alongside the 440-kilometre Turkey-Syria border.
Russia has strengthened its power broker role in Syria, especially after the U.S. abruptly decided to pull its troops out of northeast Syria two weeks ago.
The UN said Tuesday that since Turkey launched its offensive, more than 176,000 people have been displaced, including nearly 80,000 children, and “critical infrastructure has been damaged.”
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday that power lines have been damaged, reportedly affecting at least four medical facilities.
Assad called Erdogan “a thief, he stole the factories and the wheat and the oil in co-operation with Daesh (the Islamic State group) and now is stealing the land.”
He said his government had offered a clemency to Kurdish fighters — whom it considers separatists — to “ensure that everyone is ready to resist the aggression” and fight the Turkish assault.
Syrian state media reported Tuesday that government forces entered new areas in Hassakeh province at the far eastern end of the border, under the arrangement with the Kurds.

21 October
U.S. mulls leaving some troops in Syria to guard oil: Pentagon
Reuters) – The Pentagon is considering keeping some U.S. troops near oilfields in northeastern Syria alongside Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to help deny oil to Islamic State militants, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday.
U.S. troops are crossing into Iraq as part of a broader withdrawal from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump, a decision that allowed Turkey to launch an offensive against the SDF which for years was a U.S. ally battling Islamic State.

18 October
Fighting continues in Syrian border town despite Turkish agreement to halt offensive
Turkey agreed to pause its eight-day military operation after Vice President Pence led a U.S. delegation to Ankara on Thursday and met with Erdogan and other Turkish officials. The 13-point deal they hammered out envisions a permanent halt to the offensive after 120 hours — or five days — if Syrian Kurdish militias, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), withdraw from an area of northern Syria that Turkey refers to as a “safe zone.”
Profoundly touching
A letter to Kurdish soldiers from a US military wife

17 October
U.S., Turkey agree to 5-day cease-fire in Syria, Pence says, to let Kurds withdraw after U.S. pullout sparked violence
(WaPo) Pence, speaking after hours of meetings at the presidential palace with Erdogan and other Turkish officials, said that Turkey had agreed to pause its offensive for five days while the United States helped facilitate the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from a large swath of territory that stretched from Turkey’s border nearly 20 miles into Syria.
Following the completion of the withdrawal, Turkey’s military operation would be “halted entirely,” Pence said. The United States had already been in contact with the Syrian Kurdish militias, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and “we have already begun to facilitate their safe withdrawal,” Pence added.

15 October
John Cassidy: Trump’s Syria Policy Is a Strategic and Political Disaster
(The New Yorker) The Turkish invasion of northern Syria, which Donald Trump green-lighted last week, has already turned into a humanitarian disaster for the Kurds, at least a hundred thousand of whom have been displaced. It is now mushrooming into a strategic disaster for the United States, which appears weak, powerless, and isolated. It also risks turning into a political disaster for Trump, whose bungling incompetence and boundless arrogance may finally be catching up with him. If the analysis of James Mattis, his own former Secretary of Defense, proves accurate, Trump could well go into the 2020 election as the President who allowed ISIS to make a comeback. Arguably, that would be a bigger threat to his prospects of reëlection than the Democrats’ efforts to impeach him.
This was the context for Monday evening’s announcement from the White House that the United States was demanding a ceasefire and imposing economic sanctions on Turkey. In a phone call with the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Trump “communicated to him very clearly that the United States of America wants Turkey to stop the invasion, to implement an immediate ceasefire, and to begin to negotiate with Kurdish forces in Syria to bring an end to the violence,” Vice-President Mike Pence told reporters. Pence also said that he and Robert O’Brien, the new national-security adviser, would travel to Turkey for talks.
US pullout from Syria and the Kurds’ ‘costly deal’ with al-Assad
Damascus has much to gain from deal with Kurds, but its ability to halt Turkey’s push depends on Russia, say analysts.
(Al Jazeera) In a major shift in alliances, the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria announced on Sunday a deal with President Bashar al-Assad‘s government to allow Syrian troops to deploy along the border with Turkey to stave off a military offensive by Ankara.
The pact, brokered by Russia, came hours after the United States announced it was pulling its troops from Syria to avoid getting caught in clashes between the Turkish military and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s commander in chief, said his people were forced into an alliance with Washington’s foes, Syria and Russia, because the US’s pullback had left them vulnerable to a Turkish assault.

8 October
Genocide Watch: Turkey is planning genocide and crimes against humanity in Northeastern Syria
Genocide Warning: January 17, 2018, renewed October 8, 2019
Kurds, Christians, and Yezidis in Northeast Syria are at grave risk of genocide by the armies of Turkey and Syria. The genocide will be supported by Russia and Iran. Turkey and Iran have sizable Kurdish minority populations, which they consider threats to ethnic and national unity. 100,000 Christians live in the area Turkey will invade. Turkey and its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, have a century old history of genocide against Christians.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced his intention to create a “twenty-mile buffer zone” in northeastern Syria, an area now controlled by the Kurdish and Arab Syrian Democratic Forces. He has conducted a diplomatic offensive to get promises of non-interference from Russia, Iran, and the US for his invasion of Syria. Turkey has already stationed tens of thousands of troops, tanks, and heavy artillery along the Syrian border. When President Trump announced that US troops would withdraw from Syria in 2018, he did so after a call from Erdoğan. That announcement was met by a bipartisan Senate resolution against US abandonment of America’s Kurdish allies in northeastern Syria. 1000 US troops remain there. After another call with Erdoğan in October 2019, President Trump has again announced a US pull-out from northeast Syria. Both Republican and Democratic leaders remain opposed to US withdrawal.
Turkey began its invasion of Syrian Kurdish territory on January 20, 2018 when the Turkish Army launched cross-border military operations into Afrin in northwestern Syria with the code name “Operation Olive Branch,” The mission aimed to oust Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (or YPG) from the district of Afrin.

21 July
Al-Assad’s Nuremberg moment: Page by page, an NGO and its Canadian founder build a case for Syrian war crimes
Shrouded in secrecy, William Wiley and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability are collecting smuggled documents that he says makes the case for the Syrian President’s key role in atrocities
(Globe & Mail) Anwar Raslan likely thought he was safe living as a refugee in Germany – his past forgotten – until the day in February when police arrested him over the alleged role he played years earlier in the torture of prisoners by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
Should Mr. Raslan eventually be convicted, it will be due in large part to the work of a veteran Canadian war-crimes investigator and his team, who over the past seven years have smuggled hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence out of Syria and Iraq – documents that are now being used to build war-crimes cases against Mr. al-Assad and his henchmen, as well as senior figures in the Islamic State (IS).
If you haven’t heard of William Wiley or the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, the non-profit organization that he established in 2012, that’s because he likes it that way. CIJA has no website, and there’s no sign on the door of the office that Mr. Wiley and his team work out of. The Globe and Mail agreed not to name the European country that CIJA’s head office staff are located in, out of concern that the group’s work could make it a target.
But the project is well-known to Western governments, including Canada’s, which collectively provide $8-million in annual funding for the group’s 150 investigators, most of whom are at work on the ground in Syria and Iraq.
Much of CIJA’s team are now focused on assembling evidence implicating senior IS members in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The investigators also have their sights set on new targets, in other parts of the world, but Mr. Wiley says it’s too early to talk publicly about those efforts without jeopardizing them.
In addition to assembling a ready body of evidence for the day that war-crimes suspects are brought to justice, CIJA’s work has developed a more immediate purpose that wasn’t foreseen when the group started work in Syria seven years ago.
Through its war-crimes research, the group has assembled a database of Syrian regime and IS documents that Western governments can use to conduct background checks on some of the million-plus refugees and migrants who arrived in Europe since 2015.

13 January
Saudi Prince al-Faisal warns against US Syria pullout
(BBC) A senior member of the Saudi royal family has warned against a US troop withdrawal from Syria.
Prince Turki al-Faisal told the BBC the action would have a negative impact, further entrenching Iran, Russia and the rule of President Bashar al-Assad
Prince Faisal was speaking ahead of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Riyadh.
Mr Pompeo is on a tour of the Middle East, and has already visited Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain.

9 January
Reuters Commentary: U.S. should review its approach to Syria’s Assad. As President Donald Trump and his national security team hammer out the details of U.S. military withdrawal from Syria, Washington should review its attitude toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, writes James Dobbins, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state. Washington’s strategy, under Obama as well as Trump, has been to “impose costs” on the government in Damascus by diplomatic ostracism and economic sanctions. This approach is morally satisfying and politically expedient, but it helps perpetuate the conflict and sustain Assad’s dependency on Iran.

8 January
Trump’s Syria Plans Hit Another Wall After Erdogan Snubs Bolton
(Bloomberg) Donald Trump’s national security adviser miscalculated if he thought he was going to dissuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from his planned offensive against U.S. allies in Syria.
Erdogan rebuffed a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday with National Security Adviser John Bolton, then took to live television instead to insult him for a lack of perspective.
The impasse highlights how Trump’s hasty announcement of a U.S. exit from the war-torn country is causing confusion and generating blowback from allies and adversaries alike. Erdogan has been massing Turkish troops on the Syrian border for weeks, preparing for an invasion to eradicate Kurdish forces that the U.S. has vowed to protect.
… Bolton, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and top American military officials have frustrated Turkey by setting more specific conditions to what Trump initially suggested would be a quick withdrawal. The delay has restricted Turkey’s ability to launch an offensive against the YPG, a group of Kurdish fighters it considers terrorists, but who served as allies to the U.S. coalition to defeat Islamic State.
“A faction within the U.S. wants to turn U.S. positions over to Turkey and reach some sort of broader compromise on the Kurds” that would make their continued hold over a small area more palatable to Ankara, said Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. “Instead, Bolton’s rhetoric blew up the talks,” with the Turkish snub underscoring Turkish concerns about “U.S. intentions, their lack of serious planning, and just how disorganized all of this is.”
Erdogan echoed that sentiment in remarks he made to parliament after putting Bolton on hold for a meeting that ultimately didn’t happen. Before arriving in Ankara, Bolton had made clear that he was going to warn Turkey, and had drawn Turkish ire for using the general term “Kurds” in referring to the YPG. Turkey says it has no issue with the Kurds as an ethnic group, but it views the YPG as the Syrian extension of a separatist group in Turkey, the PKK, which the U.S. also classifies as a terrorist organization.

6 January
John Bolton: US to leave Syria once IS beaten, Kurds safe
(PBS Newshour) U.S. troops will not leave northeastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and American-allied Kurdish fighters are protected, a top White House aide said Sunday, signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks.
While U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said there is now no timetable, President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to withdrawing U.S. troops, though he said “we won’t be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone.” … Bolton said Trump has made clear he would not allow Turkey to kill the Kurds. “That’s what the president said, the ones that fought with us,” Bolton said.
Bolton said the U.S. has asked the Kurds to “stand fast now” and refrain from seeking protection from Russia or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. “I think they know who their friends are,” he added, speaking of the Kurds.
Kurds seek help from Syrians as U.S. prepares to withdraw — The Kurds’ invitation to Syrian troops shows they’d rather let Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-backed government fill the void left by the Americans, than face the prospect of being overwhelmed by their top rival Turkey.