New Lines  An open letter in solidarity with political prisoners in Iran, published in The Guardian on Aug. 20 and signed by academics and writers from multiple countries, quickly generated a wave of vitriolic condemnations. Those reactions in turn evoked bewilderment and sorrow among many of those following the matter. As one of the signatories…

A quarter of a century after al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Syria is now ruled by a leadership that emerged from the al-Nusra Front, an international Salafi-jihadist formation long associated with al-Qaeda. Several prominent figures now in power in Damascus fought U.S. forces in Iraq. Among them is Syria's transitional president, Ahmed…

aljumhuriya One day before the arrest of Amjad Youssef, perpetrator of the April 2013 Tadamon massacre, Syrian state media broadcast images of transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa in Douma, standing hand in hand with Samir Kaakeh, the religious authority of Jaysh al-Islam. Kaakeh is accused of abducting, forcibly disappearing, and possibly killing Samira al-Khalil, Razan Zaitouneh,…

New Lines Magazine The unforeseen and unforeseeable end of the Assad era, almost a year ago, presented Syria with a momentous new beginning. It’s not hard to imagine how 54 years of family rule — more than half the history of the country as a modern political entity — weighed heavily on Syrians, almost breaking…

Qantara.de December 1996, after 16 years in Hafez al-Assad's prisons, I was released from custody. I was 36 years old at the time. The only event in my life that has had a similar impact was the fall of the Syrian regime in December 2024. By then I was 64 years old. The destruction of…

New Lines Magazine Syria is unstable because it is not possible for it to be stable in its current form. This is because it is trying to walk on one leg only — a security-focused, confessional one — in a society that is diverse and plural. In practice, this means standing in place unsteadily, before…

karamshaar.com Like all honeymoons, the “Syrian revolutionary honeymoon”—in the words of Asef Bayat—was destined to end eventually. For nearly three months, many people were happy and in a celebratory mood after the fall of the Assad family regime, which had ruled the country for 54 suffocating years. But the end of the honeymoon came in…

aljumhuriya Has the Syrian revolution triumphed with the fall of the Assad regime? Is what we have witnessed since last December a successful revolution – albeit after a long, tortuous path? This question carries cognitive significance, since it demands a detailed understanding of the almost 14 years which passed in Syria between the outbreak of…

Aljumhuriya In many of the off-the-cuff, incidental comments about Syria after the fall of the Assad regime that I observed, quite a number of people in Europe and the Middle East skeptically focused on what they would like to see and expressed their frustration for not seeing what they wanted; or they would mention anecdotes…

New Lines Magazine While conflict with Israel has been part of the collective consciousness of the Arab world for generations, the character of the Israeli state and its ideological underpinnings have rarely been the subject of serious reflection outside of certain Palestinian circles. In some neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon, the existence of Israel…