Heinrich Boell Foundation – Middle East, 3 March 2014 The Syrian republic did not come into being on any fixed date; no date to which all Syrians - or even some of them - can refer to. Modern Syrian history - it hardly has any other kind of history - is a series of struggles…

Heinrich Boell Foundation - Middle East, 3 March 2014 Syrian regime thugs, more commonly know as ‘shabiha’ mirror the structure and goals of the Assad regime which relies on raw force to accumulate personal wealth and ensure its own survival at all costs. In this article, Yassin al-Haj Saleh, dissects the functioning, motivations, funding and…

The New York Times, 9 September 2013 The story is simple. Here in Syria, there is a regime that has been killing its subjects with impunity for the last 30 months. The notion that there is a mysterious civil war that is inextricably linked to the nature of the Middle East and its complicated sectarian…

Al-Jumhuriya, 22 August 2013 There is nothing surprising in the latest massacre by the Syrian regime in Ghouta, Damascus. The massacre has precedents in Dera’a, Karm al-Zaitoon, Houla, Traimseh, Daraya, Jdedat Artouz, Jdedat al-Fadel, and elsewhere. These attacks come on top of constant shelling by the air-force of multiple sites in the country causing dozens…

Al-Jumhuriya, 16 August 2013 Like most of the fighters here, the 44-year-old Hajji has a short beard, though unlike the others’, his has been recently trimmed. Hajji – as he was called by his acquaintances even prior to the revolution – now leads the “Sa’d bin Ubadah al-Khazaraji Brigade”. He is married to two women…

The Guardian, 10 July 2013 An open letter to friends and leaders of public opinion in the west: current policy is short-sighted and inhumane Dear friends, Three months ago, I left the city of Damascus, where life had become too oppressive, to go to the "liberated" area of East Ghouta. An area that had 2…

Al-Jumhuriya, 2 June 2013 Abu Qusay used to work as a tailor and a carpenter in his hometown of al-Ghizlaniya before the start of the revolution. When the tailoring business was slow, the heavy-set, burly 33-year-old would occupy himself with carpentry, and vice versa. Abu Qusay earned between 15,000 and 20,000 Syrian pounds on average…

Al-Jumhuriya, 22 January 2013 The reservations expressed in late 2012 by both Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Syrian National Coalition, and George Sabra, president of the Syrian National Council, regarding the US’s designation of Nusra Front as a terrorist organization, provoked vocal resentment among circles sympathetic with and supportive of the Syrian Revolution. Voices critical of Khatib…

Al-Jadid Magazine (Originally published in As Safir newspaper), 8 October 2012 (Yassin al-Hajj Saleh is considered one of the most important observers of Syrian politics. He spent 16 years in Syrian prison, an experience about which he recently wrote a book. One Syrian scholar rejected the description of Yassin al-Haj Saleh as a political observer…

openDemocracy, 14 September 2012 The reports from Syria of the journalist Robert Fisk raise serious questions over his credibility, say Yassin Al Haj Saleh & Rime Allaf. The international media has not always been kind to Syria’s revolutionary people. For months on end, many of the latter turned themselves into instant citizen-journalists to document their…