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The Post-Rebellion South: Interview (III)

November 8, 2018 at 12:58 pm

For prior parts in this series:

(i)- Interview with someone from al-Karak al-Sharqi (east Deraa countryside) involved in V Corps project.
(ii)- Interview with someone from Tasil (west Deraa countryside) involved in V Corps project.

Generally speaking, southern Syria has slipped into media obscurity since the military campaign and reconciliations that saw the Syrian government reclaim the entire region from the rebels. Some reports that have emerged tend to be polemically charged. Here, I have tried to rectify the gap in knowledge by conducting interviews with people still residing there.

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Interview with the Mukhtar of Killi

November 6, 2018 at 10:52 am

Previously on this blog I have interviewed mukhtars of al-Karak al-Sharqi (east Deraa countryside) and Azaz (north Aleppo countryside). Those interviews illustrated two important and contrasting points: namely, how a mukhtar in a rebel-held area (in this case, al-Karak al-Sharqi) could still serve as an important link to the Syrian government and how a mukhtar in another rebel-held area (in this case, Azaz) could illustrate a local administration's direct links with Turkey rather than the Syrian opposition's interim government, whose influence in the Turkish-occupied Euphrates Shield zone of north Aleppo countryside is limited.

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Juhayman al-Otaibi and the Millatu Ibrahim

November 5, 2018  •  aymennjawad.org

Previously I had covered one of the pamphlets of the Saudi Islamic militant Juhayman al-Otaibi, who led an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. That pamphlet discussed matters like obedience to rulers, allegiance pledges and the Caliphate, and thus served as a useful starting point to compare Otaibi's thinking with jihadist ideology today.

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An Internal Report on Extremism in the Islamic State

November 1, 2018  •  aymennjawad.org

Polemical debates among Islamic State (IS) supporters continue to rage online. The two main parties to the debate are 'dissenters' who believe that IS ranks feature too many extremists on one side, and supporters of official IS media on the other (i.e. the 'mainstream'). The latter accuse the former of being 'suspect' primarily because the 'dissenters' have published material without the authorization from the IS.

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Hazaras in Damascus: Interview

October 27, 2018 at 8:17 pm

The Hazaras are a Shi'a ethnic group native to Afghanistan, though many Hazaras reside in other countries (primarily Iran and Pakistan). In the context of the Syrian civil war, Hazaras have become widely known in the media for their role in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Fatemiyoun Brigade, whose personnel are mainly recruited from Hazaras in Iran and Afghanistan.

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