Latest Blog Posts

Hurras al-Din: Interview (II)

July 16, 2019 at 6:41 am

[Update 17 July 2019: this interview has been removed at the request of the interviewee. Contact the author for enquiries].

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Bayt Tayma: Interview

July 14, 2019 at 10:47 am

Bayt Tayma is a locality in the Jabal al-Sheikh region of Damascus countryside. The locality entered into a reconciliation agreement with the Syrian government in January 2017. To learn more about the current situation in Bayt Tayma as part of my wider series on ordinary life in various places in Syria, I interviewed a person from the locality on 14 July 2019. The interview is edited somewhat for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: Can you tell me a little about Bayt Tayma generally? The number of inhabitants and the biggest families in it?

A: The number of inhabitants is around 6000 and the biggest families are Idrees and Ghayadh.

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Local Councils in Exile: Interview with the Local Council of Sheikh Isa

July 12, 2019 at 4:34 pm

Local councils normally function on the ground inside the localities they are supposed to represent. But some local councils exist 'in exile'. In north Aleppo countryside, an example of a local council 'in exile' is the local council of the village of Sheikh Isa, which is located between the towns of Tel Raf'at and Mare'a. The village was seized from the rebels in 2016 by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) based in Afrin and remains today a frontline between the rebel-held areas of northwest Aleppo countryside and what remains of the SDF presence in northwest Aleppo countryside following the routing of the SDF from Afrin in 2018 by Turkish-backed rebel forces.

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Hurras al-Din: Interview

July 11, 2019 at 4:24 pm

Hurras al-Din ("Guardians of the Religion") is a jihadi group based in the northwest of Syria and ideologically loyal to al-Qa'ida and its leader Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri. Hurras al-Din originated as a break-off from Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which declares that it has broken its ties with al-Qa'ida.

To learn more about Hurras al-Din and its current situation, I interviewed a muhajir originally from the Maghreb and a member of Hurras al-Din.* This interview was conducted on 4 July 2019 and is slightly edited and condensed for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: When did you first come to Bilad al-Sham?

A: I came 5 years ago.

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Fawj Tha'ir Allah: Local Defence Forces Unit

July 10, 2019 at 9:16 am

Continuing in the series on units of the Local Defence Forces, I now turn to Fawj Tha'ir Allah ("The Revenge of God Regiment"), about which no information otherwise exists in the open source realm.

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