The province of al-Suwayda' in southern Syria has mostly remained under government control throughout the conflict, but many internal problems exist such as kidnappings and murders. A more overlooked question regarding al-Suwayda' province is the state of public services. This issue is the main focus of an interview I conducted with 'Meqdad al-Jabal', a media activist who identifies with the 'third-way' trend in the province but wishes to make clear that this interview (carried out on 13th August 2019) represents his opinions alone and not those of any other individuals or parties. As such, the interview answers are not to be considered as statements on behalf of anyone else.

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I have previously written about the Hezbollah-affiliated Special Force in Syria. On 16-17 August 2019, I interviewed a member of the Special Force to learn about his career in the Special Force and his perspective on the current situation in Syria. The interview is slightly condensed and edited for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: When were you born and from which locality are you?

A: I was born in 1992. Originally I am from Idlib, from the usurped village of Kafariya. I was born in Damascus: al-Qadam Asali.

Q: And when did you bear arms for the first time against the terrorists and in which area?

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Darayya lies to the southwest of the centre of Damascus city and was subjected to extensive damage as a result of the war in Syria. Indeed, for a while after Darayya was fully recaptured by the Syrian government in August 2016, the area remained a military zone that could only be visited with a special permit.

The situation today is different as the Syrian government now fully controls the Damascus area. While some people have returned to Darayya, it is only a very small proportion of the number of inhabitants who lived in the area prior to the war. Indeed, restoration of any ordinary life is proceeding very slowly, to say the least.

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The previous post on the town of al-Zabadani that is located on the border with Lebanon stirred up many reactions. I am glad that this has been the case as debate is useful. Specifically, while no one disputed the point that al-Zabadani has not been resettled with Shi'a as many had previously speculated, there was criticism of the previous interviewee's testimony regarding the situation inside al-Zabadani, in that the testimony was seen as lacking detail and giving an overly rosy portrait.

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The locality of al-Zabadani, which is in Damascus countryside province and right on the border with Lebanon, came to global media attention in previous years when reports emerged of a 'Four Towns' deal. As part of this deal, evacuations of insurgents, their families and others from al-Zabadani and Madaya (then under siege) would be carried out in exchange for evacuations of civilians from the Idlib Shi'i villages of al-Fu'a and Kafariya, which were besieged by the insurgents. The deal was widely framed as part of a 'demographic re-engineering' of Syria, in which the Syria-Lebanon border areas would be cleared of Sunnis as per the supposed wishes of the Syrian government and Iran. It was thus speculated that places like al-Zabadani would be resettled with Shi'a.

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