The clashes between tribal militants and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Deir ez-Zor in August 2023 were not unexpected to those closely monitoring the situation in the region, as it had been rapidly deteriorating. However, what Deir ez-Zor experienced, and continues to experience, cannot be simply reduced to a tribal rebellion that flared up briefly and resurfaced a year later with overt support from…

The Syrian economy has evolved into a war economy managed by narrow patronage networks and militias whose primary goal is to finance their own survival.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

Iran has little incentive to help the Assad regime resolve its acute oil crisis, while any help from Moscow will come at a steep price, argues Salam Alsaadi.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.

The “Syrian Democratic Council”—ostensibly a vehicle for Kurdish-Arab coexistence in former ISIS territories—is increasingly looking to normalize ties with the Assad regime, spelling disaster for the displaced residents of Raqqa and elsewhere, with no apparent opposition from its Western sponsors.

Assad was never going to save Syria’s Kurds from the Turkish army. That the Kurds sought a devil’s bargain with him anyway was a mistake in more than one way, argues James Snell.

By declining to link their attack on pro-Assad forces earlier this month with the regime’s ongoing chemical weapons use, the US has failed to deter the latter, argues James Snell.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 23 January, 2018] In winter, Abu Inad used to work as a fisherman on the Euphrates; in summer, as a waiter in a miserable wine tavern. He is quick to add, though, that he once fought as a militiaman in the Lebanese civil war during his adolescence. This distinction, as he sees it, is over…

Syria’s Kurds are mistaken if they imagine Assad will let them flourish as equal partners in a federalized post-war settlement, argues James Snell.

The former US ambassador to Syria talks Raqqa, Russia, reconstruction, and more in this half-hour Al-Jumhuriya podcast.

By ceding terrain to the extremist forces of Iran and the Assad regime, ISIS seeks to turn military defeat into political gain.

Syrian Kurds can be considered among the biggest beneficiaries of the conditions that have ensued since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. They have seized some of the rights which they have been denied for decades. Additionally, Kurdish forces have managed to control all the areas where Kurds are a relative majority, and to properly organize their public affairs. It is becoming increasingly difficult for…

In February 2016, a number of websites published an aerial photograph showing trucks in Tal Rifaat, purported to belong to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), carrying furniture that has been looted from the homes of civilian in Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo. That was nearly two months after the YPG had seized control over the city, following fierce battles in which 80 people from…