‘Mob boss’ Assad’s dynasty tightens grip over husk of Syria
Wed 26 May 2021
Tyrant, war criminal, mob boss or, to his loyalists, their shrewd saviour: views about Bashar al-Assad rarely fall in between. As the Syrian leader faces a presidential poll on Wednesday – the result a foregone conclusion – a truer test of the authority he wields across a broken country has taken shape away from the political banners and faux campaigning.
In battered towns and villages, ravaged by a decade of savagery, the now veteran president has been clawing back losses, consolidating himself as the only figure who could plot a course from the ruins of the region’s most devastating modern conflict. Slowly, over the past year, Assad and his extended family have been shoring up their influence. Seldom seen during much of the crisis, he has become a fixture in what remains of Syria’s industrial heartland, visiting factories, pressing employees on their hardships, and hosting delegations with an ease few observed at the height of the fighting.
Syria’s allies Russia and Iran may have done the heavy lifting to save the regime from defeat on the battlefields but a more traditional structure, the house of Assad, has been just as integral in holding the country together from within. The husk of Syria is, in many ways, more under the Assad family’s control than at the war’s outset. Power structures established over four decades have anchored dynasty and dictatorship.
(Al Jazeera) Fighting raged for a third day on Saturday between ISIL (ISIS) and Kurdish forces in Syria after attackers stormed a prison housing members of the armed group in violence that has killed more than 70 people so far.
The assault on the Ghwayran prison in the northern city of Hasakeh is one of ISIL’s most significant since its “caliphate” was declared defeated in Syria nearly three years ago.
“At least 28 members of the Kurdish security forces, five civilians and 45 members of IS have been killed,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
ISIL launched the attack on Thursday against the prison housing about 3,500 suspected members of the armed group, including some of its leaders, said the Syrian Observatory.
The assailants “seized weapons they found” in the detention centre and freed several fellow fighters, said the monitor, which relies on sources inside war-torn Syria for its information.
Drone attack kills 80 and wounds 240 at a packed Syrian military graduation ceremony, official says
Source: AP
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB and ALBERT AJI
Updated 3:46 PM CDT, October 5, 2023
BEIRUT (AP) — A drone attack hit a crowded military graduation ceremony Thursday in the Syrian city of Homs, killing 80 people and wounding 240, the health minister said, in one of the deadliest recent attacks on an army that’s been fighting a civil war for more than a decade.
The strike killed civilians, including six children, as well as military personnel, and there were concerns the death toll could rise as many of the wounded were in serious condition, Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash said.
Syria’s military said in an earlier statement that drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony packed with young officers and their families as it was wrapping up. Without naming any particular group, the military accused insurgents “backed by known international forces” of the attack and said “it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations, wherever they exist.”
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack as Syria endures its 13th year of conflict.
In War Torn Syria, Efforts to Save a River Refuse to Die by Mawada Bahah
July 8, 2024
Introduction:
(Ensia) On a cool day in March, Omar Abdulsalam walked across a stretch of empty farmland in Beit Sawa, a village east of Damascus, Syria, his head down in defeat.
Usually, by this time of year the farmer would have planted winter crops like peas and cabbage. He had the seeds he needed, but the field remained fallow because of lack of water.
In the past, Abdulsalam would have tapped the Barada, an ancient river that winds its way down the Anti-Lebanon Mountains to Damascus, where it breaks into seven tributaries feeding the verdant countryside of Ghouta. For years, local irrigation authorities who handle the distribution of water supplies allocated farmers a certain amount of time each week of the river’s water, depending on the size of the farm, but enough to irrigate crops. But in 2019, farmers say the flow to Ghouta was cut off. Years of overuse, pollution and drought had narrowed it to a waste-filled trickle.
Syria is embroiled in a war that has already lasted some 12 years, killed more than 306,000 people, displaced around 14 million more and left nearly 70% of Syrians — 15.3 million people — needing humanitarian aid. Seeking safety from the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled to Damascus and its outskirts, and “an explosion of informal buildings popped up, mostly along Barada’s banks, piping in water and emptying out sewage,” says Rashid Dahna, an agriculture teacher at Damascus University.
In the face of such destruction and despair, nature has been an overlooked victim.
Anti-Syrian Violence in Turkey Complicates Normalization Process Between Turkey and Syria by Sefe Secen
July 26, 2024
Introduction:
(The Conversation) Chances of a rapprochement between regional rivals Turkey and Syria were raised momentarily on July 22, 2024, with news that the leaders of both countries were set for a much-anticipated meeting aimed at resolving long-standing differences. Within hours, Turkish sources dismissed the rumors of an imminent sit-down between the two leaders as false.
Delicacy over the matter is understandable. A recent surge in anti-Syrian violence in Turkey has highlighted the fragility of efforts to restore diplomatic ties with Syria, which were severed at the onset of the Syrian civil war.
That conflict affected Turkey in a number of ways. Ankara sided with opposition forces in Syria and eventually intervened militarily, occupying parts of the country’s north. Meanwhile, fighting led to an influx of millions of refugees into Turkey, provoking anti-Syrian sentiment and, more recently, violence.
On June 30, 2024, Syrian-owned properties, vehicles and businesses in the central Turkish city of Kayseri were vandalized and set on fire following allegations of sexual abuse against a Syrian man. Fueled by social media, attacks soon spread and sparked the most violent anti-Syrian riots to date in Turkish areas with large Syrian refugee populations.
It also prompted or inflamed violence in opposition-held northwest Syria against Turkish military positions. The region was already on edge following comments from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that signaled his desire to restore relations with the Syrian government – something that would have profound consequences for opposition-held areas.
Report Documents the Devastation of the Ancient City of Palmyra, a World Heritage Site, After the Fall of the Assad regime February 14, 2025
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Palmyra is one of the most famous sites in Syria for its extraordinary heritage and archaeological remains. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1980, the city saw much of its heritage destroyed during the war. Following the liberation of Syria from the Assad regime on 8 December, a multidisciplinary team has carried out a field study in Palmyra to assess the current state of the archaeological monuments and the surrounding residential areas, comparing them with their condition before the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. The report is an initiative of Palmyrene Voices of the NGO Heritage for Peace in collaboration with the CSIC's Milà i Fontanals Institution.
‘We want,’ says Isber Sabrine, a CSIC archaeologist and one of the report's coordinators, ’to raise awareness among both local communities and the international community about the serious threats facing Palmyra's heritage’. Sabrine is an archaeologist of Syrian origin and currently a researcher at IMF-CSIC. Hasan Ali and Mohammed Fares, also archaeologists and members of the Palmyrene Voices initiative, coordinated the report. A team of 15 observers contributed data for the report, including citizens of Palmyra, archaeologists and refugees who have recently returned to the city.
80% of the city destroyed or on the verge of collapse
The report highlights historical and recent challenges, including periods of repression under the presidencies of Hafez al-Assad (1971-2000) and Bashar al-Assad (2000-2024), as well as devastating damage during the occupation by the Islamic State (ISIS).
The documented buildings and archaeological remains cover approximately 12 square kilometres, including the Efqa Oasis.
The latter, some 400 hectares in size, was burnt to the ground in the 2020 fires set by the Assad regime. The remaining trees in parts that no longer receive water have dried out and turned into dead wood. At present, as observers have documented, some returning orchard owners are trying to save what is left of their palm and olive trees.
