I am pleased to present a report that I prepared with Ali Aljasem on the synergy between international targeted sanctions and the new Syrian government's transitional justice efforts, published with the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks. opensyr.com/en/pages/p-40

Syrian transitional government orders locking up Assad mukhabarat documents instead of their authors.

🧅 Breaking news *** In a symbolic but significant move, the UK and the Netherlands say they will stop delivering spare parts of the F-55 in protest against Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/...

Brussels, today. Stop the genocide in Gaza. Those who like demos and don’t like genocide say 80,000 people. Those who don’t like demos and don’t mind genocide say 20,000.

Josep Borrell, you are kindly invited to join the umpteenth demonstration in Brussels tomorrow against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. You know, one of these demos that used to pass by your office. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

My paper together with Ali Aljasem in a collection of wonderful contributions on state and regime violence in the Middle East: “Revisiting Counter-revolutionary Repression and Mass Regime Violence in Syria, 2011-2012” pomeps.org/revisiting-c...

After all the chatter there will be facts, the positivist in me likes to think. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Is this some weird proposal for a deal and a threat at the same time? Either way, far from credible. What a total idiot drama queen. www.newarab.com/news/assads-...

🧅? Trump administration scraps entire categories of abuses from all State Department human rights country reports. E.g. prison conditions and corruption no longer a concern. www.npr.org/2025/04/18/n...

Syrians plan protests coming “Friday of Anger”, demanding transitional justice and the start of trials against former regime officials and militiamen. An earlier “Friday of Anger” was on 29 April 2011. www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article...

When the current 'transitional' government in Syria is not doing enough (anything?) about transitional justice, citizens will take take their own measures. From there to renewed civil war is an eerily small step. www.facebook.com/ZAMANALWSL.s...

After years of verbal violence defending and denying Syrian regime atrocities and mass destruction, diplomat wants his two houses back citing sacrosanctity of property rights. 🧅?

Rahif Aldoughli on Syria’s new technocrats and experts: They “function as a legitimizing frame that maintains elite male control while appearing modern, inclusive and efficient. It enables men like al-Sharaa to perform distance from jihadist or militarized pasts..” merip.org/2025/04/syri...

When law firms fail to catch up with justice. Bridges claims that when it provided services to Rifaat al-Assad between 1999-2008 that it had been presented with evidence contradicting the allegations made against him. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/apr...

32,000$ for Syria's new president’s roundtrip per private jet to Antalya. I always assumed Salafis to be more stingy. www.facebook.com/reinoud.leen...

However one looks at this and even when expected, this is outrageous. After babbling on for years about the diktat of 'state sovereignty' Russia denies the Syrian state to prosecute its own criminal-in-chief and that after whizzing him out of the country. www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250418-rus...

At least 6,000 Syrian doctors work in Germany. Now many are going to help rebuild Syria’s shattered health system. German hospitals worry they won’t return. By @omaralbam.bsky.social and @cathrinschaer.bsky.social. www.dw.com/en/syrian-do...

#EU lifted assets freeze of 4 #Syrian state-owned banks that don’t have foreign reserves while other banks that do are still sanctioned. Jihad Yazigi of @syriareport.bsky.social

The new government in Syria seems either incapable or unwilling to take transitional justice seriously. Major General Mahmoud Younis Ammar: released by a judge due to "advanced age" despite confessing to extortion of families of detainees who died under torture in prison. shaam.org/news/syria-n...

Regime officials, cash, sensitive data smuggled out of Syria when the regime fell, and the UAE having its fingerprints all over. Great reporting by Feras Dalatey and colleagues at Reuters. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Ali Aljasem and Mohammad Kanfash on Europe (once again) falling asleep as Israel goes on a rampage, now in Syria (in Dutch). www.trouw.nl/opinie/opini...

This is impressive and so recognizable. edition.cnn.com/2025/03/21/T...

“Their wrongful detention of you is a testament to the fact that you have struck a nerve. You’ve disrupted the false narratives they’ve worked so hard to maintain, and spoken a truth that they are too terrified to acknowledge.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

After their no-show in Syria, one is inclined to believe there is some truth to this story. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

"Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed Al-Sharif, Mohammed Bahloul, Mohammed Hilieh, Mustafa Khafaja, Saleh Muammar, Rifaat Radwan and Ezzedine Shaat, and their colleagues whose names I haven’t been able to find were heroes." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just out with @brookingslib.bsky.social on development and governance post-2011 in MENA and troubling implications for human security, voice, and accountability. www.brookings.edu/articles/eco...

When the uproar about the use of Signal for war planning obscures the even more disturbing nature of the messages’ content and of those who sent them. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Can we please be informed which ones have been verified, not to mention how? "Syrians have circulated graphic videos of executions by fighters on social media, some of which have been verified by Reuters, including one showing at least 20 dead men in a town." www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Syria's 'provisional' government creates a 'higher committee' to patch up relations with the predominantly Alawite coastal region. I am not sure the last few days' mayhem can be so easily buried in a committee. But wait for this: 1/

More and more attacks by pro-Assad armed groups, ex-Political Security chief and 4th Division Ghaith Suleiman Dalla from Iraq issuing a statement mobilising against the HTS government. They seem to respond to HTS security forces stepping up arrests on the coast. www.facebook.com/syrianmoi/*

Northwest Syria NGO Forum analysis substantiates impact of USAID funding freeze on humanitarian operations: reliefweb.int/report/syria...

Searching for the Missing in Post-Assad Syria Lessons from the investigation of Mezzeh Military Airport Report by @sjac-info.bsky.social. Their documentation work has been suspended by the US foreign aid freeze. This was completed prior. syriaaccountability.org/searching-fo...

Press Release on the #EU’s Suspension of Selected Sanctions

ISW: "Putin is Unlikely to Demobilize in the Event of a Ceasefire Because He is Afraid of His Veterans." Ok, next war then?

Really? I am no fan of "Rojava", but what country cannot "afford" a degree of autonomy? I'd say it would be the least of Syria's problems or, in fact, solve one of them. foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/20/s...

Watch this before it is taken off the internet altogether. The children featuring in the documentary know their humanitarian law better than the grown-ups at the BBC. Their voices already are heartbreaking. Silencing them is soul destroying. rumble.com/embed/v6le9yu/

Interested countries need to provide support to stabilize Syria’s state and economy, soon; otherwise, I worry December 8 may turn out to be less the turning point before Syria’s recovery and more just one station on the country’s downward trajectory and continued collapse.

Another disaster unfolding thanks to Trump’s armchair attrocities. www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature...

So arrests for the Taddamon massacre but Fadi Saqr goes free. Crime pays off, just make sure you are the biggest villain. apnews.com/article/syri...

@reuters.com's Timour Azhari on how Syrian authorities are now managing Assad-linked oligarchs and their multifarious business interests: www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Sorry for repeating myself, Europe needs its own defense policy (and capability to match it). Because with a lunatic like Vance we will have to deal with another one nearby, in Russia. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Worth a re-read I suppose.

A mural in the city of #Bennish in honor of #Caesar

Still digging for suspected underground cells. Haven’t prison guards been interrogated to know there are still people there? newlinesmag.com/spotlight/ho...

To the left: Awarded amnesty & set free - Fadi Saqr, the man behind some of the most brutal massacres against civilians in Syria. To the right: Detained, terrorised, & threatened with mutilation - all for nothing more than dressing like a woman. A clear display of the Syrian state's priorities.

Fadi Saqr, former NDF militiaman, reportedly spotted in Tadamun, Damascus neighbourhood, suggesting an arrangement with the HTS government. Locals don't like it, staging protests. Another example of HTS' misguided policies, whether informed by 'pragmatism' or not. www.syria.tv/%D9%85%D8%B8...