A bit about my recent stay in Aleppo in this piece by @justinsalhani.bsky.social.

More than 30 experts and contributors came together to make sense of identity-based mass violence (IBMV) in cities. We produced a book. I contributed a chapter on the cycles of structural and acute violence in modern Aleppo. Register to attend the launch: weavinginfluence.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Youssef al-Labbad, a Syrian defector returned from Germany, died under torture after his arrest near the Umayyad Mosque. Calls mount for justice, accountability, and returnee protection. #Syria #Justice

Israel is starving Gaza, tipping the strip from mass starvation towards mass death. The lack of a ceasefire provides no excuse for this policy. War is no licence to starve. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee passed a bill to amend the Caesar Act, tying sanction relief to Syria’s human rights compliance. Waivers may extend to 2 years, with full repeal by 2029 if conditions are met. #Syria #CaesarAct #USCongress #Sanctions #HumanRights

"My body is breaking down. My mother is collapsing from exhaustion. My cousin cheats death every day for a morsel of aid. Gaza's children are dying in front of our eyes, and we are powerless to help them." @972mag.com Ruwaida Amer writes from Khan Younis, Gaza >> www.972mag.com/hunger-gaza-...

7 years ago in Budapest, veteran journalist Helen Womack (now I proudly call her friend) interviewed me for UNHCR about The Aleppo Project and my family home in Aleppo. 7 weeks ago, after the fall of Assad, she reached out to ask me if I'd finally been back to Aleppo and if we can rebuild our house.

Key details: In a UN Security Council session on Syria, the United Nations warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis. It highlighted the widespread need for aid and the ongoing displacement of seven million people.

Key details: France announced last February its intention to invite Al-Sharaa for an official visit, but made it conditional on forming a Syrian government that includes “representatives of all components of civil society” and provides “security guarantees for refugee return”.

Another child killed by starvation. There is a video and it is excruciating to watch. Israel has blocked all aid, including food and medicine, for over 60 days. What we have here is the profundity of evil.

I was happy to sign this. Sectarian violence is an even greater security threat to the new Syria than Zionist aggression. aljumhuriya.net/ar/2025/04/1...

هذا اللقاء، الخامس للقاء العمران، له فرادة أنه مع أحد أجمل باحثي التراث وأقربهم لقلبي وقلوب الكثير من باحثي العمران والتاريخ، البروفيسور ناصر رباط. شكراً صديقتي زويا @zoyamasoud.bsky.social على دعوة أ. رباط وعلى التسيير. اللقاء بالعربية، غداً السبت، والتسجيل هنا: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Malik al-Abdeh's analysis of Sharaa's governance record is damning. And his pleas are nothing but the plainest of common sense: serious reforms, emphasis on effective governance, openness to different constituencies by giving them a stake in the new state. www.syriaintransition.com/swallowingth...

دعوة مفتوحة لأهل الاختصاص للحوار إعادة إعمار سوريا: الحقوق، الهوية، والحوكمة رابط المشاركة في الحوار يوم الخميس ٢٦ /١٢ /٢٠٢٤ الساعة الوحدة بعد الظهر بتوقيت دمشق: t.co/CsuJ9VaVQ3

Dr Razan Ghazzawi: “I took this📸of Raed Fares in Idlib in 2013. Raed initiated the ‘Kafranbel Banners’ … Raed & Hammoud Jneid were assassinated on Nov 23, 2018. Many believe HTS was behind it. HTS needs to address all violations committed under its control in Idlib.” x.com/queerexile/s...

Sign up to attend this online panel discussion at George Washington University. It starts at 4pm Berlin time. I will talk about what the fall of Assad means from the perspective of Aleppo.

Mini thread 🧵 The media, Arab and western alike, are not prepared for the fall of the regime and the shallowness of their coverage is just sad. Very few of those reporting on the prisons read up reports on (e.g. by Forensic Architecture & Amensty Intl) that are based on witness accounts, or

“Assad’s police threatened to bury me and my reporting. Now I’m back, and free” BBC correspondent Lina Sinjab returns to Syria www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Join us next Thursday at 10:00 am ET (16:00 CET) to talk about the latest developments in #Syria with a line-up of distinguished panelists: @jeromed.bsky.social, @alhakam.bsky.social and Mr. Wathiq Alshallal. Register here! extremism.gwu.edu/insurgent-re...

Israel is grabbing more land in the Golan. The Golan is for its people. Its homes are for those expelled from them, whether by Israel in 1967 or by Assad and Hezbollah since 2011.

Israel is grabbing Syrian terretory.

Israel has illegally taken the following Syrian towns: - Ofaniya - Quneitra - Al-Hamidiyah - Samdaniya Al Gharbiyah - Qahtaniya The IDF chief of staff: “IDF is fighting in four arenas - in ‘Judea and Samaria’, in Gaza, in Lebanon and, starting tonight, in Syria as well.” 1/

If you are caught thinking international events don't affect you, then you are sorely misunderstanding how our civilization currently works. Something happening in some country you've never seen or heard of, can have as much impact as something happening the town over from you.

From a Syrian to finger wagging outsiders bashing their victory against the regime.

The rebels have liberated hundreds of women, toddlers and babies held in Sednaya prison. They've also released hundred of prisoners some of which were tortured to the point of forgetting their own identity, others held for decades for speaking out against the regime. #freeSyria

Syria is better today. Assad has fallen, and we will remain vigilant!

A year ago I met @anwaralbounni in Berlin. I asked why he hadn't learnt German. "Why would I waste time on a language I'm not going to use?" he replied. "It's only a matter of months and we'll be going home." I thought he was crazy. But he wasn't.

The horrors of Hama have been our shared Syrian omerta for the past 40 years. May its people have peace at long last, and may theirs be the beginning of ours.

At least 66,000 fake accounts and 10 million fake followers were removed on just TikTok alone, the operation was targeting Romania’s election in favour far-right candidate Călin Georgescu . Also, an account with 299,000 followers linked to the far-right AUR party was taken down.

An edited version of this text was published at the New Statesman

لا ننسى المستضعَفين. قلبي مع كل العائدين إلى بيوتهم في حلب وأريافها، وكثير منهم سيجد بيته منهوباً أو مدمّراً.. وقلبي مع ١٢٠ ألف كرديّ هُجّروا من بيوتهم بعفرين مرةً ويهجّرون اليوم مرة أخرى.

The Russian airforce has just bombed the largest hospital complex in Idlib city, including Idlib University Hosptial and the Health Directorate. Yesterday they bombed Aleppo University Hospital. The same tactics every time, everywhere, in Ukraine and in Syria, now and since the past decade.

Iranian-backed militias entered Syria overnight, including Iraq’s Katiab Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups, two Syrian army sources tell @reuters.com. Dozens of Iran-aligned Iraqi Hashd al Shaabi fighters from Iraq also crossed into Syria near Al Bukamal. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Our house in Old Aleppo is in a cul-de-sac that has 11 houses. But only 2 have remained occupied since Assad's takeover in 2016. Most our neighbours, like us, left. Now, our first neighbours have returned to their home, 8 years after Assad & co expelled them.

"My brother, displaced to Idlib in 2016, returned this morning to see my brother, who was stuck in Aleppo with his children after 8 years of forced disappearance. The two are now on their way to our village, last seen in 2014." - my dear friend and fellow Aleppo Project researcher Yahya Abdullah.

The stories of returnees and those reunited with family after long years of separation freshen up the hearts!

People in the central square in Idlib--many of them are displaced from Aleppo--are celebrating the takeover of Aleppo and chanting the one of first slogans of the Syrian revolution, "one, one, one; the Syrian people are one".

Aleppo can shape the fighters entering it today as much as they can shape it.

Thread! After the western Aleppo countryside, Aleppo city is on the verge of falling into the hands of Syrian rebels, with the western neighborhoods already out of the Syrian regime's control. Everyone I’m talking to is apprehensive.

After the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Trump immediately ordered airstrikes against the perpetrator: Assad.   Tulsi Gabbard had been on a secret visit with Assad weeks before. Later, she said he was “not the enemy of the United States.”  By @kareemrifai.bsky.social. thehill.com/opinion/whit...

The racists and enemies of law claiming that there is no comparison between Israel and Hizbullah and Hamas are plainly wrong. Both Israel and Hizbullah are perpetrators of genocide and mass expulsion (Israel in Palestine and Lebanon, Hizbullah in Syria). Hamas, though, is guilty only of war crimes.

Glad to start my visiting professor position at EHESS in (snowy) Paris. My first talk today discusses the urgent issue of media coverage of war on Gaza @cnrs.bsky.social

For the moment, I'm just savouring all those bsky posts showing super neat desk setups. Instant gratification!

We're approaching social media with different eyes, jaded eyes that is. What's one to share? What for? And what risks come with the package?

A picture that condemns the world. Gaza now has the highest number of amputee children in the world.

A breath of fresh air!

I'm looking for someone to write about the mass detention of black men in the US for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Preferably looking for a former or current prisoner who can write about the topic as the political issue it is. Can anyone help?