Yazan Badran
@yazanbadran.bsky.social
Assistant professor, media, journalism, politics, Syria/MENA/SWANA at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. ECHO/SCOM/FWO I call Latakia, Nagoya and Brussels home. https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/yazan-badran
Sharaa received the investigative report for the 6 March “events” at the Syrian coast. If the report is not serious enough and no real accountability is forthcoming, this can backfire enormously right now. On the other hand, can he afford to hold accountable his fighting men in such moment?
There are many Syrians who genuinely believe that the legitimacy of the current authorities and power of the state is best achieved through massive brutalising displays of violence against "recalcitrant" communities, a la Coast, Suwayda. In other words: Assad's Hama doctrine.
The president, however, commended them for their service. Madness.
Yazan Badran@yazanbadran.bsky.social · last yr.The destruction that the tribal fighters are leaving in their wake in Sweida is truly horrific. A landscape of burning, pillaging and unrestrained hatred is all you can see and hear in these videos. To excuse, justify, obscure or naturalise this is tantamount to national suicide.
The destruction that the tribal fighters are leaving in their wake in Sweida is truly horrific. A landscape of burning, pillaging and unrestrained hatred is all you can see and hear in these videos. To excuse, justify, obscure or naturalise this is tantamount to national suicide.
Testimonies of Survivors of the Coast Massacre (3) - A Psychologist's Testimony After the Massacre, collected by Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj. syriauntold.com/2025/04/02/h...
How Will I Recover from Their Eyes? | SyriaUntold | حكاية ما انحكت
Beginning on Thursday, 6 March 2025, and lasting for six days, Alawite-majority areas along the Syrian coast were subjected to a coordinated attack that bore the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The ass...
syriauntold.com
@apnews.com's Sally Abou AlJoud on another killing of Alawite civilians in Syria's Tartous: apnews.com/article/syri... (via @yazanbadran.bsky.social) On displacement of Alawite Syrians from the coast to Lebanon – among thousands of Syrians on the move since December – see: tcf.org/content/repo...
12-year-old boy among 4 killed in Syria's Tartous province
Provincial officials say a 12-year-old boy was among four civilians killed in Syria’s Tartous province.
apnews.com
Part 1 of a series of witness testimonies by survivors of the Syrian coast massacres, compiled by Syrian author Rosa Yassin Hasan. "... If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?" syriauntold.com/2025/03/20/t...
“To whom will I say good morning from now on!” | SyriaUntold | حكاية ما انحكت
Beginning on Thursday, 6 March 2025, and lasting for six days, Alawite-majority areas along the Syrian coast were subjected to a coordinated attack that bore the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The ass...
syriauntold.com
The longer Israel persists in its current approach to Syria, it risks pushing the country toward one of the very scenarios it says it wants to avoid: fostering chaos that Iran and/or jihadist militants could exploit. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...
How Israel’s Overreach in Syria May Backfire | Crisis Group
After the Assad regime was overthrown, Israel immediately began treating the new authorities in Damascus as a potential security threat, taking a series of aggressive military actions. This approach r...
crisisgroup.org
Any researcher denied entry into the US for the 🙄 heinous 🙄 crime of lèse majesté against Emperor Trump should immediately be awarded a research grant from their home research council, no questions asked. Clearly they're doing something very right.
Farrukh@implausibleblog.bsky.social · last yr.The new norm Free speech, not so free any more in the US
The Syria Report on the pillaging of the Syrian coast last week: "villages and towns along the Syrian coast have witnessed a systematic campaign of looting, burning, and bulldozing of properties ... accompanied by mass killings and forced displacement" hlp.syria-report.com/hlp/systemat...
Systematic Looting, Burning and Bulldozing of Property on the Syrian Coast
Over the past two weeks, villages and towns along the Syrian coast have witnessed a systematic campaign of looting, burning, and bulldozing of properties. This campaign was accompanied by mass killing...
hlp.syria-report.com
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...
Swallowing the State — Syria in Transition
syriaintransition.com
"Abu Jaber, a religious notable in Khattab and a former opposition fighter who had returned to the village, described how he and others entered homes, and forced men on to the town’s roundabout, with the purpose of displacing them from the village." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
‘They killed him in cold blood’: the cycle of revenge in north-west Syria
Over 1,000 people – including 745 civilians – were killed in attacks last week that mostly targeted Alawite minority
theguardian.com
Zaina has been one of the most brilliant voices on Syria in the past decade. Her unfiltered reflections here show the profound challenges us Syrians will have to grapple with - and that's assuming we will have to stability required to even begin to tackle these challenges.
Hassan Hassan@hhassan.bsky.social · last yr.Returning to her hometown of Idlib in Syria, Zaina Erhaim found that the influence of Islamist rule and foreign jihadists continues to shape daily life. She writes of her hopes and disappointment for New Lines Magazine. newlinesmag.com/spotlight/is...
We are no where near knowing the full scale of the slaughter: "In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families - including women, children and individuals hors de combat - were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular."
Syria: Distressing scale of violence in coastal areas
Reports continue to emerge of the distressing scale of violence in Syria’s coastal region since 6 March.The UN Human Rights Office has so far documented the killing of 111 civilians, but the process o...
ohchr.org
The Alawi militant insurgency (ongoing) at the Syrian coast is plainly made up of remnants of the Assad regime. They represent in no way a form of "popular resistance"; are despised by large sections of Alawites there who see them as co-responsible for the massacres (also ongoing) that befell them.
Accounts from friends in Baniyas (who were spared because they were Christian) confirm that at least one of the groups responsible for summary killings in Al-Qusoor neighbourhood was made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters. They executed everybody else in their building (all Alawis).
The scenes and voices coming out from friends and family on the Syrian coast are nightmarish. The bloodshed continues unabated and any pretence of state authority by those in Damascus has well and truly collapsed. And we will all pay a hefty price to come.
Syrian security forces execute 125 civilians in battle against Assad loyalists
Battle in Latakia is marked escalation by Bashar al-Assad loyalists against Syria’s new Islamist-led government
theguardian.com
Very happy to see this nice collaboration with Juan get a prize from @polstudies.bsky.social !
Political Studies@polstudies.bsky.social · last yr.Congrats to the winner of the Harrison Prize for the best article published in a 2024 issue of @polstudies.bsky.social: "Populism of the Privileged: On the Use of Underdog Identities by Comparatively Privileged Groups" by @benjamindecleen.bsky.social & Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado buff.ly/f98Hvph
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
Nasrallah, Syria and Palestine: Thinking beyond the narratives that speak us - Untold
how can we arrive at a condition in which a struggle for a democratic, inclusive and open Syrian polity and society comes to presuppose and to prescribe a struggle against Israel’s genocidal ethno-nat...
untoldmag.org
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
Nasrallah, Syria and Palestine: Thinking beyond the narratives that speak us - Untold
how can we arrive at a condition in which a struggle for a democratic, inclusive and open Syrian polity and society comes to presuppose and to prescribe a struggle against Israel’s genocidal ethno-nat...
untoldmag.org
People in Gaza show their support for the Syrian revolution ...
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇
There are many things that remain unclear about the current transition in Damascus including a lot of noise due to lack of discipline and experience by HTS. But early signs indicate that Syria’s direction will be led by a power bloc of socially conservative and economically (neo?)liberal forces.
NEW COMMENTARY | Regional Perspectives on the House of Assad’s Fall Crisis Group experts offer a 360° view of how the Syrian crisis could shape up regional politics. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...
Regional Perspectives on the House of Assad’s Fall | Crisis Group
The Assad dynasty’s demise will certainly remake Syria, but it will also reshape relations between Damascus and other capitals. Crisis Group experts offer a 360-degree view of how the Syrian crisis could shake up regional politics.
crisisgroup.org
Malik al-Abdeh (of Syria in Transition) lays down the many different challenges to an inclusive and democratic transition in Syria. The opacity of the current process (and continued fog of war) makes it difficult to evaluate the relative salience of these challenges. Worth pondering still.
The quasi-coup — Syria in Transition
syriaintransition.com
Our nightmare has lifted for a day. May everyone find their disappeared, and may we never ever ever have to tremble when thinking of Tadmor and Saidnaya. May he be the last of the tyrants.
I want to celebrate this day. But I can't so long as half my family and the rest of Homs remain under the threat of this utterly mindless and pointless battle. Let them live and let this terrible part of our history die already.
