Month

Archives: Bashar al-Assad

Russo-US dog fights over Syria?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Yara Bayoumi at Reuters reports on the complicated minuet being danced by Russia, the Syrian Air Force, and the United States. The Syrian…

Syria’s forgotten pluralism and why it matters today

By Andrea Williams | (The Conversation) | - - The Syrian Civil War has been raging for six years. It has killed nearly half a million people and left over 12 million,…

Syria: to Assad & Kurds go the Spoils; Sunni extremists have Lost

By Mehmet Ozalp | (The Conversation) | - - The devastating gas attack in Syria, attributed to the Assad regime, and the swift US missile response is a game-changer for all parties…

Russia’s not Leaving: Syria is about old-Fashioned Sphere of Influence, not Oil

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Russia is not going to yield its sphere of influence in Syria to Donald Trump or anyone else. Russia has all but won…

Will the US missile strike be the turning point in Syria’s shifting war?

By Harout Akdedian | (The Conversation) | - - The US has struck the Syrian airbase used to launch a suspected sarin gas attack against Khan Sheikhun that killed more than 80…

Al-Sadr: Russia, America and al-Assad should all get out of Syria!

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday issued a broadside demanding that Russia and the United States withdraw from Syria and that strongman…

Washington’s Supreme Hypocrisy on Chemical Weapons and Civilian Deaths

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army in Idlib is an atrocity and the pictures of dead children tug at the…

Has Trump deferred to Russia in Syria?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Elizabeth Palmer reported from Ankara last Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had difficult and inconclusive discussions with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan…

Syrian Musicians Celebrate Palmyra’s Liberation

TeleSur | - - The city and its ruins, designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980, have traded hands several times during Syria's six-year civil war. The 15-year-old's voice floated over…

Trump to al-Sisi: Syria’s al-Assad is a Brave, steadfast Man (Beirut Report)

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - al-Diyar (The Lands) [Beirut] reports on what Egyptian officials allegedly leaked about the telephone conversation between Donald J. Trump and Egyptian president `Abdel…

With Fall of Aleppo, will a Russo-Iranian Middle East challenge Trump?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - On Thursday, the Syrian government announced that the last of those who wanted to be evacuated from the East Aleppo pocket had been…

Russia/Syria: War Crimes in Month of Bombing Aleppo

Human Rights Watch (New York) – The Russian-Syrian coalition committed war crimes during a month-long aerial bombing campaign of opposition-controlled territory in Aleppo in September and October 2016. The Violations Documentation Center,…

Why Russia and Regime want all of Aleppo before Trump is sworn in

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - In the past two days, the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies (Hizbullah from Lebanon and others from Iraq) has taken…

Syria Truce holds, despite questions on Humanitarian Aid

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - The London pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-`Arabi reports that the truce that began Monday night held during its first twenty-four hours, in the areas…

Is Turkey’s incursion into Syria about Daesh, or about the Kurds?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Turkish military sources told the Anadol news agency that Wednesday's military attack on the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, held for years by…

Monsters to Destroy: Top 7 Reasons the US could not have forestalled Syrian Civil War

by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - The interventionist temptation, muted since the Iraq imbroglio, is now returning. Sec. Clinton's team are already talking about taking steps to remove Syrian…

Looming Aleppo Battle indicts both sides of Civil War for breaking Cease-Fire

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - The only thing worse than the new hero status of now-covert al-Qaeda operative Abu Muhammad al-Julani and his Army of Syrian Conquest (ASC)…

Is Turkey making a 180° Turn, warming to al-Assad & abandoning Saudi & Rebels?

TeleSur | - - The two countries had been allies before the 2011 uprising in Syria. Turkey is seeking to normalize relations with its neighbor Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said…

Syrian Troops foil al-Qaeda riposte in Aleppo as France warns al-Qaeda could replace ISIL

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Even as the Syrian army defeated a counter-offensive by al-Qaeda in Syria and its battlefield allies at Aleppo, French President Francois Hollande warned…

If East Aleppo Falls to Regime, is the Syrian War over?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Reuters is reporting that the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies have taken Malah Farms to the northwest of the city…