Elizabeth Tsurkov

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Supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad celebrate last week in Damascus after it was announced that he won another term in office. (Omar Sanadiki/Reuters)

MundoOriente Próximo,

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife cast their ballots in the May 26 presidential election in the town of Douma, a suburb of the capital city of Damascus. The location was not coincidental — Assad’s forces lost control of Douma in 2012 and regained it only after years of bombings, a starvation siege and the deployment of chemical weapons in April 2018 finally subdued the city.

Voting in Douma sent a specific message to Syrians — one of reconquest and domination. The regime made no attempt to present the election as free and fair, further stressing its ability to lie and force others to parrot the lie.…  Seguir leyendo »

Bekir Kasim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Syrian National Army soldiers praying before an event mark the first anniversary of the Turkish-backed Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria Tal Abyad, Syria on October 13, 2020; many former SNA fighters are now deployed as mercenaries in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

“They sent us directly to the front lines. The situation is terrible. Terrible. There is fighting every day. We are charged with storming. There is no rest. There are many men missing and we can’t get to them,” explained Abdel Basit, a Syrian mercenary speaking from Azerbaijan (for their safety, I have altered the names of all living Syrians in this report). What made this former Syrian rebel, displaced from his home in Rastan, in rural Homs, decide to sign up to fight in a foreign country? His father, who is still in Rastan, had to take out a large loan because of a family emergency, but “his salary is not enough [to pay it off].…  Seguir leyendo »

Muhammed Nur /Anadolu Agency via Getty Images. Members of the Syrian National Army participating in Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring, Ras al-Ayn district, northern Syria, October 13, 2019

EuropaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

A small Turkish flag was standing on the desk of the offices of the Turkish-backed faction in a residential area of Şanlıurfa, in southern Turkey. The men in the room, most of them veteran fighters from eastern Syria, were expecting me and did their best to locate a Syrian revolutionary flag in time for our meeting in the summer of 2019. They could not find one. Everything about the meeting, its location, décor, and content, indicated to me that the men in the room were not the ones in charge. They hoped soon to launch an offensive on northeastern Syria, but had no idea when the real decision-makers, Turkish officials, would give them their marching orders.…  Seguir leyendo »