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?

Assadist logics are alive and well. And i understand that it is naive to think that that sort of state logic, deeply embedded in every suture of state and society, can change overnight. But we must, at minimum, mount an honest challenge to it. Or else, what's the use?

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.

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.

Talk about timely!

About Mila, who was killed but did not die, and Mira, who was not killed but did die | 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...

Testimonies of Survivors of the Coast Massacre 2 - Children Witnessing a Massacre: About Mila, who was killed but did not die, and Mira, who was not killed but did die.

Collected and documented by Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj.

syriauntold.com/2025/03/26/a...

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...

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...

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'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...

“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...

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...

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...

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-...

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.

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...

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...

In fact, the whole March issue of Syria-in-Transition is well worth reading. This on the UN's engagement in Syria's transition, and their lack of urgency, also paints a gloomy picture and asks for a course correction by Pedersen (UN envoy) and UN agencies.
www.syriaintransition.com/nomorebusine...

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...

‘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

"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...

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.

"According to many testimonies collected by our Office, perpetrators raided houses, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before proceeding to either kill or spare them accordingly. Some survivors told us that many men were shot dead in front of their families."

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...

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."

Fair point!

Unclear how this will develop after these massacres. How al-Sharaa deals with the aftermath, and with questions of accountability, recognition and transitional justice will be key to preventing this from becoming a "popular revolt" by distinguishing these insurgents from the local communities.

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).

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

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.

Very happy to see this nice collaboration with Juan get a prize from @polstudies.bsky.social !

I agree with the assessment of the UAE, but Saudi seems to be fully behind the transition (offering significant aid and the first destination for FM) - perhaps positioning itself as counterweight to Qatar/Turkey but also part of the solution? UAE sans KSA is less threatening, I would think.

Impressions from people in the know is that Awdah's power is greatly exaggerated, and that he's not a realistic threat, nor is there any regional intent to destabilise the current administration.

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...

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.

Hi Claire! So lovely to see you here :) hugs from Brussels.

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...

The driving question was and remains: how can we arrive at a condition in which a struggle for a democratic, inclusive and open Syrian polity & society comes to presuppose and to prescribe a struggle against Israel’s genocidal ethno-nationalism and vice versa.