<![CDATA[Syria Revisited: Interviews]]>

<![CDATA[Syria Revisited: Interviews]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/s/interviewshttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!f58w!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa001939d-2300-41fb-91ee-12d42335d86b_4032x3024.jpegSyria Revisited: Interviewshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/s/interviewsSubstackThu, 08 Oct 2026 12:33:39 GMT<![CDATA[Education in Rural Jableh]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/interview-education-in-rural-jablehhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/interview-education-in-rural-jablehWed, 30 Sep 2026 16:26:13 GMTControversy over Syria’s school system resurfaced earlier this month after a prestigious private school in Damascus announced it would gender-segregate classes for the new school year. Debate on social media focused on whether this decision was the result of pressure from the Syrian government - a sign of impending Islamization of the state - or, as the school stated, it was a genuine reaction to frequent harassments and fights among its students.

I recently published an interview with the mayor of Mushrefa, a mixed-sect town in northern Homs, in which we discussed the gender-segregation status of that town’s Christian/Sunni/Alawi schools. Earlier this month, I met with a teacher who works in an all-Alawi school in rural Jableh. The following excerpt of that interview covers our discussion on curriculum changes under the new government, gender segregation, and resource challenges in the new school year.

]]><![CDATA[Christian Integration and Mediation in Northern Homs]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/christian-integration-and-mediationhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/christian-integration-and-mediationWed, 16 Sep 2026 15:01:11 GMTNorthern Homs is home to a highly diverse set of towns, bringing together Shia, Alawi, Sunni, Christian, and Murshdi communities. The demographic map of this region played a central role in how the revolution unfolded north of Homs City. A swathe of Sunni towns extending along the international highway, anchored by Talbiseh on the south and Rastan on the north, quickly became encircled by regime forces, backed by militias from several nearby Alawi and Shia towns.

One of these towns is Mushrefa, just east of Talbiseh. Mushrefa is an originally Christian town which, through the demographic engineering policies of Hafez al-Assad, saw an influx of Alawi and Sunni residents during the second half of the 20^th Century. Mushrefa sat on the frontline of the war for six years. A large checkpoint on the town’s western entrance marked the border with the opposition, and a military base on its northern edge was used to frequently shell opposition towns.

Given the long history of fighting and the diverse nature of the area, one might assume that Mushrefa would fall victim to intercommunal and vigilante violence. Yet the town has largely been peaceful and the old inter-communal ties between Talbiseh and Mushrefa have returned. Many residents credit the actions of the town’s mayor, Mrs. Eileen As-Sit, with easing the entrance of HTS-affiliation forces into Mushrefa in December 2024 and maintaining peace in the town since.

I visited Mushrefa early this year and met with one of the Christian influencers in the town to learn more about the post-Assad transition there. I recently returned and met with Mrs. As-Sit. Earlier this summer, Eileen worked with a civil activist from Talbiseh and with the Homs government to host the country’s first Peace Festival (since replicated across the country), highlighting the different cultures of the communities in northern Homs. Below is a partial transcript of our interview, discussing how she engaged with the first opposition factions to enter the town on December 6, 2024, her social cohesion work in the two years since, and the current situation for Christians.

]]><![CDATA[Civil Peace Challenges in Northwest Hama]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-challenges-in-northwesthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-challenges-in-northwestFri, 11 Sep 2026 09:21:07 GMTIntercommunal violence continues to plague Hama’s Sahel al-Ghab region. In mid-August, two men were killed within 48 hours of each other in attacks in the Alawi town of Aziziyah and the Murshdi town of Rasif. The attacks appeared to be linked to targeted vigilantism in one case, and an attempted house seizure in the other. The killings should serve as a reminder for the international community that this part of Syria remains among the most contentious and deadly in the country.

I have covered the sectarian- and revenge-linked dynamics in Sahel al-Ghab several times here, based on weeks of meetings with residents over the course of the past year. The most severe tensions originate from the string of Sunni, Alawi, and Murshdi villages in the center of al-Ghab Plain, known as the “Middle Line.” The Sunni homes here were systematically dismantled by local regime militias following their complete displacement in 2015. The severity of this crime and today’s lack of housing or infrastructure, is the single most important factor fueling violence in the area. Every person I have met with this summer, from every sect, has agreed that the only way to end the violence is to rebuild the five Sunni villages.

Earlier this year I published an interview with a resident of one of these destroyed villages, Ramleh. Last month I met with several residents of another village, Qabr Fida. Below is a partial transcript of that meeting, covering the history of the town before displacement, challenges after returning, and inter-faith relations.

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]]><![CDATA[Tourism Boon in Beit Yashout]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tourism-boon-in-beit-yashouthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tourism-boon-in-beit-yashoutThu, 03 Sep 2026 20:53:33 GMTJableh’s Beit Yashout Subdistrict is among the most important Alawi regions of the coast. It is home to a significant number of ex-soldiers, the site of a large insurgent mobilization in March 2025, and straddles an important highway connecting Jableh city with Hama. I have been visiting Beit Yashout every few months since mid-2025 in order to understand security and trusting building dynamics with the new government, particularly in the aftermath of the March 2025 massacres.

Significant trust-building efforts had been made throughout late 2025, but these collapsed earlier this spring with the appointment of a new security official. I covered this dynamic extensively in my May interview transcript from meetings with several local community leaders. Late last month I returned to Beit Yashout to assess how the situation had changed. Below is a partial interview transcript with several community influencers detailing the positive impact of the tourism season (mirroring what I have heard across other parts of the coast), the current security situation, and how the local community has responded to transitional justice-linked arrest campaigns.

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]]><![CDATA[Talkalakh’s Post-Assad Recovery]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/talkalakhs-post-assad-recoveryhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/talkalakhs-post-assad-recoveryThu, 20 Aug 2026 17:45:57 GMTThe security situation in Homs’ Talkalakh region continues to improve this year. Many people expected this to be one of the most contentious regions racked with sectarian violence after the fall of Assad, yet somehow the communities and new local government have managed to rebuild ties after 14 years of war. I have visited Talkalakh several times this year to meet with activists and community leaders from all sects, and published earlier this spring a transcript from one such meeting.

However, it is always difficult to know if, as a foreigner or even just an outsider, you are being told the whole truth when visiting sensitive areas. Recently, a friend of mine who lives abroad but grew up in Talkalakh before the war visited his family’s home for the first time since Assad’s fall. He spend several weeks this summer meeting with Alawi friends and family in the city and countryside, not as a journalist or researcher but as a member of the community. Below is a transcript of a phone call the two of us had after his visit, recounting some of the key takeaways he had from his first time in post-Assad Syria as well as a detailed analysis of the challenge of economic recovery.

]]><![CDATA[The Long Arm of Violence in Hama's Asharenah]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/the-long-arm-of-violence-in-hamashttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/the-long-arm-of-violence-in-hamasWed, 12 Aug 2026 07:01:00 GMTOn the southern edge of the al-Ghab Plains, tucked into a bend of the al-Assi River, sits the Sunni town of Asharenah. It is surrounded on three sides by Alawi towns: Hawrat Amurin to the north, Nahr al-Bared to the west, and Salhab to the south. The area marks the edge of what was once the Assad regime heartland.

Both Alawi and Sunni residents of the area claim that before 2011, there were few sectarian problems. However, beginning in early 2012, Alawi militia fighters began to kidnap, harass, and kill Sunnis in Asharenah. The town was too isolated from the core Sunni regions of northern Hama to ever be truly liberated or form a real armed movement, and it was quickly occupied and largely displaced by 2014.

Since the fall of the Assad regime, these unaddressed war-time crimes have fueled ongoing harassments, thefts, and killings allegedly committed by people from Asharenah against Alawis in Salhab, Nahr al-Bared, and Amurin. On March 7, 2025, armed civilians joined pro-government armed factions and stormed Salhab and Naher al-Bared, participating in the killing of 13 people and widespread looting of Alawi homes. Alawis here accuse residents of Asharenah of being among the attackers.

I recently visited Asharenah as part of my ongoing work documenting the history of towns in al-Ghab and the current social problems between them. Below is a partial transcript of an interview I conducted with a resident of the town who had been displaced in late 2012 and returned to his home in the second half of 2025.

]]><![CDATA[Security and Economy in Hama's Salhab]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/security-and-economy-in-hamas-salhabhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/security-and-economy-in-hamas-salhabWed, 05 Aug 2026 15:52:13 GMTI recently published an article profiling the ongoing security and sectarian challenges in Hama’s al-Ghab region. That article focused on the small strip of villages in the central al-Ghab plains just west of Qalaat al-Mudiq. But the dynamics at play there extend all the way south to the edge of the Masyaf District, encompassing the large Alawi town of Salhab.

Salhab should be familiar to many long-time Syria researchers. More than half of the town’s men served in the security forces at some point during the war, and the town was home to the famous Alawi Sheikh Shaaban Mansour. Sheikh Mansour was frequently pictured alongside senior regime army and militia commanders throughout the war, fueling opposition ire against Salhab.

Following the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, Salhab has endured recurring bouts of violence, largely framed around discriminate or indiscriminate revenge. Sheikh Mansour and his son were killed by armed Sunnis as part of these revenge campaigns on March 7, 2025, part of a broader mobilization that day which resulted in the killings of 13 men in the town.

No photo description available. — Sheikh Shaaban Mansour.

Since March 2025, Salhab has had an unsteady, though gradually improving, relationship with both the government and neighboring Sunnis. But while such extreme violence has not returned, there continues to be problems of harassment and armed theft on the town’s outskirts.

I spent several days in Salhab this spring meeting with activists, locals, and community leaders to learn more about these dynamics. Below is a transcript of part of an interview I conducted with one family presenting their perspective on security and economic challenges and the current state of trust building.

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]]><![CDATA[Rebuilding Syria's Bureaucracy: Interview with the Administrative Development Directorate]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rebuilding-syrias-bureaucracy-interviewhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rebuilding-syrias-bureaucracy-interviewThu, 30 Jul 2026 04:56:33 GMTSyria’s post-Assad transition has involved every sector of the state. While security sector reform and the establishment of new governance systems have been well-covered, less researched is the process of reforming and rebuilding the bureaucratic state. This process has involved merging parallel, but operationally unique, departments while also imposing a massive evaluation and downsizing of the regime’s state work force. This initially included a three-way merger of government structures from Idlib’s Syrian Salvation Government, the north Aleppo-based SNC, and the regime. Since January 2026 this has also involved merging the Syrian Democratic Forces’ administrative bodies in Syria’s northeast with the new Syrian government’s (itself a merger of the three aforementioned governments).

This complicated state-building process has been hampered my many challenges, to say the least. Among them was the regime’s own bureaucratic rot. By 2024, many regime institutes were nearly non-functioning due to corruption, theft, and ineptitude. Opposition state institutions suffered from a lack of manpower and no experience in administrating a state larger than one governorate.

The Ministry of Administrative Development (وزارة التنمية الإدارية)‎ has played a central role in addressing these challenges. Specifically, the ministry’s governorate-level directorates are tasked with providing assessments and trainings for all other administrative offices within there governorates. I recently met with an official from one governorate’s Development Directorate to learn more about their role, training process, and challenges during the post-liberation state mergers.

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]]><![CDATA[The Badia Internal Security Directorate]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/the-badia-internal-security-directoratehttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/the-badia-internal-security-directorateFri, 10 Jul 2026 20:30:58 GMTOn December 13, 2025, a member of Syria’s General Security killed two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter during a meeting in the desert town of Palmyra. The attacker was reportedly a recent recruit to the General Security’s Badia Directorate and had been under recent investigation for suspected ISIS sympathies.

The attack underscored the risk of ISIS infiltration into Syria’s new security services, particularly given the rapid recruitment and expansion of the Ministry of Interior during the first half of 2025 (as I detail in my recent report). It also hinted at the complex security coordination between the U.S. and Damascus, both of whom had spent years pursuing separate anti-ISIS campaigns. After the fall of the Assad regime, both actors found themselves suddenly on-the-ground in the Syrian Badia, the huge expanse of desert steppes and mountains in central Syria.

The Badia had long been a core staging ground for ISIS, whose cells had conducted a robust insurgency against Assad regime forces since 2017. During the regime’s era, the towns and villages across the Badia had been largely emptied of their civilian population, heavily destroyed, and turned into bases for Syrian regime and foreign militias. Since liberation, this area has seen a gradual return of displaced people and ongoing rebuilding efforts.

Tasked with securing this complex region is the Internal Security Badia Directorate. In May, I met with members of the directorate to discuss some of the challenges they face. Below is a partial transcript of that interview.

]]><![CDATA[Syria's Women's Police Institute]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/meeting-syrias-womens-police-institutehttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/meeting-syrias-womens-police-instituteThu, 02 Jul 2026 12:03:08 GMTLast month I published a lengthy report with the Center for Statecraft and National Security tracing the development of Syria’s new Ministry of Interior over the past year and a half. The report focuses on the evolution of the MoI’s recruitment, training, and internal structure; how changes within these three pillars were both reactions to security challenges and how they impacted those challenges.

One of the most recent developments within the MoI was the establishment of a Women’s Police Institute in March 2026. As I wrote in my report, the institute reflects a continued push by the ministry’s leadership to modernize and expand its capacity to reach all parts of Syrian society.

I visited the institute in May and had a lengthy discussion with its director, Brigadier General Huda Serjawi, about the origins of the program, the intended role of women police officers in Syria, and what the institute reflects about the MoI’s philosophy. Below is a partial transcript of that interview.

]]><![CDATA[Security in Latakia's Daatour Neighborhood]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/security-in-latakias-daatour-neighborhoodhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/security-in-latakias-daatour-neighborhoodWed, 03 Jun 2026 13:30:27 GMTLast year, Latakia’s Daatour neighborhood had repeatedly been the center of security problems in the city. A series of ex-regime insurgent attacks originated from the neighborhood in January and February 2025, and the neighborhood was the site of the city’s largest massacre of Alawis during the March 6 fighting. However, the neighborhood has calmed significantly since late last year. Local influencers and community leaders work closely with the Ministry of Interior and regular patrols throughout the area have facilitated rapid responses to any criminal activity. Nonetheless, the neighborhood is increasingly facing severe poverty and mass unemployment.

Most of Daatour is technically illegal housing, built by families moving to the city from the countryside over the last half century. As this land was never zoned for real-estate, most houses here remain government property. A ring of government-funded apartment blocks was later built around the informal housing in order to prevent the continued expansion of the neighborhood.

I visited Daatour last month and met with several long-time residents involved in mediation work. Below is a portion of our interviews, as well as some additional background on the neighborhood.

According to the interviewees, 90% of the men in Daatour had been employed in the regime, either as state employees or in the security forces. Of these there are 2,500 former officers alone. The interviewees claim that nearly every single man is now unemployed as a result of the dissolution of the security forces and government layoffs. Economic recovery in the neighborhood is more difficult than in the Alawi villages, as there is no secondary agricultural economy for families to fall back on and the area has very little private sector work.

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]]><![CDATA[Local Governance Structures Post-Assad]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/local-governance-structures-posthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/local-governance-structures-postFri, 29 May 2026 15:13:06 GMTThe post-Assad era has seen a continued merger of pre-existing and new local governance structures across Syria. Last summer, I wrote a lengthy report about the early stages of governance, security, and judicial structures in rural areas. Many of these systems have solidified in the year since, others changed or abandoned. In many cases, the design of local governance structures are a response to the new government’s own resource and conflict challenges.

One key new structure is the Reconciliation Council. These councils have existed in Syria for decades, but under the new government they have been given an elevated and more official role. They are almost exclusively formed in all-Sunni towns, with a particular focus on communities with a significant number of IDPs.

These councils work closely with one of the key pre-existing local governance structures: the area director. In my 2025 report, I highlighted the important hybrid role that District Directors were playing in the first months after liberation. These hybrid roles have since evolved, becoming more standardized and purely administrative. However, there has also been a significant expansion of Sub-district Directors - administrative officials who oversee the component sub-districts of each district.

Earlier this month I met with a member of the Talbiseh Reconciliation Council and the Talbiseh Sub-district Director in order to better understand the roles of these two bodies. Below is a transcript of both interviews.

]]><![CDATA[Sahel al-Ghab's Ghost Towns]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/sahel-al-ghabs-ghost-townshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/sahel-al-ghabs-ghost-townsFri, 22 May 2026 17:19:55 GMTHama’s Sahel al-Ghab is home to many of Syria’s religious sects, hosting Sunni, Christian, Alawi, and Murshdi villages all closely bordering each other within a fertile farming valley. Each community had naturally developed relationships before 2011, but these ties were largely shattered by the violence of the civil war.

By 2015, the residents of several Sunni villages along what was once the frontline between regime and rebel forces were expelled and their houses razed. Some of the perpetrators had come from bordering Alawi villages where young men had joined regime militias. Displaced residents began to return following the fall of the Assad regime, and with them came a resumption of the inter-communal conflicts started during the war.

I recently visited one of these destroyed villages, Ramleh, and met with a school teacher who returned from the IDP camps in the north in March 2025. The village today is dotted with shattered homes, small new structures, and tents. Most the roadside is empty and overgrown, hiding the foundations of what once were scores of homes.

Ramleh sits just south of a Murshdi village named Rasif and an Alawi town called Aziziyah. Below is an edited transcript of our meeting, discussing the history of Jamleh and complex inter-sect relations with its two neighboring towns, one Alawi and one Murshdi.

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]]><![CDATA[A Return to Peace in Talkalakh?]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-return-to-peace-in-talkalakhhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-return-to-peace-in-talkalakhWed, 20 May 2026 20:32:50 GMTThe Talkalakh region of Homs has experienced waves of sectarian violence since the first months of the Syrian revolution. Regime army units, backed by local militias, stormed the city in May 2011, displacing more than 4,000 residents and detaining 1,000 more. To the city’s north, the town of Zara was besieged for more than two years by its neighbors. Zara’s residents were ultimately expelled by force and their homes and land systematically looted.

The fall of Assad opened the door to the return of the region’s displaced Sunni population. With it came vigilante violence and housing and land disputes. The cities of Talkalakh and Zara themselves were severely damaged by regime militias and required extensive repairs, while many young Alawi men fled to Lebanon in fear of arrest or retributive violence.

The security situation improved gradually over the course of 2025. The district is home to nearly every sect in Syria and many communities had long-standing relations. These old networks reformed and cross-communal economic activity recovered. In early February 2026, however, a drive-by shooting in the Alawi village of Ain al-Khadra left two men dead and seven injured. It was the first attack in several months and raised questions about the stability of the area.

I visited Talkalakh in February 2026, observing a civil peace workshop for young people from the city and countryside and meeting with several participants and community leaders. I returned in mid-May 2026 and met with five Alawi professionals from the western countryside as well as two Sunni community leaders. Below is an edited transcript of the May meeting, discussing the current status of inter-communal relations and security in Talkalakh. The responses from participants are combined below each question and there was near universal agreement on each topic.

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in (in)Stability from Beit Yashout]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lessons-in-instability-from-beithttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lessons-in-instability-from-beitSun, 17 May 2026 13:08:33 GMTThe Jableh countryside was once the heart of the regime’s most hardline manpower. Most Alawi men in these villages served in the regime’s forces at one time or another, and many here had joined the March 6, 2025 insurgency. Government forces have consistently conducted anti-insurgent operations in the Daliyah region of rural Jableh, but in the bordering Beit Yashout subdistrict the situation has largely remained calm.

I have previously profiled the somewhat unique relationships that formed between the Ministry of Interior and Beit Yashout’s local leaders and activists, and how these lines of communications were effective in trust building and stability.

Yet these relationships and trust are entirely reliant on the personalities of the local government officials and community leaders; if one changes, the entire system risks collapse. I returned to Beit Yashout on May 7, 2026, to check in on the situation with some community leaders and activists. The following interview covers the significant changes that have occurred over the past three months and underscore the fragility of stability in Syria as well as the impact the current arrest campaign against regime criminals is having in rural Alawi communities.

]]><![CDATA[Rastan's Complex Post-Assad Transition]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rastans-complex-post-assad-transitionhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rastans-complex-post-assad-transitionSat, 09 May 2026 13:31:24 GMTThe city of Rastan was once the center of opposition activity in northern Homs. The commercial and administrative hub of the norther countryside, Rastan was home to a large number of career soldiers and officers before the war. Most of these men defected between 2011 and 2013, forming a strong core of opposition fighters both in Homs and across the country. Rastan’s revolutionary activity made it one of the earliest targets of Assad regime military operations, beginning with the May 2011 siege of Rastan. Between May 29 and June 2, regime forces indiscriminately shelled the city and executed at least 75 residents while also conducting widespread detention campaigns.

Rastan would be the epicenter of several more battles throughout 2011 and 2012 before the opposition eventually carved out a swathe of liberated territory across the countryside. In May 2018, the Assad regime fully recaptured the city following a multi-year siege and “reconciliation agreement.” Most of the city’s residents fled to Idlib or out of the country at this time. Rastan was not liberated again until the regime’s collapse in December 2024.

The fall of the Assad regime has ushered in a new period of intense transition for Rastan. The city has suffered significant material and economic damage, and pre-war and even war-time social structures have been broken and built anew (Dr. Aymen al-Dassouky has an excellent report on the evolution of local social structures following the regime’s takeover).

Following is a detailed assessment of Rastan’s conditions post-Assad. I have combined two interviews that I conducted in March 2026, one with a former Free Syrian Army commander from Rastan and the other with a former opposition fighter from Talbiseh who now does aid work across northern Homs. The topics include post-Assad social divisions in the city, local actors involved in mediation, and challenges facing the economic and education sectors.

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]]><![CDATA[Tishreen’s Military Doctors: Analysis and Interview]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tishreens-military-doctors-analysishttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tishreens-military-doctors-analysisWed, 06 May 2026 09:02:46 GMTLast week, old videos showing horrific abuses by regime military doctors against prisoners resurfaced online. The videos fueled an ongoing debate within Syrian society over the role of the regime’s military hospitals within the detention and torture network, and whether justice will be upheld against former doctors found guilty of torturing detainees or covering up their executions. A few days later, the former director of the Latakia Military Hospital was found and arrested in Jableh.

His arrest is just one of a long string of otherwise unannounced arrests targeting former military doctors. This is one of the most contentious files within the already extremely divisive transitional justice topic. Many former military doctors have, since ending their service or since the regime’s fall, opened private civilian practices. The arrests of these men – done without public announcements and often by masked armed security forces – has fueled misinformation within Alawi social media networks of kidnappings against “doctors”. Doctors are almost always framed as civilians, with no mention of their past employment.

There are two commonly understood roles of the military medical sector in the detainment system: senior doctors who signed fake death certificates claiming those murdered under torture or execution died of natural causes, and nurses and lower-level doctors who worked directly inside the prisons. A 2023 investigation by the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison into the Tishreen Military Hospital provides a detailed looked into the complex web of doctors, nurses, military police and intelligence members involved in abusing and murdering detainees within the hospital. According to the report:

“All the witnesses we met agreed that the medical staff who were allowed to access this place [the Emergency Department] were carefully chosen from regime-loyalists and could be said to be mostly Alawite. Nurses were selected by the chief of nurses in coordination with the security officer and the hospital manager and they are not held to account regarding their treatment of detainees. They exercised all forms of maltreatment including physical beating in front of officers and officials.”

When asked about the military doctors, many Alawis do not understand why they would be targeted for arrest. The intricacies of the Assad-era detention and torture network are more foreign to the Alawi community, compared to Sunnis, and it is difficult for even some anti-Assad Alawis to accept the idea that respected local doctors could have been involved. Even if people know what some doctors did in these hospitals, their relatives and friends who served there would always describe themselves as the exceptions – doctors who treated detainees well and stood up for their rights.

These divergent narratives came to a head in early February 2026, when at least seven former Tishreen doctors were arrested in Damascus, Homs, and Tartous. The rapid arrest of five doctors in Homs city alone caused viral Facebook posts about the “kidnapping” of Alawi doctors. Families of the arrested men often struggle to find information about their whereabouts or the charges against them, further fueling misinformation and fear that these are sect-based kidnappings or arrests.

I asked two Ministry of Interior investigators about these arrests later that month. They confirmed that a list of several hundred people affiliated with the military hospitals had been created throughout 2025, based on documents and witness testimonies, and disseminated to local security offices. This list included men wanted for questioning, and men wanted for crimes with which the government had strong evidence of their involvement. This campaign has clearly increased in intensity throughout the spring.

Last December I met with a former military doctor who worked throughout the war in Tishreen Military Hospital. We spoke among other topics about the treatment of Alawi military doctors after liberation and his perceptions of Tishreen and treating detainees. The doctor was arrested in February. I have edited this interview to remove any potentially identifying information about him. It is particularly interesting to note how he describes the role of Sunni doctors and the perception that they are not being targeted for arrest, and also how his descriptions of Sunni doctors changes throughout the interview.

]]><![CDATA[Civil Peace in Wadi Nasara]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-in-wadi-nasarahttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-in-wadi-nasaraSun, 22 Mar 2026 20:06:09 GMTDiscussions over the position of Syria’s Christians within the new country have returned following this week’s decision by the Governor of Damascus to restrict the sale of alcohol to Christian neighborhoods. The decision, which has since been paused, triggered widespread criticism. The most nuanced and important critiques came from the Damascene Christian community themselves, who rejected the sectarian lines explicitly drawn by the decision and the reduction of their neighborhoods to, “places for alcohol and nightlife,” as Minister Hind Kabawat wrote.

Syria’s Christians have long adopted a stance of general neutrality throughout the country’s fraught history, largely as a survival mechanism. Most Christian communities were therefore able to avoid significant involvement within the Assad regime’s security apparatus (particularly its militias, unlike other minority groups who became the backbone of the regime’s forces during the war). After the country’s liberation, Christians have asked for little, wanting only for their rights to be conditionally protected and to be kept safe from attacks.

One exception to this trend is the large Christian area of Wadi Nasara in western Homs. This valley contains more than two dozen Christian villages nestled on the northern and eastern sides of a mountain atop which sits the famous Crusader fortress Krak des Chevaliers and Hosn, a Sunni Turkmen town. Hosn and the neighboring Sunni Turkmen town of Zara had risen against the Assad regime early in the war and were quickly besieged. Given its geographic position, the regime used Wadi Nasara to maintain the siege and attack Hosn, including through the establishment of a Christian militia under the National Defense Forces (NDF) umbrella.

There are now decade-old grievances between Hosn and Wadi Nasara as a result of these battles, as outlined in one of my previous pieces:

Last month I visited Wadi Nasara, following a visit to Zara and Hosn in December, and met with a local priest involved in civil peace efforts between the communities. The following is an edited transcript of our meeting. This long interview covers the core problems between Hosn and Wadi Nasara and recent attempts at civil peace dialogues between the two communities, as well as topics on government relations and social issues within the community.

]]><![CDATA["Activate the Local Election": Trust-building in Dreikish]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/activate-the-local-election-trusthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/activate-the-local-election-trustSat, 14 Mar 2026 13:25:37 GMTTartous’ Dreikish District is a unique region of Syria’s coast. Physically, it is the only region to contain a four-lane highway connecting the district capitol to the governorate capitol. This well-developed infrastructure reflects the unique social fabric of the district. The area was once a tourism hub, known for its lush mountains and forests, but also for a strong art and culture scene and having a higher concentration of academics and writers than elsewhere in the coast. At the same time, many senior regime military officials hail from Dreikish, which is what gave the area the political power to earn such infrastructure.

This unique blend of cultures has driven the area’s experiences since the fall of Assad. The district lost more than 6,000 men during the war fighting under the Assad regime, and thousands more underwent ‘taswiya’ after December 8. Yet the district has the strongest youth civil movements in Tartous and also saw one of the only grass-roots civil peace committees form, with strong, persistent engagement with local security officials since December 2024. This engagement was undermined significantly by the insurgency on March 6, 2025, and has floundered in the year since. See my recent report for a lengthy account of what happened in Dreikish on March 6:

I have visited Dreikish several times over the past year, meeting with youth activists and members of the civil peace committee. Below is an interview I conducted in mid-February 2026 with a former member of the committee. We discuss the security situation, impact of the SDF’s defeat in the northeast, the weakened role of the civil peace committee, the economy, and most importantly, clear steps the government could take to rebuild trust with the Alawi community.

]]><![CDATA[Surging Violence in Homs]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/surging-violence-in-homshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/surging-violence-in-homsFri, 06 Mar 2026 14:50:59 GMTHoms City remains the most complex part of Syria. The city and its surrounding countryside contain communities from nearly every one of Syria’s various ethnic and religious sects, which the Assad regime quickly exploited when the revolution broke out in 2011. Regime officials mobilized Alawi youth across the region to assist in its crackdown against anti-regime communities. Sunni communities in the city and its countryside endured numerous massacres and ethnic cleansings over the course of the war.

The fall of Assad and return of many displaced Sunnis opened the door to new waves of revenge campaigns, fueled by a lack of transitional justice and local civil peace initiatives to address the history of violence in the area. As a result, Homs city has seen regular sectarian and targeted violence against minorities. This violence has ebbed and flowed over the past year, with several extended periods of significantly reduced violence in the city. However, the past two months have seen some of the worst bouts of killings and security chaos since the fall of the regime.

I met with several local activists in the city in mid-February to discuss the situation. One noticeable new trend is the concentration of killings in Akrama neighborhood, a mixed-sect commercial area in southern Homs surrounded by several very poor Alawi and Sunni neighborhoods. Below is an edited transcript of an interview I conducted with an Alawi dentist and his daughter who live in Akrama. I previously published an interview with them in December in which we covered the history of the neighborhood and the need for targeted civil peace initiatives. In this interview we discuss the root causes of Homs’ violence and impact of the violence on Alawi communities, particularly in pushing some to sell their homes and leave the city.

A house in Karm al-Louz neighborhood still bears the graffiti of regime forces. The eastern edge of Karm al-Louz, which sits between Akrama and Karm Zeitoun, remains largely empty of its residents ever since the regime’s military campaign in 2012.

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