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Q: Recently the 11th anniversary of the martyrdom of Shaykh Wahid al-Bal‘ous has passed. Of course the Rijal al-Karama Movement says it is still on his path, and in al-Suwayda’ today many people speak about the Mount Bashan project and separation from Syria. Do you think there is an inconsistency between Wahid al-Bal‘ous’ path and support for the Mount Bashan project today?

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According to a report today from the pro-Damascus ‘Suwayda 24’ outlet (which used to be fiercely critical of the government but has since been taken over by someone on the original admin team who is pro-government), ten students managed to go from National Guard-controlled areas to government-held areas to take their examinations.

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However, in order to proceed with publication, I have to pay licensing fees for use of the modern critical edition of the original Latin text of ‘Chronicle of the World’ (which was published by another company: Brepols).

As part of this effort at crowd fundraising I will be more than happy to mention contributors by name in the acknowledgements section at the beginning of the book. If you make a contribution of at least $50, I will also offer a complementary annual subscription to this newsletter, granting full access to the archive of my writings. Please inform me in writing if you do make such a contribution.

The fundraising target is £2500 (around $3300) and no higher than this.

You can make a contribution here via the GoFundMe page here.

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Q: The UN says that dialogue on al-Suwayda’ and resolving its issues has reached a dead-end. In your view what are the most important reasons for that?

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For starters, I will reiterate what I pointed out in my previous post on Jason. Why was a lot of attention paid to his case? Because he occupied a position of prominence at a world renowned academic institution and was widely hailed in media and by his supporters as a genius and world-leading researcher in his particular field. ‘You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do’- proclaimed his boss at Cambridge- Hilary Cremin- in a glowing BBC video hailing him as Cambridge’s ‘youngest ever black professor.’ Moreover, an integral part of Jason’s image was his extraordinary life story of triumph over adversity, if taken at face value: not speaking until age 11, not learning to read and write until 18, accomplishing remarkable marathon feats, raising massive amounts of money for charity and so on.

These issues alone made the stakes very high. If Jason’s remarkable image was in fact built on fraud and deceit in his research work and life story, then intense scrutiny was always going to be inevitable. If fakery was uncovered in his research, then questions were inevitably going to be asked about whether he was making up his life story too. If lies had first been uncovered in his life story, then it would have been natural to follow up on exploring whether deceit had also seeped into his research work.

The scrutiny was also intensified by the behaviour of Jason and his supporters. Attempts to raise concerns privately were ignored and suppressed by the institutions that should have done proper vetting and due diligence and advanced him to this position of prominence in the first place. Jason himself resorted to lawyers and the police to suppress a journalist’s efforts to get to the truth of allegations against Jason. When someone leaked details of grumblings against Jason to Nathan Cofnas, who published findings that clearly demonstrated Jason’s research fraud, the reaction of prominent supporters of Jason was to dismiss the charges as baseless and portray them as part of a smear campaign, when what they should have done- at minimum if they were not prepared to investigate for themselves- was acknowledge publicly that the charges were serious and needed to be examined without ideological prejudice. Or, they could have done the job of actually looking into the charges themselves, and they would have seen that there was substance to them and realised that Jason was a conman.

Once the scandal initially broke, Jason did little to alleviate the scrutiny he was under. If anything, he made it worse by not coming clean. He came up with an obviously bogus explanation for the plagiarism he had committed in his thesis. He denied deceit in his life story and made more implausible claims to the media. He told the Daily Mail to attribute a clarification to a ‘source’ close to him, when he himself had made the clarification. Once he finally resigned from Cambridge, he effectively refused to concede that he had done anything wrong.

It’s natural that Jason would have felt uncomfortable and stressed about the scrutiny he was under, but others have also been the subject of intense scrutiny amid high-profile scandal, and if they had committed suicide or otherwise died under stress, would that have been a reason to overlook the wrongdoing or terminate scrutiny?

Consider the case of Stephen Glass, the former New Republic journalist who committed fabrications in dozens of articles he wrote for the magazine and other high profile publications. Glass’ case arose in the late 1990s and predated the social media era, but it was a huge scandal in media at the time and justifiably so. He was writing for some of America’s most prominent publications and had attracted admiration as a perceived wunderkind in DC, churning out a steady stream of highly entertaining scoops. As is the case with Arday, the stakes were naturally high. He was fired once it had been established that he had completely made up one article- ‘Hack Heaven’- but understandably that case of complete fabrication raised the suspicion that he might have committed fabrications in other articles too. That suspicion, of course, turned out to be entirely correct. And let us suppose that Glass had cultivated a life story about himself that was extraordinary and added to the awe surrounding him: overcoming huge economic disadvantage, perhaps claiming he had been unable to read and write until he was 21, asserting he had performed various athletic feats that rivalled world-record holders. There would no doubt have been scrutiny of that story in the wake of the scandal surrounding his journalistic fabrications.

No doubt Glass felt very distressed as his journalism career collapsed, and perhaps he even had suicidal thoughts. But if he had actually gone ahead and committed suicide at the time because of the intense scrutiny, would that have been a reason to overlook his misconduct, or decry the media and those who exposed Glass as having ‘hounded’ him to his death? Of course not. Thankfully, Glass did not commit suicide. Instead, he came to realise he had done a huge amount of wrong and sought to turn his life around, and in my view he has turned his life around, even as there are undoubtedly some who will always dislike Glass for what he did and the scandal will likely form a key part of any obituary for him. As a partner of the law firm that hired Glass and still employs him today put it: ‘You were on track to be an asshole…The best thing that ever happened to you in your life is that you fell flat on your face.’ Very well put, I would say. Nowadays, people do not scrutinise Glass further because he is clearly very diligent and scrupulous in his work, and he has come clean about what he did wrong.

Those who wanted to support Jason amid the scandal and were concerned about his well-being should really have counselled him to take a similar course of action: come clean about his research misconduct and lies, cooperate with the investigations that had been launched into his work and life story, and pursue an alternative career path in a way that demonstrated real insight into and remorse for his past failings. Or if he was unwilling to fess up to wrongdoing, then they could have advised him to simply keep quiet and withdraw from the public space entirely.

In death, Jason has no explanation to offer us about what he did and why. That will inevitably invite more scrutiny, and the institutional investigations into his record and how he advanced to his position of prominence will have to take their course. I wish no pain or ill for Jason’s family and friends, but in death he does not become a hero or the victim in his scandal. Any judgement of his record has to be based on an honest assessment as to the veracity of his research and claims.

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The manchild first gained media notoriety in 2016 for his attempt to sue Oxford University, demanding financial compensation on the basis that the university offered ‘negligently inadequate’ teaching for a Modern History exam paper focused on documentary evidence from a short period in British imperial history in India (1916-1934). Faiz obtained a very poor result in that paper, which contributed to an overall low 2.1 (upper second-class) degree, supposedly preventing him from realising a successful career in law on account of alleged psychiatric injury. The exam itself was based on the concept of ‘gobbets’, which will be familiar to many students of humanities disciplines at Oxford. A ‘gobbets’ paper or section consists of a selection of excerpts from a syllabus of set texts for a module, with the student required to produce a short commentary on some of those excerpts (normally you have an option to choose which ones to comment on from the selection), explaining the context and importance of the extract.

The manchild photographed during his attempt to sue Oxford University.


Leaving aside the wholly implausible chain of causation regarding how the exam result supposedly impacted Faiz’s life (for one thing, he secured a training contract at a world-renowned law firm- Clifford Chance), a key to success in a gobbets paper is that you have to read and study the entire syllabus of set texts. If you neglect to study a substantial portion of them, there is a big risk that you will have to do gobbets for texts you have not studied and thus you will do poorly in the exam. A fatal aspect to Faiz’s case of ‘negligently inadequate’ teaching in my view is that he admitted his reading of the set texts was selective. He sought to shift the blame to the teaching staff, citing a lack of coverage of much of the set texts syllabus in classes. Yet I remember doing gobbets as part of some of my papers at Oxford, and for papers where the set texts syllabus was relatively large, it was only feasible to cover a small sample of the set texts with tutors in order to get some idea as to how a gobbet might be tackled. There simply was not the time to cover all the set texts in classes and tutorials, and an important aspect of learning at that stage was to read and study the set texts yourself. What was true back in 2014 was surely also true back in 2000 when the manchild was doing his Final exams, and the judge rightly faulted him for his ‘inadequate preparation’ as opposed to ‘inadequate teaching.’

More generally, the manchild tried to claim that the university had not made reasonable adjustments or taken into his account supposed anxiety, depression and insomnia he was suffering at the time of his exams. While it is my understanding from testimony I have seen that the manchild was renowned at Brasenose for having ‘issues’ during his time there, it was correctly noted that there was no way such generalised conditions, if he were indeed suffering from them, could have been taken into account for the exams. If he had been too unwell to take his exams, he could have withdrawn, ‘rusticated’ (taken a year out) and sat them in the following year.

The judge, who dismissed Faiz’s claim in February 2018, concluded with sound advice for the claimant, suggesting he ‘refocus’ and ‘lower his expectations at least for the time being.’ But the manchild took things to the extreme, apparently deciding that he is permanently ‘disabled’ (primarily because of his mental health issues) and consequently unable to work at all. With the manchild remaining unemployed and wholly dependent on his very wealthy parents for financial support, the parents eventually decided- after a deterioration in relations with him- to substantially reduce their support to around $2000 a month (still very generous by any standard), while still allowing him to live rent free in a flat they own in London.

For Faiz, though, this reduction in support was an act of great cruelty, and fearing he would lose his support entirely, he decided that his best course of action was…to sue his parents in a bid to get a court order for lifelong financial maintenance. The claim, which would have set a precedent and was indeed novel in British legal history, included a submission on the manchild’s behalf that he was a ‘vulnerable’ adult because, in part, he is ‘wholly unlikely to be able to get, far less maintain, any employment position at all, still less one commensurate with either his high intellect or the level of his education and educational attainment.’ Thankfully, the judge Sir James Munby (who died this year) dismissed the case in 2020, and Faiz’s application for permission to appeal was rejected in 2021.

Both of these cases attracted widespread media attention and derision, and one might have thought that after facing such high-profile losses and humiliation, the manchild would have realised that his best way forward was to give up his obsession with costly litigation and take advantage of his privilege to develop new skills or forge a new worthwhile career path: perhaps becoming a historian or novelist, or buckling down and retraining for a new job.

But documents that have emerged this year show that litigation has remained the manchild’s key passion: ‘pertinacious’ indeed, as Munby highlighted in his judgement. For one thing, for more than a decade he has been involved in a dispute with a certain Erum Majid Randhawa, a resident of Connecticut, with aspects of the case having reached the U.S. Supreme Court this year. The origin of the dispute is essentially that Erum rejected his romantic advances- something that angered Faiz to the point that he started harassing her. Eventually, Erum filed a complaint with the police, which issued an arrest warrant that remains in force. Faiz, for his part, has refused to come to the United States so that the warrant can be served. Instead, he has spent years litigating in the courts against Erum and also filed a lawsuit against a Connecticut police officer.

Back on home soil on the other side of the pond, the manchild continues to believe that he is entitled to lifetime support from his parents as a matter of legal right. In April this year, the law firm Faiz relies on- Dale Langley Solicitors- wrote a letter to the executive officer of the scrutiny unit of the House of Commons, suggesting a repeal of a paragraph of the Children Act 1989 on the basis that it prevents the ‘adult disabled children’ of cohabiting parents from applying for financial orders against their parents- one of the legal issues that came up in Faiz’s case. The same letter says that the manchild attended an event in November 2025 where he met one of the UK’s Supreme Court justices (Lord Briggs) and discussed his case, with Lord Briggs supposedly ‘incredulous’ at the Court of Appeal’s rejection of Faiz’s case.

As this obstinacy on the manchild’s part suggests, he has not understood an important lesson from his failed attempt to sue his parents: namely, don’t bite the hands of those who feed you. Court documents that have come out in June and July this year reveal that the manchild has lost yet another case: this time, to sue the Financial Ombudsman Service with an insurance company (ARAG) as the ‘interested party’, because of the refusal to grant him legal insurance cover for the purpose of…initiating legal proceedings against his father. After a period in which relations supposedly improved between the manchild and his father, things took a turn for the worse in 2024 when his father (who lives in the UAE and is reportedly suffering from cancer and other ailments, which are an obvious impediment to travel) apparently failed to keep a promise to visit the manchild in London, as a result of which the manchild furiously berated him, calling him a ‘stupid asshole’ and a ‘lying swine.’ What a lovely way to speak of a father who has supported you so generously over the years.

Understandably, the father wanted his manchild son to stop contacting him because of this horrible abuse, and had lawyers inform the son that his actions constituted violations of Emirati Electronic Crimes Law, warning him to desist from contact or face consequences. The essence of the manchild’s case is that since the insurance policies he had allowed for covering legal costs to initiate a claim in the event of ‘injury’ caused by a ‘specific or sudden accident,’ he was entitled to insurance to cover legal costs for initiating a claim against his father, on the basis that receipt of the letter from his father’s solicitors caused ‘psychiatric injury.’ Simply put, the manchild had no valid basis for his claim for insurance here because the issuing and receipt of the letter could not be reasonably interpreted as constituting an ‘accident’ that caused injury. Rather, whatever the psychological impact the letter had, it was an outcome that the manchild himself might not have foreseen but could have been expected anyway given how viciously he berated his father and the prior history of tensions in the relationship.

The result of the manchild’s failed claim is that he must now pay legal costs, and quite predictably he called for a stay of execution, on the basis that he supposedly does not have the means to pay the costs and that enforcement created the risk of an imminent heart attack or stroke. The medical evidence was submitted on his behalf by his treating psychiatrist, which was rightly dismissed for reasons such as the fact that he did not explain how he is qualified to comment on cardiovascular health. Further, the manchild did not provide a proper disclosure of his assets.

It is in fact clear from all these cases that the manchild is intelligent, and he had various opportunities that gave him a better start than most. The simple truth is that his failings- whether in his exams or professional career- are his own fault, whether because of over-anxiousness, laziness, rudeness or other shortcomings he could have remedied or sought to address. His reported ‘disability’ has not prevented him from actively engaging in multiple cases of litigation and applying his intellect to them in a bid to advance cases that are nonetheless hopeless to anyone with common sense. As Munby put it in his judgement:

‘Moreover, even if it be the fact that the applicant [the manchild] is vulnerable, it has never been suggested that he lacks capacity either to litigate or to manage his affairs; and the documents he has himself prepared demonstrate his intellectual abilities. Vulnerability does not confer a licence to litigate with impunity.’

German analyst Tobias Schneider suggests that to be long-term unemployed in the modern West, you should suffer from one or more of the following problems: (i) you are ‘severely mentally ill or handicapped,’ (ii) you are extremely lazy, (iii) you have a severe personality disorder that makes it impossible for people to be around you. I concur and strongly suggest that (ii) and (iii) apply in the manchild’s case. He has been used to a lifetime of privilege and generous financial and other material support and prefers to direct his mental capacity towards litigation, having convinced himself he can never get a real job.

To conclude: I loved studying at Oxford and will always remember my days fondly there. But while both Oxford and Cambridge are world-leading universities, they are nonetheless institutions run by humans and mistakes are made, whether in sometimes hiring the wrong staff or sometimes admitting the wrong students. I am fairly sure Oxford feels the same way now about the manchild, whose own failings surely embody the definition of being a loser.

I was recently interviewed by Djene Bajalan, an associate professor of history at Missouri State University. We discussed my translation and study of Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada’s Minor Histories published by Manchester University Press. We discussed the 13th century archbishop’s career, his history of Spain project, and how he situated the history of the Arabs/Muslims (the final instalment in this project) within his conception of Spain’s history, and what the works tells us about his perceptions of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations in the Iberian peninsula.

You can access the podcast here.

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Armenian Protestant Community building in Aleppo, Syria (photo my own).



Introduction

For international policymakers and audiences, one of the foremost concerns regarding the post-Assad order in Syria is the status of the country’s minorities and how they fit into this order. Their situation is seen as key to determining whether the new order can be pluralist and representative of all the country’s ethnic and religious groups, forging an inclusive national identity that leads to genuine “civil peace” (Arabic: al-salm al-ahli, to borrow a concept frequently invoked by the transitional government) and long-term stability. What, then, is the nature of the post-Assad order and how do the country’s minorities relate to it? In general, when considering this issue, one can divide minority communities into two categories: (i) minority communities that are more or less geographically isolated, and (ii) minority communities that form substantial populations spanning a more or less contiguous region. It concludes by considering the policy implications of the assessment, suggesting that constructive but critical engagement is needed to ensure that a lasting order emerges to which minority communities can meaningfully relate.

Continuity with the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham-led Order in Northwest Syria

Although the ‘Victory of the Revolution’ conference in January 2025 announced the dissolution of all military factions and some meaningful steps have been taken to merge the various armed groups that deposed the prior regime into the new military and security forces (such as shedding their names and banners), the order established in the form of the transition government bears continuity in many ways with the order that existed in Idlib and its environs in the northwest of the country and was led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the period 2019-2024.

During that period, HTS’ leader Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani (Ahmad al-Sharaa) functioned as the ultimate sovereign, and HTS was the hegemonic faction, imposing an authoritarian order in which other factions were tolerated provided they acknowledged subordination to HTS and did not form rival or autonomous projects of their own. Elections, insofar as they existed, were exercises in elite self-selection and not popular sovereignty. HTS figures were responsible for the most important portfolios of the military, public security, the justice system and external relations, even as the group was willing to outsource many day-to-day administrative functions to technocrats who were not formally affiliated with HTS and served in the HTS-backed ‘Salvation Government.’ HTS also focused on cementing Turkish acceptance of its hegemony in the northwest and ‘neutralising’ international powers that were hostile to it and capable of doing the group harm: foremost the United States, which continued to class HTS as a ‘terrorist’ organization but refrained from targeting its leaders, viewing the group’s crackdown on both the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-loyalist Hurras al-Din as useful for counter-terrorism purposes.

Ideologically, HTS distanced itself from aspects of Salafi jihadist ideology that would prove most problematic to its acceptance on the international stage: foremost among them Salafi jihadism’s rejection of the international order of nation-states and ideas of waging jihad beyond Syria’s borders should the regime fall, though in 2023-2024 the group did play to populist Islamic rhetoric about the Palestinian cause and ‘liberating al-Aqsa’ from Israeli/Jewish control. The group also showed a willingness to engage in outreach to the Christian and Druze communities in Idlib, making amends in restoring property that had been confiscated from them. However, the group still framed itself in sect-centric terms as a force representing the Sunnis in Syria and fostered an environment that continued to promote anti-Shia and anti-Alawite rhetoric, and no meaningful steps were taken prior to the fall of the regime to clamp down on such sectarian sentiments, whether within the ranks of HTS or among the wider Sunni population and support base in the northwest. Further, in relation to the Druze minority in Idlib, the group did not formally announce the cancellation of the policy of forced conversion to Sunni Islam that had been imposed by HTS’ predecessor, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2015. However, clerics affiliated with the Salvation Government privately told residents that conversion should be a matter of choice and that the prior conversions had been carried out in an erroneous manner.

Many of the features of the HTS-led order that existed in northwest Syria map out onto the transition government, both in terms of its structure and overall performance. al-Sharaa serves as supreme sovereign in occupying the presidency and has strong executive powers in accordance with the interim constitution. His closest allies within HTS also occupy the same key portfolios in the government: Muzhhar al-Ways (a key clerical figure in HTS) serves as Justice Minister, Anas Khattab (who served in the HTS security apparatus) serves as Interior Minister, while Asaad Shaybani (a key liaison figure in HTS’ external relations) serves as the Foreign Minister.

The transition government has been willing to delegate less important administrative roles at both the national and local level to those who were not affiliated with HTS, including some members of minority communities. For example, in localities inhabited by minority communities, members of the minorities may occupy the position of head of the town or municipal council. Further, the transition government currently has a Christian woman (Hind Kabawat) serving as Social Affairs and Labour Minister, while a Druze from al-Suwayda’ (Amjad Badr) occupied the position of Minister of Agriculture until recently.

However, the hegemony of al-Sharaa and his closest associates within the government’s structure remains clear. In addition, recent talk and speculation of a major reshuffle within the transition government in order to reduce the influence of Sharaa loyalists and HTS cadres proved to be mistaken. In fact, the reshuffling was smaller than expected, and if anything has increased the role of HTS-loyalist and Salvation Government veterans in the administration: most notably, media minister Hamza al-Mustafa (who served as director of Syria TV, which is Qatari-funded and was aligned with the opposition to Assad but was by no means an HTS mouthpiece) was replaced with Khalid Zarour. Likewise, Amjad Badr was replaced with Basil al-Suwaydan, who was also in HTS and has notably filled a number of roles simultaneously within the transition government, including the position of deputy agriculture minister and head of a ‘Committee to Combat Illicit Gain’- a body intended to secure deals with businessmen tied to the former regime and expropriate their assets.

Both negative and positive aspects of the HTS-led order are mirrored in the transition government. On the positive side, the government has proven successful in ending Syria’s international isolation and seeks to have good or at least productive relations with neighbours as far as possible and genuinely wishes to prevent the country from being used as launching pad for militant operations abroad. Not only is the government sincere in seeking to counter the Islamic State (which has declared the government an ‘apostate’ entity and has claimed multiple attacks against it), but it is also engaged in active efforts to clamp down on what remains of Hezbollah’s weapons smuggling networks and has made clear that Syria will not be used as a base for Palestinian militant activity against Israel.

On the negative side, the HTS leadership never repositioned itself clearly in a doctrinal sense and did not formally renounce the group’s Sunni-centric worldview. Whatever nice-sounding rhetoric al-Sharaa or other figures of the transition government may issue about a national identity and the need for ‘civil peace’, a Sunni populist mood has gained strength among the government’s support base, invoking the legacy of the Umayyads (the dynasty that ruled a caliphate spanning from Spain to India with its centre of power in Damascus) and asserting that Syria should rightfully be ruled by the Sunni majority, or more specifically the Sunni Arab majority.

This populism at best offers toleration of minorities on condition that they acknowledge the Sunni and ‘Umayyad’ character of the state, but at worst holds minority communities- whether at the national or local level- responsible for Sunni suffering during the war and seeks to exact retribution or simply holds minorities in contempt on the grounds of being ‘disbelievers.’ For its part, the Islamic State has sought to exploit disillusionment among those within HTS’ support base who may feel that the government is too soft towards minorities or not doing enough to implement an Islamic system of government, calling on such disillusioned people to ‘repent’ and join its ranks.

With this overall picture in mind, we can explore how minority communities have interacted with the new order in Syria.

Isolated Communities: Towards ‘Conciliation’ with the New State

The main minorities that can be considered as generally scattered in isolated communities are the Christians, Twelver Shia and Ismailis. There are, of course, members of other minorities that live in isolated pockets, most notably the Druze of Idlib (discussed above), but these other minority populations generally constitute communities spanning contiguous regions.

Generally speaking, the isolated minority communities are simply unable to organize their own political projects and find that they must adapt to the new order for survival purposes and thus adopt a ‘conciliatory’ approach to the new state and their immediate neighbours, even if those minority communities were previously aligned with the Assad regime and became significant sources of manpower for its army and various auxiliary formations tied to the regime and its foreign allies. As such, they are compelled to show support for the new state, even if just prior to the fall of the regime they had been waving the old Syrian flag and openly declaring loyalty to the old order.

A useful case illustration of this phenomenon is the Twelver Shia villages of Nubl and al-Zahara’ in north Aleppo countryside, surrounded to the northwest by Kurdish villages of the Afrin region and on all other sides by Sunni Arab localities. The two villages were besieged by the insurgents in the 2012-2016 period and were a source of local manpower for expeditionary fighters working with Iran and Hezbollah alongside regime forces in Aleppo city. Fighters from Nubl and al-Zahara’ also worked alongside Iran and Hezbollah in other parts of Syria (e.g. securing the Homs desert and the town of Albukamal on the border with Iraq).

The regime and its allies cleared a route to the two villages in 2016 that involved extensive damage to several Sunni localities (including Mayer, which is located just opposite Nubl on the Gaziantep-Aleppo highway), and in 2020 a direct route to the two villages via the highway was established, entailing further displacement and damage to nearby Sunni villages like Hayyan, Bayanun and Anadan. It is accepted on both sides that some people from Nubl and al-Zahara’ took advantage of the displacement to loot the properties of people in the neighbouring Sunni villages, taking out iron from homes (for example) and selling it or repurposing it.

As the regime rapidly collapsed in late 2024, the people of Nubl and al-Zahara’ had justifiable fears that they would be subject to reprisal killings, and so with the exception of a few individuals, virtually the entire population fled with the aim of reaching Homs or Damascus. A smaller contingent also became holed up in the locality of al-Safira. Despite many years of promoting anti-Shia rhetoric, the leadership of the insurgent offensive issued messages of reassurance to the people of Nubl and al-Zahara’ that they would not be harmed if they chose to abandon the regime and return home. In addition, some of those who worked with the Iranians in Aleppo but defected to the insurgent side as part of the offensive- primarily the Baqir Brigade, which recruited from Beggara tribesmen- supposedly worked to secure a guarantee of safety for the people of Nubl and al-Zahara’.

Following the regime’s collapse, most of the people who fled Nubl and al-Zahara’ eventually chose to accept the assurances of safety and return home rather than face a fate of indefinite exile. As part of the return, weapons were surrendered to the new authorities while former military personnel not wanted for crimes underwent taswiya (’regularisation of status’). For its part, the government installed a police station in Nubl and deployed personnel from the ‘Public Security Apparatus’ both inside Nubl and al-Zahara’ and to man checkpoints at the main entrances to both villages via the Aleppo-Gaziantep highway. Further, on occasion, additional checkpoints are deployed within the villages. In addition, both localities have local councils that are led by people from the villages.

These arrangements do represent a step forward from the days of HTS in that the authorities are seeking to protect the people from Nubl and al-Zahara’ from external harm. The process of disarmament has also had the positive effect of leading to better security in comparison with the days of the former regime, where multiple armed groups existed within the two villages while the police was effectively powerless. As explained by an imam from Nubl, the days prior to the fall of the regime were ‘chaos’ in terms of security, while disarmament has led to better internal security. Indeed, in contrast with other areas of Syria, no notable security incidents like shootings, armed clashes, bombings or murders have been recorded inside the two villages.

But this arrangement is not without its drawbacks, and there is still the suspicion and hostility towards Shiism that existed in the HTS days. For one thing, all the people who worked with the former regime’s military and forces affiliated with Iran and Hezbollah suddenly found themselves without work and have been unable to enlist in the country’s new military and security forces. Indeed, in the two villages, none of those responsible for managing local security are from Nubl and al-Zahara’, or even Shia, nor have any efforts been made to recruit locals. For instance, two of the leading security officials in Nubl, stationed at an office just next to the cultural centre, are from Homs and Idlib. Nor is the director of the Nubl district (nahiya- an administrative division that is affiliated with a mantaqa/region) from Nubl or al-Zahara’.

In addition, within Nubl and al-Zahara’, locals no longer hold public celebrations outside the mosques or their own homes to mark various Shia religious occasions. Conflicting accounts have emerged as to whether this is the result of local notables’ initiative or a prohibition imposed by security officials, but the evidence suggests the latter is more likely. At an earlier stage, the local authorities sought to ban both the Shia call to prayer issued from the mosques’ minarets and Shia religious instruction in the hawza (seminary) in Nubl and al-Zahara’, but subsequently relented.

Further, while security inside the two villages may be good, people from Nubl and al-Zahara’ face security risks travelling outside. On more than one occasion, people from the two villages travelling outside have been killed in attacks targeting them. Some of the perpetrators may be from the neighbouring Sunni villages and seeking ‘revenge’ against people from Nubl and al-Zahara’, while others may be members of Islamic State cells that target Shia for no other reason than their being Shia. In the latter case, attacks on Shia have been claimed by the Islamic State in both the Homs and Damascus area, the most recent being the assassination of the imam of the Sayyida Zaynab Shia shrine in early May. Restrictions have also been placed on displays of Shiism in the Sayyida Zaynab area, with the shrine administrators having been forced to remove the ‘Oh Zaynab’ banner from the shrine last year and prohibit photos and video filming inside the shrine. Both measures were taken out of the local authorities’ concern about antagonizing Sunni sentiment.

More broadly, there have been few efforts to bring about meaningful reconciliation between Nubl and al-Zahara’ and the surrounding Sunni villages. Interactions that do take place are mostly at the elite level- for example, between the heads of the local councils for matters of services- and have not fostered broader interactions between the communities. Instead, resentment exists in the surrounding villages at the perceived lack of accountability for people from Nubl and al-Zahara’ implicated in the destruction of these villages. This resentment is likely to be increased by any project to improve services in Nubl and al-Zahara’, most notably talk of plans to connect the two villages to the Turkish electricity grid that was already extended to areas of north Aleppo under rebel control prior to the fall of the regime.

Finally, some Shia communities have faced a worse situation than the people of Nubl and al-Zahara’. Most notably, the Shia of al-Fua and Kafariya- two originally Shia villages in Idlib whose inhabitants were besieged for around 3 years and were evacuated in 2018 in a deal brokered by Iran- have found themselves unable to return to their homes which are being occupied by both displaced Sunnis who cannot return to their own destroyed homes and foreigners (in particular Uzbeks) who joined the insurgency against the Assad regime. The government has not made any guarantees for their return, and there is strong resentment against the Shia of al-Fua and Kafariya in the Sunni localities immediately surrounding the two villages, such as Binnish, which is located just south of al-Fua. A number of Shia who were living in villages in Homs countryside near the border with Lebanon have had their homes and lands confiscated and have become displaced to neighbouring Lebanon. This is particularly the case for Shia from these areas who worked with Hezbollah and Iran. Most recently, the government demolished a Shia village in Homs (Mazra’a) on the grounds of building violations, displacing the inhabitants to other Shia villages like al-Thabatiya.

In comparison with the Twelver Shia, the Ismailis and Christians have generally fared better under the new authorities, one likely reason being that as a whole these two communities were not as closely associated with the former regime and Iran and Hezbollah in particular. In the case of the Ismailis, who are primarily based in the town of Salamiyah in eastern Hama and its environs, it should also be noted that the community has a single religious leadership embodied in the figure of the Aga Khan. Further, although Salamiyah formally remained under the control of the regime throughout the war, there was a current of opposition to the regime within the town: for instance, in relation to the recent trial in the Netherlands of Rafiq Qutrayb, who served as a leading figure in the Salamiyah branch of the National Defence Forces (NDF: an auxiliary militia of the regime), local media highlighted the story of two brothers from Salamiyah who were disappeared by the NDF.

As the insurgents advanced through Hama countryside, the Ismaili leadership and notables were quick to coordinate a surrender to the new authorities with taswiya for former army personnel and members of auxiliary militias, with no mass displacement of the population having taken place. Unlike the Twelver Shia, the Ismaili community in Salamiyah appears to enjoy more freedom in celebrating its identity and occasions like Imamate Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the accession of the current Aga Khan to his position. Similarly, Christian communities did not undergo mass displacement as the insurgents advanced and do not face the prospect of the local authorities prohibiting the public celebration of religious occasions like Easter and Christmas. In addition, neither Ismailis nor Christians have been forced to alter their social customs- such as the fact that the women of these two communities do not dress as conservatively as their Sunni neighbours- on account of pressure from the authorities.

But the generally better relations that these two communities enjoy with the new government have been marred by instances of violence targeting these constituencies. Some of those incidents reflect an ideological angle, whatever pretexts might be invoked. The deadliest such incident was the suicide bombing that targeted a church in the Damascus area in June 2025- claimed by a group called ‘Saraya Ansar al-Sunna’, which is said to have originated as a break-off from HTS and declares its support for the Islamic State. Although the group framed the attack as retaliation for Christian opposition to Salafi proselytization in their area, the Islamic State’s own ideology dictates that all Christians who either refuse to convert to Islam or become dhimmis (second-class citizens under an Islamic state) should be targeted.

Other instances do have more of a local angle to them but are nonetheless linked to an imbalance in which minority communities are expected to disarm while Sunni communities generally retain their weapons and feel empowered to resort to mob violence when aggrieved. For instance, in late March, the Christian town of al-Suqalabiya in Hama countryside was subject to mob violence by Sunnis from the nearby town of Qalaat al-Mudiq, after locals in al-Suqaylabiya confronted youths from Qalaat al-Mudiq who were reportedly harassing Christian girls in al-Suqaylabiya. The youths from Qalaat al-Mudiq responded by bringing their friends and associates who smashed Christian shops and other property. Some of the animosity between inhabitants of the two towns undoubtedly stems from the fact that they were on opposite sides during the civil war. al-Suqaylabiya remained under regime control throughout the war and served as a centre for pro-regime militias (most notably the NDF, which received Russian backing), while Qalaat al-Mudiq was controlled by the insurgents and suffered extensive damage, becoming virtually depopulated by 2019. Although the government claimed to have quickly de-escalated the incident and framed it as an example of ‘local social tensions’, the mob violence was of sufficient concern to prompt a decision among the Christian community to cancel public celebrations of Easter outside churches and homes.

In addition, there are concerns surrounding attempts by some local authorities to restrict the sale of alcoholic drinks and negatively associate alcohol sale and consumption with the Christian community, fostering a sense of separation and alienation from neighbouring Muslim populations. The foremost case of this phenomenon is a decision issued by the head of the Damascus governorate executive office, Maher Idlibi (who served as a key judicial figure in the Salvation Government and is an in-law of al-Sharaa) in mid-March to regulate the sale of alcoholic drinks, banning the sale of alcoholic drinks in restaurants and night-time venues in Damascus city and restricting the sale of alcoholic drinks in sealed containers to three areas of the city known for their Christian communities. Amid controversy including criticism that the decision cements divisions between Christians and Muslims, the governorate then issued a clarification statement that did not constitute a retraction of the decision but rather specified that venues licensed by the Ministry of Tourism (e.g. hotels) and selling alcoholic drinks would not be affected, and that the governorate would review the possibility of exempting restaurants that are popular with tourists. Since then, the status of implementing the decision does not remain wholly clear, yet it does not appear to have been cancelled outright. Rather, it appears that the decision is being slowly implemented. Most recently, reports have emerged of the local authorities forcing a number of bars and restaurants in old Damascus to sign a pledge that they will not offer alcoholic drinks in glasses for sale, though the owners of these restaurants and bars complain that the municipal office is not authorised to implement this decision.

Contiguous Minority Communities

In contrast with isolated minority communities, members of minorities that form significant populations across more or less substantive contiguous areas have formulated and developed political projects that seek autonomy on an ethnic basis and tend to be skeptical of or outright opposed to the government in Damascus.

In the case of the Kurds, a well-established autonomous political project already existed on the ground prior to the fall of the regime in the form of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that was led by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party/PKK) and its armed wing (the ‘People’s Protection Units’- YPG). The SDF had developed a comprehensive ‘Autonomous Administration’ that spanned the north and east of Syria, while the enclave of Afrin in Aleppo province was seized by Turkish-backed insurgents in 2018.

The Druze of the southern province of al-Suwayda’- where they constitute a demographic majority- had come to experience some sort of autonomy prior to the fall of the regime because the regime adopted a generally light-handed approach to the province, maintaining a rather limited security and military presence, with the gap being filled by Druze armed groups of a variety of orientations: some loyal to the regime, others of a ‘third-way’ and foremost concerned for Druze interests, and others still more inclined to open opposition to the regime. As the living situation in regime-held areas deteriorated, Druze sentiment in the province shifted against the regime, culminating in an anti-regime protest movement from August 2023 onwards. With the collapse of the regime, Druze factions in al-Suwayda’ dismantled what remained of the regime in the province.

In contrast with the Druze and Kurds, the Alawite community was seen as closely associated with the former regime on account of the ruling Assad family’s Alawite origins and the disproportionate role that Alawites played in the military and security apparatuses. Alawite fears of the insurgency as an existential threat were cemented by anti-Alawite rhetoric and massacres of Alawite communities in Latakia countryside in 2013 and in the Alawite village of Ishtabraq in Idlib countryside in 2015.

Alawites: Between Engagement and Rejection

The rapid collapse of the Assad regime without the occurrence of large-scale massacres initially provided a basis for Alawite optimism about engagement with the new government, and indeed, in some Alawite localities such as al-Bahluliya in Latakia province, a conciliatory stance has been maintained in which weapons have been surrendered and locals generally maintain good relations with the security forces. More generally, the government has also appreciated the fact that it needs to co-opt certain prominent Alawite figures in a broader outreach to the Alawite population. The two most notable Alawite figures working with the government in this regard are Fadi Saqr (a former commander of the NDF in Damascus) and Khalid al-Ahmad, a businessman who was reportedly a childhood friend of al-Sharaa. During the early years of the war, al-Ahmad served as an unofficial advisor to Assad, but he subsequently defected. While both figures are very controversial among the government’s Sunni support base, with Saqr in particular accused of involvement in the Tadamon massacre in 2013, it is notable that both of them essentially promoted the softest image possible of the Assad regime, championing ‘reconciliation’ deals that sought to secure defection or departure of insurgents but offered no broader political vision beyond Assad remaining in power indefinitely. Both men also reputedly played a role in the rapid collapse of the Assad regime, supposedly ensuring that Alawites would not mobilise in large numbers for a bloody final defence of the regime.

Even so, reports emerged from the outset of attacks on Alawite shrines, harassment of Alawites at security checkpoints, assassinations and abductions of Alawite individuals, and kidnappings of Alawite girls. These reported incidents- together with dismissals of Alawites from military and security roles on account of the dissolution of the old army and security apparatuses- quickly led to the growth of skepticism among many Alawites towards the government and support for the Alawite cleric Ghazal Ghazal Ghazal was by no means the overall spiritual leader of the Alawite community but established the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and Abroad soon after the fall of the regime in a bid to assert such a status. The cleric has called for a federal model and for international protection of the Alawite community and also sought to cultivate the idea of an ‘alliance of minorities’ comprising Kurds, Druze and Alawites.

While Ghazal does not explicitly call for armed action to achieve Alawite autonomy, a number of Alawite insurgent groups opposed to the government portray themselves as acting on his orders or at least accord him spiritual and political authority. But these groups and the figures behind them are by no means a unified entity even if they share hostility to the present government. For example, figures in ‘Coastal Shield’- the most prominent Alawite insurgent brand- have expressed support for Iran and the ‘resistance axis’ and alignment with the former regime, whereas Mudar Ali (a former member of the Republican Guard) who heads the ‘Alawite Resistance’ has expressed rejection of both the former regime and Iran and Hezbollah. Some groups have expressed alignment with Suhayl al-Hasan (who headed the Russian-backed ‘Tiger Forces’ that became Division 25 in the regime’s army), whereas Abu Ali Sumer- leader of ‘Quwat Azra’il al-Jabal’- had once declared his affiliation with Suhayl and declared that he was even willing to accept help from Israel should it be willing to support Alawites. However, he has since shifted his stance on such matters, declaring that he cannot stand with any side actively waging war against those who say ‘Oh Ali!’ (i.e. Shia powers and entities such as Iran’s government and Iraq’s Hashd Shaabi), while also criticising Suhayl as a figure restricted by Russia, which is pursuing constructive relations with the new government. Abu Ali has also criticised Iran and the ‘resistance axis’ for supposed silence on persecution of Alawites in Syria.

Alawite insurgent action against the government reached its peak in March 2025 with a coordinated attack by Coastal Shield and other groups on government positions on the coast. In response, government forces and pro-government militiamen mobilized en masse towards the coast, rapidly suppressing the insurgent action but also committing massacres against Alawite civilians who plainly had no involvement in the insurgency’s actions. In addition, the Alawite population of a locality in Hama was subject to a massacre and expulsion. The violence led to large numbers of Alawites fleeing to Lebanon. Although the government has publicly expressed commitment to holding the perpetrators of the violations against Alawite civilians accountable, it has had little to show in terms of real accountability, and, if anything,has tried to draw an equivalence between the actions of anti-government insurgents and those who committed violations against Alawite communities.

This lack of proper accountability for the massacres- together with the ongoing reports of violations (especially kidnappings of Alawite girls- a phenomenon the transition government has repeatedly downplayed- and confiscation of Alawite land in Hama province by Sunnis seeking retribution)- has continued to keep alive Alawite skepticism towards the government, even as the government has had some success in clamping down on Alawite insurgent activity towards the government.

The Druze of al-Suwayda’: A Rejectionist and Separatist Consensus

When the regime initially fell, there was a general consensus among the Druze of al-Suwayda’ on a sense of belonging to Syria, with the various Druze factions waving the flag of the new Syria. However, a division emerged early on between a very small minority of Druze who were firmly aligned with the government (principally represented in the figures of Layth and Fahd al-Balous and Sulayman Abd al-Baqi), those open to cautious engagement with the government with a view to securing some kind of decentralization arrangement (foremost embodied in the factions of Rijal al-Karama and Liwa al-Jabal), and those who took a more hardline, skeptical stance towards the government, primarily because of the Islamist and Salafi background of leading figures like the president. While exact proportions and numbers cannot be given, the second trend likely represented a plurality if not majority of opinion in al-Suwayda’.

The skeptical trend was foremost embodied in Hikmat al-Hijri- one of the three mashaykh al-’aql (hereditary positions that essentially amount to a spiritual leadership among the Syrian Druze, especially in al-Suwayda’)- and factions declaring loyalty to him, such as the Military Council of al-Suwayda’, which received Israeli backing early on. Essentially, Hijri and his supporters were unwilling to make any concessions unless the government guaranteed decentralization, secularism and local management of security. Since the resolution of final status issues required the consensus among all three mashaykh al-’aql, opposition by Hijri to an agreement with the government would prove the obstacle.

While the Druze more willing to engage with the government considered Hijri’s positioning to be obstructionist and problematic, sympathy with Hijri grew for a number of reasons. The massacres of Alawites, for example, aroused considerable consternation. The interim constitution was seen as problematic for concentrating too much power in the hands of the presidency and promoting an Islamist vision given the stipulation of Islamic jurisprudence as the main source of legislation. A significant turning point in favour of Hijri’s positioning occurred at the turn of April-May 2025, when an audio clip blaspheming Islam and attributed to a Druze shaykh spread on social media, prompting a mobilization of pro-government forces towards Druze populated suburbs of Damascus. Druze factions mobilized in al-Suwayda’ with a view to supporting their brethren in the suburbs, clashing with government forces in the process, which entered the northwestern peripheries of the province. Although Druze notables in the suburbs were able to reach an agreement with the government for the deployment of Ministry of Interior forces, reports of violations against Druze and their property in the suburbs and on the peripheries of al-Suwayda’ hardened skepticism towards the government.

This skepticism was further reinforced by regular incidents of shelling of the peripheries of al-Suwayda’ by unidentified armed elements in the period leading up to July 2025, likely conducted by Bedouin tribesmen who were being encouraged if not supported by the government as a means of pressuring the province to come to an agreement for central government security control. Indeed, tensions between Bedouin and Druze escalated into full-blown clashes within the province after a Druze businessman was accosted on the Damascus-al-Suwayda’ highway.

Having apparently thought that Israel would not intervene and having cancelled negotiations with Druze factions more willing to engage with the government, Damascus used the opportunity to try to impose control by force. It also seems likely that Damascus thought its two main Druze supporters- Layth al-Balous and Sulayman Abd al-Baqi- would be able to mobilise their own networks in the province to facilitate a swift government takeover. But these calculations proved mistaken. The government’s campaign actually prompted widespread local Druze resistance, even among the small numbers of Druze in the province who were officially affiliated with the government’s security apparatus. Even so, the advancing government forces seemed overwhelming, and Druze spiritual and faction leaders initially accepted an agreement for the government to impose central security control.

However, amid reports of violations against Druze civilians and property, Hijri quickly withdrew his endorsement of the agreement and widespread fighting resumed. Sustaining heavy losses from Israeli airstrikes, government forces initially appeared to withdraw, but in fact the government condoned a further wave of attacks on the province by Sunni tribal militiamen, leading to further fighting that led to a stalemate that still persists today in which Druze factions control much of the center and south of the province, while government forces retain control of the northern and western countrysides. The July events- which led to massacres of Druze and other violations against them (including kidnappings and destruction of property) by government forces and pro-government tribal militiamen- firmly shifted the consensus in favour of Hijri’s rejection of the government. Hijri, for his part, renamed the region ‘Bashan’ in reference to the Biblical name for a region encompassing southern Syria, likely as a way of currying Israeli support. He has openly declared the notion of an alliance with Israel, either seeking Israeli annexation of southern Syria (i.e. Deraa, Qunaytra and al-Suwayda’ provinces) or the notion of an Israeli-backed independent Druze state, though it is clear that Israel is not working towards either of these goals. Most Druze factions- including those that had previously been working with the government- proceeded to nominally unite under the Hijri-endorsed National Guard, though not all of them are on board with the idea of Israeli annexation or a separate state. In particular, the statements of Rijal al-Karama’s leadership point to a continued identification with Syria, even as the group denounces the government.

To this day, no meaningful progress has been made towards a dialogue between the two sides with a view to reaching some kind of compromise. A key problem is that as in the coastal massacres, the government is generally unwilling to demonstrate real accountability for the massacres and violations against Druze, likely out of fear of upsetting the Sunni support base. This is evident in the public trials for a select group of accused perpetrators of violations. Unlike the cases of ‘regime remnants’ arrested by the government, neither the photos nor names of the accused are publicised. In addition, much of the messaging of the government and its supporters tends to focus on portraying Hijri and his followers as the primary villains of the entire saga, accusing them of being in league with ‘regime remnants’ (because of the fact that some Druze former regime army officers work with the National Guard) and the leading producers of Captagon in Syria, essentially brushing aside the massacres as though they were merely an unfortunate side consequence of a good faith attempt to impose state control. In so far as the government has a strategy, it appears to be playing a waiting game in which it exploits its control of the flow of aid and goods into al-Suwayda’ while also trying to attrite the Druze forces with periodic clashes on the frontlines, apparently hoping that the coalition will eventually collapse and the Druze will make a deal out of desperation.

The Kurds: Setbacks for the SDF and Kurdish Autonomy

While it would be a mistake to conflate all Kurds with the SDF, it is true that the SDF came to monopolize Kurdish political representation in Syria prior to the fall of the regime. This state of affairs persisted in the aftermath of the fall of the regime. Both the massacres on the coast and in al-Suwayda’ only strengthened the belief among many Kurds in northeast Syria, including those not aligned with the SDF’s political project and philosophy, that only the SDF could protect them and secure their interests. In contrast, a number of Kurds from the Afrin region came to accept the reality that SDF control was not coming back and sought to return to their homes following the fall of the regime, with the transition government establishing a mechanism for return of property that had been confiscated by displaced Sunni Arabs and Turkish-backed factions. There have been genuine large-scale returns to the Afrin region and meaningful steps have been taken to integrate the region into the Syrian state (especially at the security and military level). A few originally Kurdish localities in Afrin remained Turkish/Syrian military zones to which the original inhabitants could not return, but assurances have been given to displaced inhabitants and progress is being made to remove the Turkish military presence and allow the inhabitants to return to their homes

For its part, the SDF essentially sought to preserve its system of governance and territorial control insisting that the government grant formal recognition of its autonomous military forces and administrative system instead, the government has asserted its right to central control and rejects autonomous or rival political projects. Indeed, it is clear that the original March 2025 agreement- reportedly mediated by the U.S.- was oriented towards subsuming the SDF and its institutions under the central state. However, the SDF did not interpret the agreement this way, and the two sides were unable to achieve a breakthrough in negotiations because of their conflicting expectations.

What the SDF did not properly prepare for was a scenario in which the U.S. would effectively withdraw its protection and support for the SDF as the main counter-Islamic State partner in the country- something that Sharaa worked towards by courting the Trump administration and portraying his own government as a reliable partner for that very purpose. Eventually, the central government decided to apply military pressure on the SDF in January 2026 as a means of forcing it to make compromises, attacking both the SDF’s isolated outposts in the neighbourhoods of Ashrafiya and Shaykh Maqsud in Aleppo city and the SDF’s positions in Raqqa and Dayr al-Zur provinces, exploiting local Arab resentment of the SDF. The SDF’s positions in these areas rapidly collapsed and the coalition more or less retreated to its original core of Kurdish fighters. Faced with such losses, the SDF’s leadership was forced to negotiate, having lost much of its leverage in terms of territory and resources. In addition, the SDF could no longer seek negotiation over Kurdish citizenship and cultural rights as Sharaa had already issued decrees prior to the offensives for granting Syrian nationality to all Kurds living in Syria, while also recognizing Kurdish as a ‘national’ (but not official) language and recognizing Newroz as a public holiday.

With U.S. mediation, the spirit of the original March 2025 agreement was reaffirmed on 29 January 2026. This marked the effective end of the SDF as an autonomous project, even if that end is not necessarily proving to be swift. The central government has been gradually asserting its authority over the northeast through control of border crossings and oil fields, as well as establishing central state institutions in the Kobane and Jazira regions. The government has also attempted to integrate some SDF figures into the military and security forces and political structure by offering them positions, such as appointing Sipan Hamo (a veteran of the PKK) as assistant defence minister for the ‘eastern region’ of Syria. A leading figure in the Asayish (SDF’s internal security forces) was likewise appointed deputy commander of internal security forces in Hasakah province, and Nur al-Din ‘Isa Ahmad (an SDF figure) was appointed as governor of Hasakah province. A select number of SDF fighters have also received training as part of brigades to be incorporated into the army. These steps, however, still fall short of a complete integration of the SDF and its institutions, which remain very visible in the main Kurdish towns of Qamishli and Kobane, where security and administration remain dominated by SDF institutions.

Conclusion: Policy Recommendations

U.S. engagement with the new government has tended to focus on security stabilization and consolidation in the name of realizing stability in the short-term. Although this focus is understandable, there are real questions about the long-term trajectory of the country, which increasingly looks to be an authoritarian, Sunni Arab-centric order in which Sharaa retains power indefinitely, while minorities are officially afforded toleration but are made to feel and acknowledge Sunni supremacy in the new order. In such a scenario, abuses against members of minority communities- such as assassinations and attacks on non-Sunni religious sites- are likely to continue, and minorities may increasingly be inclined to leave the country as they feel they have no future in the new order or identification with it.

Policy-makers should continue to engage constructively with the new government but do so in a more critical manner, first and foremost by urging the government to implement real accountability for those implicated in violations against minorities. The government should be called out on its inconsistency where it readily names Assad-era figures or Islamic State cell members when they are arrested but has more or less refrained from naming members of its own security and military forces implicated in massacres and violations against Alawites and Druze. Policy-makers should also do more to encourage the government to take consistent measures against sectarian incitement against minorities and discourage Sunni-centric populism, while urging the authorities to commit to free elections and to develop a long-term vision of the country in which belonging is based on citizenship regardless of ethnicity or religion. The long-term vision should be a democratic political system that allows for competing political parties but is devoid of sectarian identity politics where positions of power are apportioned on the basis of ethnicity and religious sect.

Arday’s defenders are now unable to deny the evidence that they initially dismissed as ‘baseless’ but generally continue to play the race card, insisting that Arday is the subject of disproportionate attention because he is black, and that a white person caught in a similar scandal would not be so heavily criticised.

This line of apologia is nonsense. It is certainly true that there will always be some people who exploit any opportunity to make nasty comments on a personal level, and it is all the more inevitable in the era of social media, when anyone can use a platform to acquire a public voice. No doubt also there are some people who view the Arday scandal as confirming their racial prejudices against black people. But the notion that racism is primarily driving the scandal here or that a non-black person in a similar situation would not be the subject of intense scrutiny is not supported by the evidence. In truth, it is the Arday apologists who have sought to make the scandal about race more than anyone else. A case in point Nels Abbey, who signed a silly letter in support of Arday denouncing ‘entirely false allegations of plagiarism’ made against Arday and portraying the criticisms of Arday as racially motivated. In an interview with Times Radio, Abbey characterised the affair as another example of destroying movement towards ‘black liberation’ and ‘black equality.’

On the broadest level, what Arday’s apologists are claiming is another example of a common trope you can find all the time among commentators on the Internet and is partly the result of how social media algorithms can give a distorted sense of what is being covered in media: ‘Why are the media focusing on X and not covering Y?’- when a simple online search would show that Y does get media coverage. For instance, some readers of this blog may be familiar with how certain ‘pro-Israel’ commentators promote the childish trope of ‘No Jews, no news’- the idea that crimes and abuses committed by non-Jews do not receive media scrutiny and coverage, when even a cursory search would show that they transparently are investigated and covered. There is something to be said about whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict receives disproportionate attention compared to other conflicts, but I would argue that is primarily because activists and partisans on both sides are so vocal and seek to place the conflict at the centre of public attention.

Back to Arday: what is primarily driving the level of scrutiny in his case is the fact that he occupies such a prominent position in academia (the ‘youngest black professor’ ever to be appointed at Cambridge University, one of the world’s leading universities) and was so widely celebrated in academia and media as an extraordinary public intellectual with an extraordinary story, often in terms that were embarrassingly sycophantic and fawning. When you are this high profile and have been lauded in such a way, the stakes are naturally going to be very high and any sense of a scandal will attract a good deal of attention. The fallout and scrutiny will be all the greater if it comes to light that earlier internal attempts to raise and resolve concerns were subject to intimidation and suppression, as happened in Arday’s case. The fallout and scrutiny will also increase if the person at the centre of the scandal fails to give a proper acknowledgement of wrongdoing and show insight and remorse- something that also applies to Arday’s case.

The truth is there are multiple examples of research scandals involving white writers, researchers and public figures that attracted prominent public attention, but I do not think any of them can be put down to some racial, social or gender bias. In particular:

. Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg: he rose to prominence as Germany’s defence minister. From the various accounts I have seen, he was not exactly deemed incompetent at the job, but once it came to light that he had committed substantial plagiarism in his doctoral thesis, a scandal ensued, as a result of which his doctorate was revoked and he resigned his position as defence minister. This scandal took place in early 2011, before Twitter/X really took off as a platform. Nonetheless, the scandal attracted a great deal of media attention at the time, heightened no doubt by the fact that Karl initially denied committing plagiarism and resisted calls to step down.

. Jonah Lehrer: once a popular neuroscience writer who sold best-selling books, he initially attracted controversy over ‘self-plagiarism’ and then was caught out for fabricating data and lying to cover up his fabrications. I would urge anyone to do a cursory search and see that this scandal attracted widespread media attention in the U.S. Lehrer’s attempts to make a comeback also never succeeded.

. Paolo Macchiarini: already touched on in the previous post, the Italian surgeon was initially hailed as a pioneer in regenerative medicine. He had a position at a world-leading medical research centre- the Karolinska Institute- and was also the subject of a sympathetic though not entirely uncritical documentary produced by NBC. It became clear though that he had committed research fraud and his artificial tracheas did not work, and he was also exposed as a fantasist in his personal life, pursuing multiple affairs with women while telling one of them (a producer who worked on the NBC documentary and fell in love with him) that the Pope would officiate their marriage in a wedding to be attended by the Obamas, Clintons and Vladimir Putin (yes, really). While Karolinska and the Lancet journal had initially sought to defend him, Macchiarini lost his positions and was eventually sentenced to 30 months in prison for three counts of aggravated assault in relation to his surgeries with artificial tracheas. The fraud and fantasist is even the subject of a Netflix series entitled ‘Bad Surgeon’.

. Francesca Gino: once a professor at Harvard’s Business School, she lost her tenure in a very rare case after being found guilty of fabricating research data. Her case was also the subject of intense media scrutiny.

In fact, in his interview with Times Radio, Nels Abbey himself somewhat inadvertently captured the essence of why he is being scrutinised so heavily:

'Jason Arday is one of the best of us. He’s an absolutely brilliant young man, a veritable genius who’s overcome a significant amount to get to where he is, and he deserves to be where he is.'

In response to which Times Radio presenter Nick Wallis rightly asked: 'If you’re publicly calling him a genius, then he’s obviously going to have his record examined. If you celebrate someone as being so exceptional, so extraordinary…of course people are going to ask questions.'

I do not intend to turn this newsletter into a day-by-day or weekly news report on the latest punditry and revelations regarding Arday. I believe the case is now and has been sufficiently clear for some time: Arday is a total fraud and should not have any place at Cambridge or another university as a professor or researcher. However, scrutiny, questions and pressure will inevitably continue the longer he and his supporters try to maintain that he is fundamentally a victim in this story. Instead, as journalist Oliver Kamm advises, those who are concerned for Arday’s well-being should simply advise him to resign and cancel his memoir, and (I would add) issue a full public apology for his research fraud and lies. There also needs to be a serious reckoning among both the institutions that enabled Arday and Arday’s apologists about how they have behaved during this entire affair. Do they want academia of the humanities and social sciences to be a place of serious research, or a place that confirms populist suspicions about public money being wasted on exercises in navel-gazing, incomprehensible jargon and ideological prejudices?

One may wonder whether Rubin is simply engaged in an exercise in trolling dressed up as supposedly serious policy analysis. But his motivation here is fairly easy to discern. He also called to ban Spain from the World Cup, citing the supposed Spanish ‘occupation’ of Ceuta and Melilla and lambasting the Spanish government for ‘anti-Israel’ policy and opposing the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. In other words, he is making this line of argument because he does not like the current Spanish government’s policies towards Israel and the U.S. It is unlikely he would be making these arguments if the Spanish government were staunchly behind Israel and the U.S.

But what of the claim that Ceuta is ‘occupied’ and rightfully belongs to Morocco?

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Some readers have occasionally wondered where are my old writings that I used to put on my old personal blog (aymennjawad.org), as they are apparently not showing up on Google search results.

Please follow this link for access to old blog posts such as the archives of Islamic State administrative documents:

https://aymennjawad.org/blog/

And here for articles published both on the site and for various other outlets:

https://aymennjawad.org/articles/