Azaz Ten Years On

A return visit after a long absence

The first time I went to Syria during the war was in December 2014, briefly embedding with the main local armed group- the Northern Storm Brigade- in the Azaz area, which is located in north Aleppo countryside and next to the border with Turkey. During that period I also visited some of the local governance institutions. I wrote about the experience in an academic journal article. As the war in Syria increasingly dragged on and the country seemed stuck with frozen frontlines, with access to north Aleppo countryside controlled tightly by Turkey, I thought it would be a long time in the future, if ever, that I could go back to Azaz.

But with the fall of the Assad regime, I was finally able to return to visit old friends I came to know during my time there- people whom I had spoken to for so long via online means. So what is the town like after more than a decade since my last visit?

“Azaz, a continuing revolution.”

A street in Azaz