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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

May 19

Syria’s phantom institutions - 🧵

By @SyriaTransition

"What is emerging in Syria is not a failed state but a hollowed-out one."

"Sharaa's promised state overhaul has delivered the illusion of government"

syriaintransition.com/syriasphantomi…

The trappings of governance exist – ministers, ministries, announcements, ceremonies, meetings, photo-ops; but the substance does not.

Authority is centralised in the person of the president and radiates outwards from him through a constellation of loyalists, family members and HTS veterans.

"Authoritarian mechanisms based on loyalty and patronage appear not as temporary necessities, but deliberate tools of power."

Sharaa’s rule is defined by the presence of institutions but in phantom form. Accountability mechanisms are avoided; transparency is smothered.

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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

Apr 29

The US stand on Syria and Sanctions - Sam Heller @AbuJamajem explains what he learned in Washington about US policy toward #Syria

Opinions on Syria within the Trump administration are divided
enabbaladi.net/751283/

between figures who support conditional engagement with the new Syrian leadership and others (including Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council's counterterrorism official) who view the new Syrian leadership as "jihadists" and de facto "al-Qaeda" elements.

It seemed to me that this latter group currently predominates within the government. I also heard that the Israeli position, hostile to the new Syrian leadership and calling for keeping Syria fragmented and weak, is having a significant impact on the Trump administration's thinking on #Syria.

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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

Apr 17

Alawite women in #Syria being abducted and used as Sabaya just like the Yazidis.

“They tortured and beat us. We weren’t allowed to speak to each other, but I heard the kidnappers’ accents. One of them had a foreign accent and the other had a local Idlib accent. I knew that because they were insulting us because we were Alawites.”

daraj.media/%d9%85%d9%86-%…

Following the testimonies of Syrian women who were kidnapped on the Syrian coast, we found Rabab, who was kidnapped in broad daylight and found herself with Basma (a pseudonym) in the same house, where they were both beaten and insulted for being “Alawites,”

The phenomenon is reminiscent of the Yazidi captivity in Iraq, but has yet to reach the same level.

There have been repeated pleas from families trying to uncover the fate of their daughters who were kidnapped in broad daylight, whether from the Syrian coastal cities and countryside, or from the countryside of Homs and Hama.

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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

Mar 12

Thread about the situation on #Syria's #Alawite coastal region My brother-in-law traveled from Qadmous to Latakia today - March 12, 2025. This is what he saw.

He was accompanied by Sunni regime officials to make sure that he would not be shot.

He counted 8 checkpoints between his village and Banias on the coast - a 20 minute drive - from his village.

There were no Amn al-`Amm (gov security) at any of the checkpoints. He did not see any HTS uniforms or police uniforms. None of the vehicles had markings on them.

(Photo of Qadmous castle)

Most men at the 8 checkpoints were wearing masks to hide their faces. Those manning the checkpoints between the town of al-Midan and Sqibleh (the higher mountains) were strangers to the region.

Those between Sqibleh and Banias (the lower mountains) were from the Banias region. There were two very different types of men on the road.

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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

Feb 5

President Sharaa of #Syria interview with The Economist - Feb 3

"Warlord, jihadi or nation-builder"

"all” Syria’s militias are to join a new Syrian army. All militias, including his own—Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—he says, have been dissolved. “Anyone who keeps a weapon outside the control of the state” would be subject to unspecified “measures”. He ruled out a federal arrangement to deal with Kurdish opposition. But the projection of a strongman was belied by the absence of palace staff. There was no one on hand to serve coffee, and only one person freshly arrived in the country for the first time handling comms. His foreign minister and fellow former jihadist, Asaad al-Shaibani, sat at his side directing proceedings.

On the ground his 30,000-man force is stretched just as thin. As he notes, “a vast area is still out of the control of the Syrian state”. None of the rebel commanders assembled for his stage-managed inauguration were broadcast clapping. “We also sacrificed for a decade,” says a southern rebel commander, who fumes that Mr Sharaa took charge of what had been a collective effort to overthrow the Assads. Rival militias control most of the country’s borders. Many of their chiefs, some of whom were previously officers in the Syrian army, are reluctant to surrender their weapons, fiefs or command. The defence minister has yet to set a deadline for them to do so. The Kurds, who control Syria’s prime oil fields, farmland and the dam that powers much of its electricity in the east, refuse to recognise his rule. When asked about his negotiations with the Kurds, Mr Sharaa replied: “Not with that much optimism.”

economist.com/middle-east-an…

Mr Sharaa is also struggling to curb the excesses of jihadists who hitherto formed his base. To date, a bloodbath has been averted. But the information ministry has restricted access for foreign journalists to the coastal provinces and Homs, where revenge killings against Alawites are spiking. Mr Sharaa dismisses talk of a resurgent Islamic State (IS) as “a big exaggeration”. But he admits that his forces have foiled “many attempted attacks” since he took power. IS cells are believed to be returning to Damascus and other cities, soaking up growing dissent.

Second is the question of whether he actually intends to fulfil his promises—or at least try. In our interview, Mr Sharaa used the word “democracy” publicly for the first time since taking power. “If democracy means that the people decide who will rule them and who represents them in the parliament,” he said, somewhat half-heartedly, “then yes, Syria is going in this direction.” He insisted he would replace his cabinet of loyalists from Idlib. He promised to replace them in a month with a “broader and diverse government with participation from all segments of society”. He said that ministers and members of a newly appointed parliament would be chosen according to “competency, not ethnicity or religion”, raising the prospect that for the first time he might appoint some non-Sunnis. He would also hold “free and fair” elections and complete the drafting of a constitution together with the UN after “at least three to four years”. For the first time, he promised presidential elections.

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Joshua Landis

@joshua_landis

Jan 1

https://twitter.com/Aleppo2024/status/1874487481971953748

The new #Syria school textbooks are moving from a nationlist to Islamist interpretation of Syrian history.

A "martyr" is no long someone who dies defending the "homeland" but someone who dies for "God."

https://twitter.com/Aleppo2024/status/1874487481971953748

In #Syria's islamic education texts:

Where it says in the first-grade text that

"Those with whom God is angry, and who have lost their way" should now be replaced by the words: "Jews and Christians."

This is one of the modifications to the school curriculum in Syria announced by the Ministry of Education in the transitional government

Nothing is surprising about these changes to Syria's school textbooks. They are in line with traditional Islamic education.

The problem is that they will shock secular Syrians and many Christians, not to mention, Alawis, Druze, and Ismailis, who are considered to be worse than Christians and Jews and who are not protected within Islamic law because they are not considered to be People of the Book. Jews and Christians are simply misguided, not unbelievers.

Just as importantly, Western Powers and Israel will worry that Sharaa's gov is educating a new generation to attack Israel. This may delay lifting of sanctions, which will be so important to the success of the new Syria.

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