Karim Franceschi Profile picture
Jul 21 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Hard to believe, but they held. The jihadist wave came like a flood, trucks full of zealots chanting for blood, believing Suwayda would fall by nightfall. But the Druze didn’t scatter. They stood. They bled. They fought for every inch. A thread, 🧵 Image
2/ They poured in from all over [MAP] — until the retreat order came. From none other than Ahmed al-Sharaa, the self-declared “President of Syria.”
A man who claimed he had no control over the fighters. One order, and the entire murderous circus packed up. The purge ended early. Image
3/ The “experts”, mostly Sharaa (Jolani) apologists in nicer suits, called Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri a troublemaker. Said he had no base. Yet the only ones still holding the line in Suwayda followed him. You don’t get that kind of defense without real backing, or a real cause. Image
4/ Even when faced with betrayal and calls for surrender, they fought... nine days, hundreds killed on both sides. But not thousands. Not another coastal massacre. Not this time. The difference?
They were armed. And they refused to bend the knee.
No matter the odds.
5/ That’s what made the difference. That’s what changed the equation.
Even Israeli airpower, cautious, late, and silent again, wouldn’t have moved without first witnessing valor.
States don’t act on morality. They act on pressure.
And Suwayda made them feel it.
6/ The Druze paid in full.
Regime forces gambled on tribal mobs and the sheer weight of the rabble, bused in by the thousands, to make up for the absence of tanks, armor, and artillery.
All to keep up appearances, to avoid an Israeli response.
But it wasn’t enough.
7/ They had drones, Starlink, veteran fighters in Bedouin garb, and overwhelming numbers, against a resistance under siege, cut off from water, power, internet, and phone signal by Damascus.
And still, they couldn’t advance.
Suwayda stood.
8/ You don’t get many stands like this in war. Most die quietly, disappeared in footnotes, replaced by lies. But the Druze armed resistance forced the world to look, to flinch, to speak. Image
9/ This wasn’t just resistance. It was a lesson in dignity, and honour, forged in blood, outside history’s polite grammar. Image
10/ And they came out on top.
The human wave of jihadis, for all their rhetoric, crashed against a Druze mountain that refused to move, and shattered like waves on rock.
What remains of their image of invincibility, built on the walking carcass of the Assad regime?
Foam.
And now it’s official: the al-Qaeda–linked “Interim Syrian Govt” has surrendered.

✅Militias expelled
✅ Regime forces banned
✅ Convoys blocked
✅ Aid allowed

Intl. inquiry coming

They won’t rewrite this like they did the coastal massacre. Suwayda will be remembered. /END

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More from @karimfranceschi

Aug 31
In the month of August, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) executed twelve combined strike operations against PKK positions in northern Iraq.

Why is this happening against the backdrop of the ongoing peace process?

A thread—🧵
These operations incorporated air-delivered munitions and artillery fire support. Simultaneously, persistent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) activity was observed across the battlespace, in support of strike coordination & damage assessment. [HPG sources]

/2
During this period, a Turkish parliamentary commission was already in motion to formalize political engagement, while the PKK undertook visible steps toward de-escalation, including a disarmament ceremony and its formal declaration of organizational dissolution.

/3
Read 7 tweets
Aug 23
Picture a bar in Nepal. Modam Kumal serves tea, makes barely enough to live. Then comes the offer: “security job in Russia.” A contract he can’t read. He signs. Weeks later, he’s not guarding doors in Moscow — he’s crawling through mud in Donetsk, under fire. Image
Now imagine Sierra Leone. Richard Kanu sells what he can, pays $3,000 for a visa. A new beginning, he thinks. Instead, recruiters hand him a rifle. His dream of wages becomes a trench. His labor — stolen, militarized. 2/8
Flash to Kyiv. A man walks to work, papers in his pocket. A van pulls up. Draft officers grab him, no warning. This isn’t rumor — it has a name: “busification.” A one-way ride from the street to a barracks, from routine life to the front. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
Aug 21
Mehmet is yet another Kurdish activist getting extradited by Germany under the absurd Art. 302 of the Turkish penal code (“disrupting the state’s unity”). Why is Europe outsourcing its borders to Erdogan’s Clepto Sultanate — a regime breaking records for jailing journalists? 🧵 Image
Italy extradited him to Germany on the promise he’d never be sent on to a third country—and his Italian asylum case is still pending. Now, in just 7 days, Berlin plans to hand him to Turkey, where Art. 302 = life without parole. /2
Germany banned the PKK in ’93. Then came §129b: a law to charge “membership in a foreign terrorist organization.” No act of violence required—being Kurdish, organizing, even raising a flag can be enough. That’s how you criminalize a people without firing a shot. /3
Read 10 tweets
Aug 18
Welcome to the theater of the absurd: on one stage, Trump crowns an al-Qaeda figure as Syria’s “new face of governance.” On the next, they insist it’s all about counterterrorism.

Let’s pull back the curtain on the latest OIR report. From someone who’s worn an SDF patch. 🧵 Image
2/9 The reports begins with the OIR objectives in Syria:
☑️ Prevent Syria from being used as a base for ISIS, Iran, or other terrorist groups;
☑️ Complete and verifiable destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons program;
☑️ Determine the fate of U.S. citizens missing in Syria. Image
3/9 Literally on the next line, Trump crowns Jolani in Riyadh. And offers a deal...

Normalization & sanctions relief, in exchange the Syrian govt
☑️ joins the Abraham Accords
☑️ kicks out foreign fighters & Palestinians
☑️ fights ISIS
☑️ takes over ISIS prisons from the SDF Image
Read 9 tweets
Aug 17
Combat Readiness of “SAA 2.0” — A Clausewitzian Lens 🧵

The fighting strength of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has undergone a severe degradation by absorbing 90,000 opportunistic, undisciplined SNA troops. This is how HTS has diluted its own military core. ↓
2/
Clausewitz wrote that combat strength lies not only in numbers, but in cohesion, discipline, and will. In this merger, HTS traded away its professionalism for bulk. Numbers became the enemy of force.
3/
Commanders once hardened by years of brutal battles against Assad found themselves outranked by men whose greatest “victory” was extorting civilians and seizing property. Authority without merit corrodes an army from within.
Read 10 tweets
Aug 15
Three days ago, The New Yorker asked: How much will Trump profit from the presidency this term?

Estimates run to $3.4B, spanning crypto plays, real estate, corporate settlements, & high-value partnerships in the Gulf. 1/4Image
Those Gulf ties go through Tom Barrack, the most powerful envoy in US history. Part diplomat, part lobbyist, part deal-maker, stitched together to turn U.S. foreign policy into an opportunity for Trump’s inner circle to access immense wealth. 2/4

I broke it down here 👇
Trump, first POTUS to keep his tax returns & earnings secret, showcase a strange foreign policy pattern in the Middle East: From downplaying the genocide by religious fanatics, to recasting the organisation behind 9/11 as a viable government. 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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