With the collapse of Assad's defense lines in #Aleppo and #Hama, many journalists in the Global North were overtaken by excitement, overlooking who is filling the void - or deliberately trivializing it.

But who is #HTS, the jihadist militia that humiliated Assad?

🧵1/26 🔴History:

HTS was founded as Jabhat an-Nusrah in 2012, as an offshoot of the Islamic State, by Muhammad al-Jawlani, who still leads HTS today.

2013, IS and Nusrah separated, with Nusrah retaining its ties with al-Qaeda.

2/26

I can only second that, with one notable exception though:

The ash-Shu'aytat tribe. They fiercely resisted when IS took over in 2014. IS retaliated by committing a massacre, executing hundreds of tribesmen.

Below, a thread with some thoughts on the whole DeZ situation:

1/13

https://twitter.com/ver_scholl_en/status/1697350876023886120

I agree with this as well. Dayr az-Zawr was hostile towards SDF to begin with, but some grave errors have been made that can't be walked back.

The gravest of these certainly is putting a criminal in charge of the DMC, and with him ->

2/13

https://twitter.com/Syria_Rebel_Obs/status/1697339036103291062

Late Libyan dictator Gaddafi remains highly popular among western and non-western leftists alike.

Few of them know that Gaddafi was an ethno-supremacist, pushed neoliberal reforms and comprehensively destroyed the foundations of the Libyan left. A 🧵.

1/17 As an Arab supremacist, Gaddafi had banned the indigenous Amazigh and Tebu (Tûbuu) languages from being taught in school, or being used in newspapers. Giving children native names was illegal as well.

An assimilation campaign reminiscent of the Turkish regime.

2/17

Debunking thread 🧵 on the narrative of Z-propagandists like Aaron Maté and Elijah Magnier regarding the #Bucha/#буча massacre:

After giving up on "it's just actors playing dead", their story is now "actually, Ukrainians did it".

Only, it doesn't add up🔽 (1/9) They're mainly pointing at this UA government publication:

"Today, April 2, in the liberated city of Bucha, Kyiv region, special units of the National Police of Ukraine began clearing the area of saboteurs and accomplices of Russian troops."

(2/9)
npu.gov.ua/news/stoprussi…

While awareness over #Bucha massacre is important, don't overlook:
Mali has seen two massacres last month, ~ 200-500 victims each.

1. #Tamalat & surrounding villages in SE Mali, by IS against Tuareg civilians.
2. #Moura, by Malian army & Wagner PMC against Fulbe civilians. Don't be selective with your solidarity, every murder by a war criminal is a tragedy, no matter where. Each can't be allowed to be without consequences for the perpetrators.

A little bit of additional info regarding the two massacres below:

The Lost Places of #Artsakh:

Map of the occupied #Armenia|n villages and towns that were ethnically cleansed by #Azerbaijan.

#Hadrut #Shushi Design by me, text by @kooyrig and me.

Complementary to the lost villages, I want to add this map by @LCarabinier about the Armenian monasteries of the region. Monasteries in the occupied areas are in danger of demolition:

https://twitter.com/LCarabinier/status/1330619876189360132

Frankly I don't even know where to start here, but this is one of the most unhitched takes I've read recently.

It seems like there is an intensive, but dilettantish effort by some Western Think Tanks to rehabilitate the fundamentalist AQ-offshoot HTS since 2021. (1/13)

https://twitter.com/MEDirections/status/1356955420452085760

The introduction starts with equating HTS with the PYD, which is beyond ridiculous, as these are literally the most diametrically opposed groups of the war: HTS is sectarian, authoritarian and misogynist, PYD secular, council democratic and feminist. (2/13)

Thread to sum up my criticism of the reporting of German media on Azerbaijan's war on Artsakh, which includes portraying war criminals as victims who have to care for their families:

rojavanews.net/item/1136-negl… Most reports trivialize the situation. The @tagesschau wrote on Monday, that the situation could at some point escalate into a war.
However, there is already a lot of footage showing fighting as well as utterly brutal drone- and artillery strikes. This is clearly a war.

(1/12)

Thread on the tragic story of the Udi people of Northern Azerbaijan: The Udi are a small minority of maybe 5,000 to 10,000 and are speaking a language related to Lezgian and are mostly adherents of the Armenian Apostoplic Church.
The latter is also where their problem starts. (1/8)

Thread:
I did some research on factional affiliation of al-'Uqaydat tribal confederacy's al-Bu Kamal branch in #DayrAzZawr province before the takeover of #IS and got some surprising results: 1) The most influental local Brigade in the area between al-Bahrah and the Iraqi border clearly appears to have been Liwa' Ahl al-Athar (@Alathr2012).

The Brigade was explicitly an al-'Uqaydat tribal brigade of the #FSA.

https://twitter.com/al3gidi/status/270500708816662528

Demonstrations against SDF spread again along the Euphrates valley (Bayt 'Uqaydat and Bayt Baqarah) and the lower Khabur valley in Dayr az-Zawr.

These protests are mostly against the rule of the SDF and the lack of services like water supply. Demonstrations took place in al-Jiyah directly north of DeZ against the killing of a man (exact circumstances unclear).

In Abu Naytal, a village on the Khabur with many IS supporters that is making problems since months, there tensions occured as well.

Thread about the clashes between SAA and SDF north of Dayr az-Zawr today with information I gathered and own thoughts: 1) In the morning, SAA captured the villages al-Junaynah, al-Ma'ishiyah, ash-Shaqrah, al-Jiyah and al-'Ulay'an (position of the latter unknown).
According to Euphrates post, all SAA gains have been reversed by a SDF counteroffensive this afternoon.

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