Author of It Started in Damascus - How the Long Syrian Revolution Reshaped Our World (represented by @DHAbooks). Geopolitics & Diplomacy & Communications.
Joined September 2008
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Days before Assad fled Syria and his violent 54-year regime collapsed in December 2024, my book nearly fully written, I could not have imagined I would be there myself almost a year later, with my book, on the day of its release.
It Started in Damascus, in bookshops as of today.
ALT The book It Started in Damascus is shown, a hand holding it up under the arches of the Roman Temple of Jupiter and the minaret of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus in the background.
There is much still to be processed about Syrians in Europe. Simple platitudes like "the war is over, let them return" miss the essence of lives spent adapting to and often adopting (the young in particular) different perspectives and aspirations. Looking forward to watching this.
nytimes.com/2026/10/23/movie…
NYC built a monument to Khalil Gibran and Little Syria. Why was there global uproar?
Lebanese officials were furious, claiming the city erased Gibran’s identity. Yet there was a time when Arab immigrants in the US thought ‘we were all Syrians’
Read all about it here: theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i…
Fake, AI-generated, posted by an account in Israel and spread widely by far-right agitators: the image of a French couple in their 80s, said to have been robbed of everything during the October 17 riots and left barefoot in their underwear in Paris.
Rime Allaf retweeted
▶️ #GrandeConfrontation – Pillages, violences, les politiques sont-ils responsables ?
« Ce qui me frappe dans nos débats, c'est qu'il y a de plus en plus une sorte d'antagonisme de visions du monde irréconciliables à l'égard de la République. »
Pierre-Henri Tavoillot – Philosophe et maître de conférences à Sorbonne Université
#LCI #GrandeConfrontation #17Octobre #Manifestations #Crise #Blocus #Pillages ⤵️
On n'est plus dans la manif ou la provocation, on est dans la casse. Des scènes pénibles, terribles, partout.
You mean armed and masked Israeli terrorists attacked European diplomats visiting the Palestinian village of Taybeh, near Ramallah.
Rime Allaf retweeted
President Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner says a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine could be completed if Ukraine surrendered territory Russia claims but has failed to capture.
theintellectualistofficial.s…
The Butcher of Bayda and Baniyas, Ali Kayali aka Mihraç Ural, who massacred hundreds of innocent children, women and men in an orgy of sectarian savagery, is finally in the custody of the Syrian government.
Waiting for Syria's official response to this new Israeli claim.
Netanyahu claims he spoke with Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa: "There was a very short, very sharp conversation, and the massacre stopped."
When Zelensky was elected Ukraine president in 2019, Putin had been in power for 20 years - as Yeltsin's PM in 1999, then as Russia president since 2000. He invaded Crimea in 2014 and attacked all of Ukraine in 2022.
So between these two, who should go?
No, it's Trump who turned on Zelensky.
“The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done”
Volodymyr Zelensky has turned on Donald Trump, launching a personal attack on the US president and pledging to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries.
🔗 telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…
And yet he claims it is endangered by simple Syrian farmers on their own lands in the Golan, so he kills their crops and steals their livelihood while shouting about all the threats from Turkey.
Israeli drones flying over Damascus today, among other illegal incursions all over southern Syria. Would anyone accept this the other way around?
Inviting Markov to comment on (or rather deny) Burnham's revelation that Russia interfered in Brexit referendum is like when media used to invite Bouthaina Shabaan to comment on (or rather deny) Assad and Russia's war crimes in Syria. Where is the newsworthiness in that?
"It's a direct lie... Either Prime Minister Burnham is lying, or the intelligence service of Great Britain."
Former Putin spokesperson Sergei Markov says that the PM's claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum is "absolutely a clear lie."
#Newsnight
Yes, and who else threw Putin lifelines to continue his wars? Obama's disdain of Mitt Romney's warning on Russian threat in 2012 (“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years”), and Obama's weak (non-) response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 or the hacking of the DNC in 2015-16. We'll leave aside the weak response to Russia's war with Georgie started in 2008 under Bush, and won't even get into what Obama gave Russia through his inaction in Syria and his actions with Iran.
President Trump’s diesel fuel supply deal with Vladimir Putin is a lose-lose. The amounts are too small to have a meaningful, sustained effect on the record prices American drivers, truckers, shippers, farmers, ranchers and homeowners are paying at the pump, which are largely a result of Trump’s war of choice against Iran. But the deal does throw Putin a lifeline to continue his war of aggression against Ukraine (which Trump promised to end in 24 hours), the other contributor to record high diesel prices. How is this good for America?
apnews.com/article/trump-rus…
Burnham opens up the possibility of greater government transparency over allegations of Russian interference, after years in which Downing Street has declined to confirm what UK authorities knew about the part the Kremlin might have played in 2016.
observer.co.uk/news/national…
Saudi Arabia says 12 people were killed and over 300 were injured in a Houthi attack on Riyadh Airport today. A ballistic missile was also intercepted later over Kharj. Is this really the direction Iran has decided to take?
🔴 Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation says 12 people were killed in the attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on October 10.
🔴 The dead include 4 Saudi nationals and residents of Bangladeshi, American, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, Palestinian, and Sudanese nationalities.
🔴 309 others were injured and are receiving medical care, with some in critical condition. Material damage is still being assessed.
