Recent Posts

Would Russians Embrace War?

In a January 28 interview with the Russian media about the Ukraine crisis, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said, “if it depends on the Russian Federation, there will not be a war.” He also suggested that there were “kernels of rationality” in the formal responses to Russia’s demands that …

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Jihadist group seeks influence in Syria’s Idlib via religious schools

The influence of religious schools is growing in Idlib, with their fundamentalist curricula under the supervision of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Amid the deteriorating conditions in public schools in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib and lack of funding, with teachers who have worked without getting paid for years going on regular …

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Jihadi group steps up arrests of rivals, former jihadi allies in Idlib

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has arrested a number of figures belonging to jihadi groups, such as Hurras al-Din and Sham al-Islam, in an ongoing arrest campaign against rivals and former allies. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, has recently stepped up its arrest campaign against al-Qaeda-affiliated …

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