Tag: syria

For years, as reports of atrocities filtered out, Bashar al-Assad remained in power, propped up by Russian and Iranian allies. As I entered one hallway, a woman in a robe began shouting, “Now you come to look. Why didn’t you come before? Why didn’t you believe us? Why didn’t you hear us when we said they were killing us!” After a moment, she moved on, but a nearby man began shouting, too. He wanted revenge, nothing less or more. He would get a weapon and kill the Alawites—Assad’s sect, which some members of Syria’s Sunni majority see as complicit in his repression. The man vowed to kill every man, every woman, and every child he saw.

Shortly after the air strike, several figures connected to the captagon trade in southern Syria received texts from an unknown number: “We know who you are, your movements are monitored, your meetings are hacked. You contribute to destroying the minds of our people, and for their sake we will not have mercy on any of you. The Jordanians will soar like eagles to hunt you down, one criminal after another. Marai al-Ramthan was the first but not the last.”