In the forest-covered slopes of Mount Lebanon, hundreds of people gathered last week for the funeral of Pierre and Flavia Mouawad. Two days earlier, an Israeli airstrike on Easter Sunday killed the couple and their neighbor in an attack on Ain Saade, a town northeast of Beirut, sending shockwaves across the country.

The conflict, which began soon after US-Israeli strikes on Iran, has intensified calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah as critics accuse the group of dragging Lebanon into another devastating war with Israel. Supporters say the Lebanese army is too weak to defend Lebanon in the face of Israeli aggression. As a 10-day ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel gets underway, the controversy over Hezbollah’s weapons is expected to be a critical sticking point in direct negotiations between the countries.

Pierre, an official in the Lebanese Forces (LF), was a staunch opponent of Hezbollah. Israeli media claimed the intended target of the strike was a member of Iran’s elite Quds Force, which is closely aligned with Hezbollah. However, the attack never killed the alleged Quds Force member. Instead, it took the lives of three innocent civilians.

In the wake of the Ain Saade strike, LF followers and other Lebanese blamed Hezbollah for the tragedy, accusing the group of hiding its affiliates among civilians. Supporters of Hezbollah blamed Israel for targeting a residential building. The ensuing debate has highlighted mounting division in Lebanon over Hezbollah and its role as an armed resistance movement.

Hezbollah emerged as a Shia militia in the 1980s amidst the chaos of the Lebanese civil war. It gained popularity and support as it waged a years-long insurgency against Israeli troops occupying the country, culminating in their withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Alongside its military feats, Hezbollah also entered into Lebanon’s political scene, providing political representation to the Shia community along with essential services in sectors like health and education.

But while those efforts proved successful in winning over much of the Shia community in Lebanon, not all of the country is so fond of Hezbollah. The group has long been criticized for acting above the state, especially in matters of war and peace. Such criticism has grown louder in recent years, especially in the wake of Hezbollah’s decision to enter into two wars with Israel since 2023.

Anger towards Hezbollah was still raw two days after the death of the Mouawads as family, friends, party officials, and political allies gathered for the funeral in Pierre’s home village of Yahchouch. On the stairs of Saint Simon Church, LF parliamentarian Chaouki Daccache lambasted Hezbollah as he criticized the government for failing to stop the group.

“The one who dragged Lebanon into a destructive and futile war, committing a crime first against the state and against all Lebanese—it is Hezbollah, the agent implementing Iran’s agenda at the expense of Lebanon and its people,” Daccache said.

Earlier that day, the Lebanese military published the findings of an investigation that cast doubt on whether the alleged Quds Force member had really been staying among the Mouawads. Fouad K, a member of the local LF branch and a friend of Pierre, was skeptical. “Things are more complicated than that,” he said. “The Lebanese army, while it is a national army, has been infiltrated over 30 years by Hezbollah,” he added, emphasizing that his views are personal and not representative of the Lebanese Forces.

In the weeks prior to the Ain Saade strike, Israel carried out similar attacks in parts of Beirut that were once considered safe. Such attacks have deepened widespread opposition to Hezbollah, which many Lebanese have long accused of acting above the state. That criticism has deepened since Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2, igniting the second war that Lebanon has faced in less than two years.

More than 2,100 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, which have continued in the face of widespread condemnation. In recent weeks, Israel has bombed huge swathes of the country and launched a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, displacing 20 percent of the population.

Despite the devastation, some Lebanese say there is no other way to disarm Hezbollah. “Israel is not doing us a favor. They’re doing themselves a favor. But we are benefiting from that,” said Fouad, who described the group as “a cancer infiltrating everything in Lebanon.”

Pointing across a deep valley, he picked out Shia and Christian villages dotted along the mountain slope. “People live together, but the poison is Hezbollah’s ideology,” he said. “It poisoned them over three generations.”

After the Easter Sunday attack, tensions bubbled over. Shia families who had been renting homes in Yahchouch left. Those who refused “were forced out by the people who rented (to) them,” Fouad said.

Since the start of the war, local officials and residents have placed restrictions on renting homes to Shia families in case they are affiliated with Hezbollah. Communities say they are afraid of being targeted by Israel if Hezbollah members or allies stay among them.

Less than 24 hours after the funeral in Yahchouch, there was a brief sense of relief as US President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Hours later, however, Israel carried out its largest attack on Lebanon since the start of the war, killing at least 357 people and wounding another 1,223 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

As debate raged over Lebanon’s inclusion in the ceasefire, Israel announced that it would enter into direct negotiations with Beirut to discuss the disarmament of Hezbollah. The talks marked the first conversation between Lebanese and Israeli leaders in 34 years. The two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

While the Lebanese government has already taken steps since the last war to disarm Hezbollah, many people are skeptical of its ability to carry out the job.

On Friday and Saturday, Hezbollah supporters took to the streets in Beirut to protest the talks. “We want peace, we want a ceasefire,” said Ali, a middle-aged father displaced from Dahiyeh, a Shia-majority suburb south of Beirut. “Let Israel withdraw and mind their own business and let us mind our own. But to sign a peace agreement with them is impossible. They killed half of our people. It’s impossible to sign a peace agreement with them.”

Ali is staying in a tent on Beirut’s Corniche, which has turned into an unofficial displacement camp for people uprooted by Israeli strikes across the country. Unable to find work since the last war, Ali said he can’t afford to rent a place for his family of seven. The restrictions on renting to Shia families are a further barrier.

“Some people are scared. You can’t blame them… But it’s not the fault of women and children. Rent at least to women and children,” Ali said.

Ali’s only other option is one of Tripoli’s displacement shelters, which are typically overcrowded and underequipped. Not wanting to subject his family to these poor conditions, he took them to the waterfront.

Rain trickled on an overhead tarp as he ate and drank coffee with family and friends who were also displaced. Other than initial cash assistance from Lebanon’s Ministry of Social Affairs, Ali and his friends said they had not received any support from the government.

“The government is not seeing us at all,” Ali said. “The state is with Israel against us. They’re killing us.”

Following the attack on Wednesday when Israel bombed more than 100 targets across Lebanon in less than 10 minutes, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared a day of mourning. To Ali’s family and friends, it seemed hypocritical. “How many martyrs (from southern Lebanon) have gone so far, and he hasn’t done any mourning day?” said Ali’s wife, Wafaa.

“People in Beirut are Lebanese, but people in Dahiyeh, the South, and the Beqaa are not,” her friend Susan added, pointing to areas across the country that are home to large Shia communities.

As she spoke, news broke of an Israeli airstrike on the southern city of Nabatieh. The attack killed 19 people, including 13 members of Lebanon’s state security.

In a country repeatedly battered by war, ordinary Lebanese are forced to find an increasingly unlikely path to peace. For some, Israeli attacks are the only way to dispel Hezbollah’s hold over the country. For others, each strike deepens opposition to disarming Hezbollah. Across society, there is little faith in the ability of Lebanon’s military to defend the country, whether from foreign incursion or internal unrest. While the ceasefire agreement announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump offers hope of some respite for battered Lebanon, it is a far cry from resolving the issues that brought the country to this point in the first place. If Lebanon is to reach lasting peace, it will have to confront its most divisive challenges, particularly those pertaining to national security.

“How will the army protect me now? They can’t protect me. Only the Resistance can protect me,” said Ali, referring to Hezbollah.

Lebanon is at war, and the most dangerous front isn’t at the border—it’s inside the state itself, where threats are now turning inward.

Since the start of the war in Iran, Hezbollah’s senior political rhetoric has moved from contempt to something far more explicit. Mahmoud Qamati, deputy head of Hezbollah’s political council, invoked the fate of the infamous Vichy government.

The Vichy regime (July 1940–August 1944) was an authoritarian state based in southern France, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II. Formed after France’s military defeat, it replaced the Third Republic and implemented an anti-Semitic agenda under the banner of the “Révolution nationale,” while formally maintaining a stance of neutrality.

He said Vichy “arrested the resistance and executed them,” was later overthrown, and “the traitors in it were executed,” adding: “God willing we don’t get there.” He followed it with a promise that “Based on the current facts and positions, it appears that a direct confrontation with this political authority is inevitable after the war ends, regardless of its outcome. The government in Lebanon is no longer fit to run the country, and its positions only serve the Israeli enemy. Therefore, confrontation is coming, and the traitors will pay the price for their betrayal.”

This is a blatant death threat, delivered through historical analogy, so it can be denied later with a smirk. It places an elected government in the category of traitors and elevates Hezbollah to the role of judge and executioner. And it suggests—without even bothering to hide it—that Lebanon’s leadership may be forcibly executed if it attempts to behave like a state.

If Lebanon still had any illusion that Hezbollah can be treated as a normal Lebanese political actor, it should die here.

Hezbollah’s Vichy rhetoric is a weapon designed to justify violence.

“Vichy” is not shorthand for “weak” or “corrupt.” It means collaboration with an occupying enemy. It is one of the most morally loaded accusations in modern political memory because it turns opponents into legitimate targets. By placing the government in the “Vichy” category and speaking about how “traitors were executed,” Hezbollah is doing three things at once:

1. delegitimizing the state as a treasonous instrument,

2. sanctifying itself as the only authentic national actor, and

3. preparing the public for physical punishment against anyone who challenges its war decision.

It’s also a grotesque inversion.

A collaborator regime is one that enforces an external occupier’s will against its own people. Hezbollah is the actor in Lebanon that has long operated as a parallel sovereignty: deciding war and peace outside the state’s control, maintaining its own security apparatus, and aligning its strategic priorities with Iran. The Vichy analogy does not describe the Lebanese government. It describes the relationship Hezbollah wants Lebanon to accept: a country that exists to serve an external project, while anyone who resists that project is branded a traitor.

Lebanon’s postwar era has been stained by political assassinations. Some were solved; many were not; most have been swallowed by impunity. The most consequential example was the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A UN-backed tribunal later convicted a Hezbollah member, Salim Ayyash, for his role in that assassination. Hezbollah rejected the tribunal and refused to hand him over.

Around the same period, Lebanon witnessed a wave of assassinations targeting prominent critics of Hezbollah’s terror axis. (Samir Kassir, Walid Eido, Gebran Tueini, and Pierre Gemayel among them.) These murders deepened the country’s belief that politics is enforced by bullets, not ballots. In many cases, the perpetrators were not brought to justice. That impunity becomes part of the threat ecosystem: when killers are not punished, threats become credible by default.

So when Hezbollah’s official rhetoric flirts with “executions,” it does not matter that the sentence ends with “God willing we don’t get there.” The message is already delivered: we can get there, and you should behave accordingly.

The threats have expanded from political discourse into direct intimidation of media and public speech.

A Lebanese TV station reported “death threats and intimidation messages” targeting officials and staff, describing it as an attempt to “silence the media by force” and subject free speech to “the logic of weapons.” The accusation attached to these threats was familiar and poisonous: claims that the station’s reporting on Hezbollah’s illegal activities “gave coordinates” to Israel.

Then came the digital enforcement arm. The station’s website was hit by a cyberattack that took it offline. A group calling itself the “Fatimiyoun Electronic Squad” claimed responsibility and described the outlet as “Zionist,” adding that the attacks would not be limited to denial-of-service and that the station’s databases would be exposed “successively.”

Speech in Lebanon has become a frontier of the ongoing war, and it carries penalties. If you report, you may be branded a traitor. If you are branded a traitor, threats become “patriotism,” and Lebanon knows very well that those threats are often realized.

This is how a militia governs when it cannot persuade: it makes fear a public utility.

There is a deeper scandal here than Hezbollah’s threats. The scandal is the state’s slow, cautious, and evasive response.

A state is not a state if it cannot defend the basic right to disagree without being threatened with death. When officials are publicly compared to Vichy traitors who deserve “execution,” and the state does not respond with firm action, it sends a message to every Lebanese citizen that the militia has more authority than the republic.

When journalists receive death threats, and the response is not immediate prosecution, it teaches every newsroom that survival requires self-censorship.

And when cyberattacks are claimed publicly with escalation promises, and the state still behaves as if this is a “media dispute” rather than a political intimidation operation, it signals institutional surrender.

This is how Lebanon is trained into submission. Not with one coup, but with a thousand small retreats.

For years, Lebanese officials and foreign diplomats hid behind timid vocabulary: Hezbollah’s actions were “uncoordinated,” “unregulated,” “outside the state.” Even when the results were catastrophic, the language stayed polite, as if Hezbollah’s problem were administrative rather than existential.

That framing has expired.

When a movement declares war without the state’s consent, threatens an elected government with the language of execution, and cultivates an ecosystem that threatens journalists with death and enforces fear through cyberattacks, this is no longer merely “illegal.” It is terror politics.

And that is why the next conclusion is unavoidable.

A political party does not threaten to “execute traitors.” A political party does not wrap an elected government in the language of treason and imply it may deserve the fate of collaborators. A political party does not tolerate an ecosystem where journalists receive death threats for reporting. A political party does not cultivate punishment through cyberattacks and threats of database exposure.

This is the behavior of a terrorist organization.

Hezbollah has benefited from Lebanon’s greatest national delusion that it could be treated as both a militia and a party for decades. That hybrid model is what trained the state to hesitate and society to accept intimidation as “normal politics.”

If Lebanon wants to survive this war with anything resembling sovereignty, it has to stop entertaining the fantasy of coexistence with a movement that treats disagreement as treason and treason as a pretext for death.

Hezbollah’s threats are not only about today’s government or today’s newsroom. They are about tomorrow’s Lebanon.

They are training a population to believe that citizenship has conditions: don’t speak too loudly, don’t question the war, don’t investigate the militia, and don’t oppose the chain of command.

The most frightening line in Qamati’s speech is not the reference to Vichy, but the calm assurance that the confrontation with the state is “inevitable.” That is a militia announcing it intends to discipline the republic after the war, and informs how the citizenry and its leaders will behave in the interim.

Lebanon’s answer to the current moment cannot be another season of silence. We have had enough. If the state remains inert now, then Lebanon is not heading toward a crisis. It is already living inside one and is now heading towards the end of Lebanon’s existence.

To put it plainly: Lebanon is being held hostage, and the state is suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

Concern is mounting over the safety of US journalist Shelly Kittleson, whose whereabouts remain unknown more than five days after she was abducted from a busy street in Baghdad. The group responsible, Kata’ib Hezbollah, has demanded the release of several members involved in attacks on the US embassy, a source close to the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad told Middle East Uncovered.

“Shelly has become a card between America and Iran,” the source said, adding that Kata’ib Hezbollah is seeking to use the hostage situation as leverage against the United States to influence the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Security officials told the New York Times that representatives of the powerful Iraqi militia group, which is allied with Iran, contacted government figures on Wednesday, offering to free Kittleson if its demands are met.

The group was also behind the kidnapping of an Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was abducted in March 2023 and held for nearly three years.

Kittleson received kidnapping warnings in the days leading up to her abduction, but believed that her wide network across Iraqi society would afford protection. For the 49-year-old freelance journalist, security came from the relationships she formed, sometimes staying with families rather than in hotels and traveling to remote corners of Iraq to document stories on the ground.

“Shelly is a courageous field journalist who does not settle for reporting news from closed rooms,” said Osama Al Maqdoni, an Iraqi photojournalist who worked with Kittleson in Sinjar, Mosul, Erbil, and Baghdad. Over the years, she built up a “rare ability to access all sides,” visiting areas of western Nineveh and western Anbar to interview the leaders of Iranian-backed armed factions, he added.

“She does not chase ‘scoops’ as much as she pursues the truth—even when it is complex or uncomfortable,” Al Maqdoni said.

Iraq has long been a high-risk environment for journalists but the escalating conflict in the Middle East following the launch of US-Israeli strikes on Iran last month has deepened an ongoing security crisis as the country becomes a proxy battleground for outside powers.

Kittleson’s location remains unknown, but reports indicate that Kata’ib Hezbollah has secured the transfer of a hostage to Jurf al-Sakhr, a major stronghold of armed factions south of the capital, the Baghdad source said. The area, which was recaptured from ISIS in 2014, is difficult to access, posing complications for a potential rescue operation.

“The group aims to impose a number of demands, including pushing the United States to reduce the frequency of airstrikes targeting its positions and those of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) inside Iraq, as well as pressing for the release of several of its members detained by security forces,” the source added.

The PMF, also known as al-Hashd al-Shaabi, is an Iraqi paramilitary force of mainly Iran-backed Shia militias that was formed to combat the rise of ISIS in 2014. Kata’ib Hezbollah is among the most powerful of these factions. Designated as a terrorist group by the US, the group operates simultaneously as part of the state-sanctioned PMF and independently to pursue Iranian-aligned agendas beyond the government’s control.

These blurred boundaries allow Iran-backed militias to act with apparent impunity, attacking US military and diplomatic sites in Iraq and targeting human rights campaigners, protesters, journalists, academics, and political leaders.

Kittleson’s abduction is “a tragic reminder of the extremely dangerous working conditions faced by reporters, and especially freelance reporters, in areas where armed groups are active,” said Martin Roux, head of the Crisis Desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Footage of the kidnapping at a busy intersection in central Baghdad showed Kittleson being pushed into a car by several men and driven away. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior said in a statement that security forces had launched “an operation to apprehend the perpetrators” and confirmed that one of the suspects had been arrested and a vehicle used in the kidnapping had been seized.

The incident, in broad daylight, reflects the “alarming levels of impunity with which militants and aggressors threaten and harm journalists,” said Kiran Nazish, founding director of the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) and Women Press Freedom.

Hundreds of mostly local reporters have been kidnapped, killed, and arrested in Iraq since 2003, when the chaotic aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum that was filled by armed militias, sectarian groups, and terrorist organizations. According to UNESCO, 198 media professionals were murdered in Iraq between 2006 and 2018.

More recently, Iraq’s position in the World Press Freedom Index has risen from 172 out of 180 countries in 2023 to 155 in 2025. However, the security situation remains volatile and complex, with the current regional conflict exacerbating the risks of reporting in Baghdad.

Sara Qudah, director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned that “Iraqi authorities must act swiftly to secure (Kittleson’s) safe release and hold those responsible to account, while ensuring the dark era of journalist kidnappings and assassinations does not return to Iraq.”

The last kidnapping of a journalist in Iraq took place in 2020 when Tawfik Al-Tamimi, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Al-Sabah, was abducted and forced into a car on his way to work. This followed several abductions of journalists after the Tishreen protests in October 2019.

“Such incidents risk creating a climate of fear that undermines the press and journalists’ ability to work safely,” Qudah said.

An experienced journalist who has reported from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, Kittleson has spoken about the risks facing freelancers operating on shoestring budgets, telling the Imperial War Museum in an interview that it was difficult to secure protective gear while covering the war in Syria.

Her articles have appeared in publications including Politico, New Lines Magazine, and Al-Monitor, which on Tuesday called for her release in a statement, saying “We stand by her vital reporting from the region and call for her swift return to continue her important work.”

Describing her as “persistent and resilient,” Al Maqdoni recounted how Kittleson almost lost her life on numerous occasions while reporting on the battle against ISIS in the narrow alleyways of Mosul’s Old City. “She does not write from behind barricades, but from within them,” he said.

Prior to her disappearance, Kittleson was covering civilian reconstruction in the Karrada district of Baghdad. Her commitment to on-the-ground reporting saw her build relationships with actors from across the political spectrum in Iraq, including security leaders, tribal sheikhs, government officials, and leaders of Iranian-backed armed factions.

“This made her a trusted figure, and increased her sense of safety—believing she would not be subject to kidnapping or threats,” Al Maqdoni said.

Hours before her abduction, sitting down with another journalist friend at one of the few places she could find vegetarian food in Baghdad, Kittleson dismissed warnings of a possible threat against her. “She said she loved Iraq and didn’t expect anyone to hurt her,” the journalist, who asked not to be named, said.

Nevertheless, she took steps to minimize the risks of her work, completing a security training course for freelance reporters in Baghdad last month and telling our Middle East Uncovered editor she needed to find secure channels to share information as her American passport had placed “a target on my [her] back.”

Posting on X, Alex Plitsas, a CNN national security analyst and Kittleson’s designated US point of contact, confronted “callous” posts regarding her response to these warnings. “She’s a well-known front-line reporter in conflict zones providing valuable and insightful coverage.”

“People like Shelly provide sourced and vetted reporting where transparency and truth are scarce. She has been at the forefront of world events for decades and is among the most selfless people I’ve ever met.”

Colleagues have criticized the accusatory tone of some of the comments and coverage surrounding Kittleson’s abduction.

Writing on Substack about her friend’s disappearance, journalist Lauren Wolfe called out the media portrayal of Kittleson “as some kind of renegade journalist because she’s a freelancer… as if she brought this on herself because of it.

“Most journalists working abroad today are freelance—there are no staff jobs to be had in the industry,” Wolfe wrote.

In a statement on Tuesday, Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said, “The State Department fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them, and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible.”

Calling for the State Department to do everything in its power to secure her release, Seth Stern, Chief of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said: “We hope the government is taking this matter extremely seriously and that its statements blaming Kittleson for allegedly not heeding warnings are not an attempt to evade responsibility.”

As pressure mounts for her release, colleagues warn that Kittleson’s case underscores a culture of impunity that allows armed groups to target journalists in Iraq. Petitions calling for her release demand that, this time, those responsible be held to account. More than three days after her abduction, fears for her safety are growing. “Any failure to act swiftly and responsibly will result in harming our colleague,” the CFWIJ said in a statement.

“These concerning circumstances…reflect the dangers journalists are facing today to tell the story of humanity.”

When the US and Israel launched large-scale airstrikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regional spillover was swift. Within days, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, opening a new front in Lebanon amid a widening conflict that has disrupted global energy markets and sparked warnings of a global recession.

In a country familiar with the ramifications of war, the effect on businesses was immediate. “The moment the attacks started, we received notice upon notice from our clients in the GCC wanting to cancel their contracts,” said Natheer Halawani, who owns a creative agency in Lebanon. “Right now, the company is running on fumes, and I don’t have enough to pay salaries.”

As the conflict escalates, concern is mounting over the economic toll of what US President Donald Trump described as a “limited operation,” which has killed over 3,000 people across the Middle East since strikes began on February 28. Gulf oil flow has plunged, sending prices soaring as production facilities across the Gulf become targets and Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

While Gulf economies absorb the immediate shock, the consequences are reverberating in fragile states like Lebanon, where the financial fallout is already devastating livelihoods.

Entrepreneurs like Halawani, who turned to the UAE for stability and security, are watching that promise wither as clients freeze contracts and place projects on hold. “It takes chunks out of your life to keep rebuilding something that someone else destroyed,” said Halawani, who steered his company, The Cabinet, through multiple crises in Lebanon before pivoting to focus on Gulf markets in 2025, after President Trump shut down USAID, his biggest client.

Unable to rely on Lebanon’s faltering economy, small business owners are now considering their future in a region where nowhere seems safe. “The Gulf was supposed to be stable and secure—everything we lacked in Lebanon,” said Halawani, who worries it may be months before business picks up again while weaker economies like Lebanon plunge deeper into debt.

Years of financial crisis and institutional paralysis have gutted Lebanon’s start-up scene. The country is hampered by one of the world’s highest debt burdens, compounded by decades of fiscal mismanagement and excessive borrowing. Denied growth opportunities at home, Lebanese startups have increasingly adopted a hybrid solution. Staff and ideas are based at home, while business expansion is concentrated in the GCC, particularly the UAE, which has become a hub for entrepreneurship in the region.

For Farah Ghanem, Dubai was the obvious choice for scaling her business. The 30-year-old runs CNSLT Lab, a corporate consultancy that draws 70-80 percent of its business from the Gulf. The UAE’s attractive regulatory environment, infrastructure, and access to regional markets make it “a natural extension for Lebanese businesses that cannot fully grow locally,” she said.

The turmoil triggered by the current conflict has forced her to reconsider. “Rather than changing my perception entirely, it has reinforced the importance of diversification, rather than relying heavily on a single region,” she added.

The scale of Iran’s response to the war has sent shockwaves through the region, with the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia subject to a bombardment of retaliatory strikes.

Over 20 people have been killed in Gulf states, including 11 in the UAE, where authorities reported more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks in recent weeks. While most have been intercepted by air defense systems, the onslaught has punctured the country’s peaceful image, posing a threat to its reputation as a safe haven for investors and a global hub for business, travel, and tourism.

Commentators have been quick to predict the demise of Dubai, but analysts say recovery is within reach if hostilities end soon.

“The UAE’s value proposition—stability, connectivity and access to capital—remains intact, but the perception of predictability, which underpins it, has been tested,” said Carole Nakhle, CEO, Crystol Energy and Secretary General of the Arab Energy Club. “In the short term, this may lead businesses to adopt a more cautious approach, but it does not fundamentally alter the UAE’s role as a key platform for regional activity.”

The conflict has dealt a financial blow to the UAE and other Gulf countries, which remain heavily reliant on oil, despite efforts to diversify their economies away from petrochemicals. Disruptions to energy exports, aviation, tourism, and shipping routes alongside higher insurance premiums and freight costs are likely costing the region hundreds of millions of dollars a day in economic activity, according to Khaled Almezaini, an associate professor of politics and international relations at Zayed University in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

While the risk of a recession rises as the war continues, “if tensions de-escalate relatively quickly, the region is well placed for activity to normalize faster than many expect,” he told Al Jazeera.

Nakhle said most businesses will focus on “diversification and resilience” rather than relocating, maintaining a foothold in the UAE while exploring complementary bases.

It’s a familiar pattern for many Lebanese business owners. Alia el Khatib built adaptability into her business model after the collapse of the country’s banking sector wiped out her savings in October 2019. She relocated to Spain in August 2020 after the Beirut port explosion finally shattered her confidence in Lebanon. Since then, El Khatib has navigated ongoing instability remotely, working with Lebanese freelancers while spreading her client base across the MENA region and further afield.

“After the 2019 collapse, I made a clear decision not to depend on the Lebanese economy,” said El Khatib, who emphasized the personal and emotional toll of running a business as the country lurched from one crisis to the next.

Living abroad has cushioned her from some of the stress at home, but this time, there is no escape. MENA clients account for 70 percent of El Khatib’s business, and most have halted investment in growth and marketing while the war is ongoing. “In the past, instability was more contained. Now, the entire region feels like it’s on pause,” she said.

In Beirut, Karakna, the coffee shop Ghanem launched in 2023, still bustles with customers, but her costs have surged. Rising fuel prices affect all levels of the business, from supply chains to delivery, but she cannot increase prices for a community that’s already under economic pressure.

During the previous escalation, when Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire over Gaza, Ghanem transformed her coffee shop into a central kitchen and distributed meals to displaced families. This time, she plans to remain open and shift the focus to delivery while moving her consultancy to online training. “Today, in Lebanon, it feels like adaptation is the only constant we live by,” she said.

While Lebanese businesses are accustomed to operating under pressure, Ghanem detects a deeper despair about the current setbacks. With no time to recover between economic shocks, the constant need for resilience is becoming unsustainable, creating a cycle in which survival replaces growth. “Lately, there’s a phrase I keep hearing in everyday conversations between business owners and entrepreneurs: ‘بس هالمرة تعبنا’ (‘but this time, we are tired’),” she said. “It’s not a lack of resilience, but rather the accumulation of continuous crises.”

For a community that has survived multiple setbacks, the impact of regional war could be a tipping point. As businesses that relied on the Gulf lose their lifeline, Lebanon looks increasingly unviable for a generation exhausted by constant blows.

Ahmed al-Sharaa shaking hands with Sir Keir Starmer on the steps of 10 Downing Street was probably not on anyone’s bingo card for 2026.

Yet the interim Syrian president, once known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, strolled along Downing Street on Tuesday morning, suited and booted, for bilateral talks with the British prime minister—a remarkable turnaround in his international standing.

The landmark meeting reflects the enormous shift in UK-Syria relations since the fall of longtime autocrat Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Later that day, al-Sharaa visited Chatham House for a conversation about his government’s position on Iran (he said he would remain neutral unless attacked), Israeli strikes on his country, and whether he was still on track to hold elections (“certainly,” he said).

Yet not everyone gave the Syrian leader a warm welcome.

Outside, dozens stood opposite the think tank in St James’ Square, waving placards and chanting “Jolani terrorist” and “shame on Chatham House.”

“There is a big terrorist inside,” a man named Daleel said. “They’re giving him legitimacy. Shame on them.”

Demonstrators, including members of the Syrian diaspora and Kurdish activists, pointed to al-Sharaa’s past as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The group, which played a central role in the overthrow of Assad, had until recently been designated a terrorist organization due to its origins as an al-Qaeda affiliate.

For many critics, that history remains unresolved. Al-Sharaa himself is a former member of al-Qaeda, who once had a $10 million bounty on his head. His transformation into a Western-suited head of state has been viewed by some as unconvincing.

The protest attracted counter-demonstrators who were broadly behind their president. Some were draped in revolutionary flags, emblazoned with the date of Assad’s overthrow: 8/12/24.

“I don’t think a single one of those people is even Syrian; the majority are from Turkey,” said Muhammad, looking at the protesters. A few started chanting the anthem of the Syrian revolution: “Raise your head high, you are a free Syrian.”

Many of the people on this side of the protest had personal stories of loss and suffering under Asaad’s regime. For them, al-Sharaa is already an improvement.

“I think he is doing a good job,” said another man who declined to give his name. “Given the circumstances, he’s the best option. Our president has given them [the Kurds] more rights than they have had in 60 years, so I’m not sure what they’re complaining about.”

When al-Sharaa’s convoy left Chatham House, his supporters rushed towards him, but a police blockade kept them at least 50 meters away as they chanted “qaedna”—our leader—and “al-shab al-soori wahid”—the Syrian people are one, drowning out the opposition voices.

The demonstrations also reflected broader anxieties about the direction of Syria’s post-Assad transition, particularly among minority communities who fear the new regime is insufficiently accountable.

In March 2025, around 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in coastal regions in western Syria. Alawites were the primary targets, and conflict monitors reported instances of “revenge attacks.” Bashar al-Assad was from the same sect.

That summer, a local dispute in Sweida quickly escalated into intense clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters, further inflamed when the interim government forces attempted to enter the southern province. Around 1,500 Druze were killed, with reports of women and children being kidnapped.

Members of the diaspora were planning to attend the protest, but dropped out at the last minute due to safety concerns.

However, one Druze man, Emad, did come along. He told me about three of his uncles who were killed by government forces, and several family homes that were burned.

“The Druze are still not allowed to go to Damascus, because his people have threatened them. There is no oil, food, or medicine in Sweida. Their excuse is that the Druze are supported by Israel,” he said, referring to Israel’s recent air strikes on Syrian government infrastructure, claiming it was doing so in response to attacks on Druze civilians. “But the killing started before Israel got involved. This ISIS ideology is being spread throughout Syria now—because of al-Sharaa.”

And, most recently, church leaders have canceled public Easter celebrations following a recent outbreak of sectarian violence in the predominantly Christian town of Suqaylabiyah, in the west.

Then there’s the question of Kurdish autonomy. In January 2026, fighting between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led to Damascus reclaiming much of the territory previously held by the autonomous northeast region. Once backed by the US in its fight against ISIS, the SDF has now been sidelined as Washington shifts support toward the Syrian government’s push for national reunification. While some concessions have been made—such as integrating SDF units into the army, retaining civil servants, and recognizing Kurdish rights—the loss of territory, resources, and US backing leaves the SDF in a weakened position with an uncertain future.

“I look at actions on the ground, and when you disarm a population, that doesn’t mean you support them,” says Jonathan Hackett, a US Marine Corps veteran specializing in counterintelligence and the author of Iran’s Shadow Weapons: Covert Action, Intelligence Operations, and Unconventional Warfare. “The Kurds have lost the sovereignty that they fought for.”

While violence and extremist influence continue on the ground, the international response has moved toward renewed engagement.

In July, Britain fully re-established diplomatic relations with Syria, 14 years after severing ties with Assad’s government. Starmer’s government then moved to de-proscribe HTS the following October.

Al-Sharaa’s visit is expected to accelerate that normalization process. Plans are underway for the full reopening of Syria’s embassy in London and the British embassy in Damascus, while the UK government is also preparing to announce a new export finance scheme to support British companies seeking to do business in Syria.

While al-Sharaa has swapped his khaki fatigues for a suit and tie, questions remain over whether this transformation represents a genuine ideological shift or a pragmatic rebranding designed to secure international legitimacy.

“If you noticed in the speech, he didn’t mention Turkey at all. He talked about Russia, he avoided talking about Russian bases, he talked about Israel, but very conspicuously left out any mention of this major player on its northern border…that essentially brought him to power,” says Hacket. “I think he doesn’t want to acknowledge that, he wants to portray himself as a neutral player who came through meritocracy… but that’s not what’s going on here.”

As for Ankara’s motives, “This has been a Turkish masterstroke in the region, regaining some ground in that former Ottoman space that Turkey wishes so much to reintegrate,” says Hackett.

Immediately after the fall of Assad’s regime, Russia started a large-scale withdrawal of its forces from Syrian territory. Among dozens, two remain—al-Sharaa announced at Chatham House that he was trying to turn them into training bases for the Syrian army. The Russian naval base at Syria’s port city of Tartus has been a particular focus due to its strategic significance in affording access to the Mediterranean.

Al-Sharaa also said there would be parliamentary elections, with the first session beginning soon. But “he picked one third of the parliament himself,” says Hackett. As for presidential elections, “I’ll believe it when I see it; or will it be someone that al-Sharaa handpicks?”

So what would proof of change look like?

“An alignment between statements he made—on rights and elections—and what is implemented,” says Hackett. “Even an attempt would be positive. Let’s have a referendum on al-Sharaa’s presidency. If his support is strong, let’s see.”

The London visit followed a stop in Berlin, where al-Sharaa addressed one of the most politically sensitive issues facing Europe: the future of Syrian refugees.

He suggested that Syrians who had fled to Germany should consider returning to help rebuild the country.

“These are Syrians who have studied at German universities, acquired German expertise, and are now working in German companies,” he said. “Through investments in Syria, they can then bring this expertise back to Syria.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who took office in May, has argued that with the war now over, Syrians may no longer have grounds for asylum.

Hackett, however, says, “There’s a big concern for their safety. Is Syria even ready to repatriate these people who have been gone for a long time? I think the West would like to forget the Syrian war, and they’re willing to make poorly thought-out concessions to be able to achieve that.”

Nevertheless, regional powers, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, recognize both the strategic importance of Syria and the opportunity to shape its post-war future.

Al-Sharaa’s European tour illustrates the complex and often contradictory dynamics at play—a leader seeking international legitimacy while still facing deep skepticism at home and among diaspora communities.

The arguments playing out in St James’ Square offered a glimpse of the divisions that still define Syria’s future. For some, Ahmed al-Sharaa represents stability and a break from Bashar al-Assad’s despotic rule, while many others are still asking whether anything fundamental has really changed.

All individuals involved in the kidnapping of American journalist Shelly Kittleson have been identified, and a search is now underway, a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official said, noting that the perpetrators belong to Kata’ib Hezbollah, including some who work for the group’s affiliated Al-Etejah media outlets.

Kittleson, a freelance journalist based in Rome who reports on Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, was kidnapped outside a hotel in central Baghdad’s Saadoun Street on Tuesday evening. Video footage of her being abducted and driven away in broad daylight circulated on social media shortly after the incident.

A statement from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior said security forces had launched “an operation to apprehend the perpetrators” and confirmed that one of the suspects had been arrested and a vehicle used in the kidnapping had been seized.

The vehicle overturned near a checkpoint in the town of Musayyib, about 60 kilometers south of Baghdad. Kittleson’s press bags were found in the vehicle as well as identification documents belonging to some of the kidnappers, the interior ministry source said.

Preliminary findings suggest that Kittleson had been transferred to another car before the crash and taken to Jurf al-Sakhar, a vast rural region known for its orchards and lakes. The area, which has been under the control of Kata’ib Hezbollah since 2014, was largely depopulated during the ISIS period.

In recent weeks, the area has been subjected to near-daily airstrikes by U.S. forces targeting sites linked to Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi Shia militia group. Iraq quickly became a proxy battlefield after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran a month ago, in what has since widened into a regional war that has killed more than 2,000 people, primarily in Lebanon and Iran.

Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the primary groups accused of carrying out attacks against U.S. interests, including the attack on the U.S. Embassy and the Diplomatic Support Center at Baghdad International Airport. The group was behind the kidnapping of Elizabeth Tsurkov in Baghdad in 2023.

Following intense diplomatic pressure, Tsurkov—a Princeton graduate student with Israeli and Russian citizenship—was released in September 2025 after nearly three years in captivity, during which she was subjected to torture and sexual assault.

Al Monitor released a statement saying it was “deeply alarmed” by the kidnapping of Kittleson, who was a contributor to the publication. “We stand by her vital reporting from the region and call for her swift return to continue her important work,” the publication said.

Kittleson is a longstanding freelancer in the Middle East and has reported extensively from Iraq. She arrived in the country 10 days ago from Syria, where she contributed to Middle East Uncovered. She had plans to pitch further stories to our editor from Baghdad, telling her that she needed to find secure channels to share information as her American passport had placed “a target on my [her] back.”

She was aware of security risks, but was focused on covering the ongoing regional escalation and its impact on Iraq.

“She said she loved Iraq and didn’t expect anyone to hurt her,” a journalist friend based in Baghdad, who asked not to be named, said.

Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X that “The State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them, and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible.”

US officials are understood to have contacted Kittleson to warn of threats against her in the days leading up to the abduction.

“An individual with ties to the Iranian-aligned militia group Kata’ib Hezbollah, believed to be involved in the kidnapping, has been taken into custody by Iraqi authorities,” Johnson added.

A statement from the U.S State Department said: “The Trump Administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans.”

Shelly’s reporting has brought clarity and depth to stories that are often overlooked, and her safety is of urgent concern to all of us at Middle East Uncovered. We call for her immediate and unconditional release. No journalist should be targeted for doing their job.

DAMASCUS, Syria — People on the streets barely look up at the sound of missile interceptions overhead, even as Israel and the United States escalate their conflict with Iran.

For the first time in well over a decade, Syria seems to have become one of the safest countries in the region.

Regional violence has killed over a thousand people in Lebanon and Iran and dozens elsewhere in recent weeks, as the ongoing war widens; nevertheless, many Syrians continue to return and rebuild. After more than a decade of barrel bombs, snipers, foreign militias, and fragmentation, this period of being largely left alone—for the time being, at least—has restored a sense of hope in much of the population.

Citing the latest figures from the EU border agency Frontex, Benjamin Feve, senior research analyst at Karam Shaar Advisory, posted on X on March 20 that “only 30 Syrian nationals were detected crossing into the EU irregularly in January 2026,” marking a sharp drop from previous years.

Conversations in Damascus’s upscale cafés often focus on business opportunities and complications tied to international travel amid airport shutdowns; in less well-off households on the outskirts, discussions center on rising prices for basic goods and a persistent lack of electricity.

One Lebanese-Syrian woman in Damascus told me that “war has become normal for us,” adding that she plans to bring as much of her family still in Lebanon to Syria as soon as possible.

As Western embassies in Iraq and Lebanon—Syria’s neighbors to the east and west—issued shelter-in-place orders requiring staff to remain at home and prepare for emergencies, diplomatic personnel in Damascus attended lavish iftars during Ramadan and moved freely around the city.

This relative safety has not come effortlessly. Over the past year, a wide range of actors have worked to ensure that Syria’s neighbors and major powers do not view the country or its current leadership as a threat.

Syria’s transitional government has made no secret of the fact that it considers good relations with the United States key to the country’s future. In November, Syrian and US officials announced that Syria had joined the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State, after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Washington and met his US counterpart at the White House.

As part of efforts to ensure that the Jewish community knows it is welcome, the US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force—including its executive director, an American citizen of Palestinian-Syrian origins, Mouaz Moustafa—took several figures from the community to Syria to meet with key government officials and visit the Damascus synagogue as well as other places in the city last year.

The Syrian government has also worked to ensure at least cordial relations with Russia as well, despite Russia’s massive involvement in the war and its ongoing harboring of the Assad family. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Syria’s foreign and defense ministers in December to discuss political, economic, and military issues of “mutual interest.”

“During the meeting, both sides reviewed ways to advance military and technical partnership in a manner that strengthens the defensive capabilities of the Syrian Arab Army and keeps pace with modern developments in military industries,” Syrian official state news agency SANA reported at that time.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on the same trip, that Russian-Syrian relations were entering “a new stage.”

Many Syrians, meanwhile, still view Israel warily—or worse. However, many have come to acknowledge that it is a neighboring country with significant military and geopolitical power, and ensuring it does not see Syria as a threat is essential for their future and that of their children. As a result, Syria has not reacted militarily to the numerous Israeli attacks on its territory since the former regime fell on December 8, 2024.

Iraq and Syria have also been working to maintain good neighborly relations since Assad’s ouster, despite the fact that Iran-backed Iraqi armed factions had previously fought against the core of Syria’s current government and were responsible for the deaths of many Syrian civilians.

Iraq’s intelligence chief made the first of multiple visits to Damascus only a few weeks after former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fled. Cooperation with Iraq has made it possible to avert several alleged plans to assassinate Syria’s new president.

Iran, however, is no longer welcome here. Many Syrians say that while Russian-Syrian relations at times brought some benefits before the war, most see Iran’s influence in the country as having been largely detrimental to both the state and its population.

Since the conflict in Syria began in 2011, following brutal crackdowns on anti-government protests, Iran-backed militias held de facto control over large parts of the country, including areas near the Iraqi border. Since their departure, along with Assad’s, gains in personal freedom and societal trust have been made. A Freedom House report released on March 19 found that Syria made the largest gains in political rights and civil liberties worldwide in 2025, amid a global decline in such rights.

Syria still faces significant challenges, however, and the ongoing conflict may aggravate them. Even seemingly mundane issues that continue to affect the country and its population may have serious consequences if not addressed quickly. Several foreign diplomats and NGO staff, for example, have repeatedly criticized, in private, the stifling and counterproductive nature of existing bureaucratic procedures; some who worked in the country prior to Assad’s ouster say that cumbersome regulations and time-consuming processes have become even more burdensome.

This, some in Syria say, may largely stem from a deeply ingrained cultural mindset that will take time and effort to change; neither Syria nor the wider region has the luxury of time, unfortunately, if they want to avoid serious repercussions on their economies and society as a whole. For now, the relative calm is holding. But it rests on a narrow set of calculations: restraint at home, careful signaling abroad, and a regional environment that could shift quickly. In a region where escalation has become the norm, Syria’s stability remains contingent, not assured.

The Persian Gulf is on fire. Iranian missile strikes, naval standoffs, and oil tankers burning in waters that supply a third of the world’s energy have consumed every headline, every breaking news alert, and every geopolitical conversation for weeks. It is the kind of crisis that swallows everything around it, including questions that were, not long ago, impossible to ignore.

Gaza has nearly vanished from the news cycle. The Strip, which dominated global discourse for more than two years, drove millions into the streets from London to Washington, and sat high on the agendas of Western governments, has now largely disappeared from public discussion—even as the rubble and the people living in it have not gone anywhere.

And yet, amidst all this chaos, something has been prepared by the Trump administration in the past few weeks. Nicolay Mladenov, director general of Trump’s Board of Peace, announced that a new framework has been agreed upon by all mediators to the Gaza war. The framework is simple: full disarmament of Hamas and all armed groups in the Gaza Strip—including anti-Hamas militias that have recently emerged and taken control of parts of it—“all militias with no exception,” in Mladenov’s words, as a precondition for unlocking reconstruction, advancing Palestinian unity, and taking a first serious step toward resolving the Palestinian question in its entirety.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) answered—though not in words—the following day. Checkpoints, police cars, and conspicuous displays of force were visible throughout the Gaza Strip.

Fighters from PIJ’s armed wing, Saraya al-Quds, and Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades appeared in multiple locations, distributing sweets to mark the first day of Eid al-Fitr, donning military uniforms typically reserved for ceasefires.

The message was legible without anyone needing to say it out loud: we are still here, we are still armed, and we are the day after.

But how much of an arsenal are these militias actually defending?

According to the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, Hamas now holds roughly ten percent of its prewar rocket arsenal, and its estimated 17,000 fighters, most of them new, young, and inexperienced, have approximately 10,000 rifles.

The organization that launched the October 7 attacks through coordinated land, sea, and air operations no longer exists in its former form. Its commanders have been killed, its battalions dismantled, and its weapons-production infrastructure largely destroyed.

The Hamas that appeared on Gaza’s streets distributing Eid sweets is a shadow military force operating from a position of institutional catastrophe. It is a movement increasingly anxious about its own irrelevance.

Hamas’s political leadership knows this to be true. On November 5, speaking to Al-Jazeera, senior Hamas political bureau member Mousa Abu Marzouq offered what passed, in Hamas’s language, for a concession: weapons with ranges beyond the buffer zone, he said, were “reasonable to discuss,” because they could pose a direct threat to the other side. For an organization that has historically treated any discussion of disarmament as an immovable red line, acknowledging that some weapons are reasonable to discuss is a messaging shift, however tactical and self-serving.

What remains in Hamas’s hands are modest weapons: Kalashnikovs, pistols, and improvised arms assembled from unexploded Israeli ordnance scattered across the Strip after two years of bombardment. These are crude devices built from the debris of the very war being waged against them.

Other pro-Hamas militias, particularly the PIJ, are in no better condition than Hamas. Hamas has, however, been more successful in developing backup institutions and succession mechanisms, replacing each military leader almost immediately after being killed.

In the case of the PIJ, that infrastructure does not exist. What remains is a small number of militants attempting to stand alongside Hamas during public displays in uniform, in the hope that financial support from Tehran continues.

The supply lines that once fed a more serious arsenal have been strangled. Hezbollah, historically a crucial conduit for Iranian weapons reaching Gaza, has been effectively neutralized following Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. The Iranian regime itself, battered by successive strikes on its military and nuclear infrastructure, is in no position to run the kind of smuggling operation it once did through the Axis of Resistance. The tunnels into Sinai are under unprecedented pressure from Egyptian security cooperation. Hamas is limited to what it can manufacture locally and scavenge from battlefield debris.

And yet these light weapons are not nothing. They are the one thing Hamas cannot afford to give up, because they are the mechanism through which it controls the Gaza Strip. Not the tunnels, not the rockets, not any capacity to threaten Israel—those are gone or severely diminished. What they have retained is the ability to impose order, or disorder, on a civilian population of two million people who have every reason to resent it. This is why Hamas’s political bureau frames disarmament as an existential question. Surrendering the guns is not the loss of any meaningful strategic military capability. It is the surrender of the power to govern through intimidation, and that is the only card Hamas has left to play.

Gaza’s people deserve the chance to build something new—not under the control of armed factions, the authority of militias that have replaced them in parts of the Strip, nor under the permanent shadow of a war that serves every corrupt actor except the civilians trapped between them.

Hamas and the PIJ are unlikely to agree to this voluntarily. That has been tested repeatedly over the past two years, and their position has been consistent. Pressure, therefore, becomes unavoidable. One track is already underway: targeting the networks that sustain them, including their sponsors in Tehran.

The second must come from those who claim to stand for Gaza’s future. The pro-Palestine movement has done significant work in pushing to end the war and expand humanitarian aid. But if that effort stops short of confronting the forces obstructing Gaza’s recovery, then it is reasonable to question what its vision ultimately entails. Calling for a Gaza free from siege, but not free from armed authoritarian rule, leaves the central issue unresolved.

Gaza’s people have been anguished, exhausted, and stripped of nearly everything. After all of that, the least that can be offered is a credible path forward—one that cannot exist under the rule of militias, whether Hamas or those that oppose it.

What is at stake is the possibility of ordinary life: cities governed by institutions, laws that protect their citizens, and rights that apply equally to all. That is not an unreasonable demand. It is the baseline that Gaza has been denied for far too long.

In 2003, Yanar Mohammed made a decision that would change the lives of countless Iraqi women. She looked at her comfortable life as an architect in Canada and decided to return home. The US had just invaded her country and Mohammed believed gender equality would be a vital foundation for Iraq’s future.

Back in Baghdad, she founded the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which would become one of the most outspoken feminist groups in the country.

“Yanar was an extraordinary woman who relentlessly fought for progress despite being threatened with assassination for more than two decades,” said Yifat Susskind, Executive Director of MADRE, and international women’s rights organization.

“At great personal risk, she transformed the landscape for women and girls in Iraq, building institutions, shifting laws, and creating space for women to live with dignity and power, no matter their status.”

Mohammed’s assassination on March 2 has prompted an outpouring of grief and sparked fresh concerns over the dangers faced by women’s rights advocates in Iraq. The 66-year-old was shot by two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle outside her home in northern Baghdad and rushed to hospital, but died later from her wounds.

Colleagues at the OWFI described her as “an uncompromising outspoken feminist voice” and a fierce campaigner against discrimination and violence. “The passing of Yanar Mohamed is a tremendous loss to the feminist movement, but her legendary legacy will live on in every woman whose life was restored thanks to her support,” the organization said in a statement shared on social media.

The attack, a week before International Women’s Day, reinforced the precarious position of women’s rights activists in the country. International rights groups have warned of a “chilling pattern of targeted killings” designed to stifle women’s rights campaigners in Iraq.

“The persistent failure of the Iraqi authorities to hold perpetrators accountable for past assassinations has entrenched a climate of impunity that continues to place activists at grave and fatal risk,” said Razaw Salihy, Amnesty International’s Iraq Researcher.

“Human rights defenders, including women’s rights defenders in Iraq must be protected—not silenced and killed.”

The attack comes as rising rates of gender-based violence and discriminatory laws deepen the challenges faced by women and girls in Iraq. Tireless campaigning by women’s rights activists over the country’s Personal Status Code prevented a reduction in the minimum age of marriage for girls to nine last year, but harmful provisions remain.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has ordered an investigation into Mohammed’s killing. However, rights groups say attacks against journalists, activists, human rights defenders and protesters persist because perpetrators are rarely prosecuted for these crimes.

The OWFI described the crime as a “direct targeting of the women’s struggle”, and called on Iraqi authorities to “put a limit to the evasion of punishment that threatens human rights defenses in Iraq.” It has pledged to keep the organization’s safe houses open to support vulnerable women in Iraq.

Mohammed opened the first of these facilities in 2003 for women facing violence and abuse. Over time, she would establish a string of secret shelters, helping survivors of honor crimes, forced marriage, and trafficking to rebuild their lives.

Criticized by conservative groups, they were frequently forced to relocate, but Mohammed remained “defiant in the face of threats from ISIS and other armed groups,” Frontline Defenders said.

When she first returned to Iraq following the overthrow of former dictator Saddam Hussein, there was hope that new rights and freedoms could emerge. Instead, the situation worsened across much of the country as Iraq descended into chaos.

In a 2007 interview, Mohammed said women were the “first losers” of the US-led invasion of Iraq, tracing the decline in women’s rights to the years after the first Gulf war when “the modernization of the country went backwards.”

Though sidelined politically, women in Iraq had previously enjoyed better access to education and employment compared with many neighboring countries. “Iraq wasn’t really a third-world country. It was better off because of the income from oil and higher education women got for free,” she said.

But the opportunities for women that emerged in the 1950s and 60s saw a sharp reversal in the 1990s as conflict and sanctions gutted the country. Spiraling poverty eroded opportunities for economic independence and women’s status diminished as the regime targeted female freedoms to appease conservative groups.

The US-led invasion accelerated this reversal. As armed militias and insurgent groups filled the security vacuum, women faced mounting risks of kidnapping, violence and trafficking. Political power shifted towards religious groups, enforcing a stricter interpretation of Islamic values on Iraqi society.

Mohammed described the rapid rollback of women’s rights in an article for Chatham House, citing “massive resistance” to legal recognition for women’s shelters, which are not officially allowed in Iraq.

“I had hoped for a future in which women in Iraq could be respected and treated as equals under a state that upheld human rights. Instead, the US-led invasion solidified existing patriarchal structures and created the conditions for an increase in violence against women,” she wrote in 2023.

At the time, OWFI shelters had supported over 1,300 women and girls, providing emergency refuge alongside psychological services, legal assistance, and skills training for those unable to return home.

In a tribute to Mohammed, Iraq researchers Taif Alkhudary and Hayder Al-Shakeri said the refuges filled a “structural void,” in an environment that was increasingly hostile to women’s rights.

“In a context where police protection is inconsistent at best and directly contributes to gender-based violence at worst, and stigma silences survivors, OWFI institutionalized protection,” they said. “In doing so, it challenged both state failure and entrenched patriarchal norms.”

For more than two decades, Mohammed continued to advocate for women let down by successive governments and society. In 2016, as ISIS began to lose control of key cities, she took in women who endured rape and violence under their rule. Many had nowhere to return to and were “living in the shadows of society,” she said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

That year, Mohammed was awarded the Norwegian Rafto Prize for Human Rights in recognition of her courageous work on behalf of women and minorities in war-torn Iraq. Speaking at the UN Security Council in 2015, she described the “grim” situation in Iraq at the time, where trafficked women forced into brothels, “cannot go back home because they will be killed.”

The concerns Mohammed raised repeatedly over the years persist today. As the US-Israeli strikes on Iran reverberate across the region, Iraqi women face the fallout of yet another conflict and the need for advocates like Mohammed is greater than ever. Her death deprives the country of a powerful voice who refused to accept that Iraqi women should live in silence and fear.

Though her work remains unfinished, the institutions she built and the movement she nurtured endure. In the weeks and months before her death, Mohammed was still following up on the cases of Yazidi women and other survivors of ISIS abuse, refusing, as always, to abandon the women Iraq’s institutions had failed.

In the early hours of Friday, March 6, British counter-terror police arrested four men—one Iranian and three dual British-Iranian nationals—suspected of spying for Iran and allegedly targeting synagogues and Jews in Harrow, Barnet, and Watford. These areas have some of the largest Jewish populations in the UK.

The arrests were made under the National Security Act and are the first of suspects alleged to be acting in Iran’s interests since the country was attacked by the US and Israel on February 28.

This is not the first indication of Iran’s activities on British soil. In May 2025, Israel’s embassy in London was the target of an alleged terror plot involving five Iranian nationals. Tehran denied any involvement.

These are not isolated cases. Over the past decade, Western intelligence agencies and analysts have warned that the Iranian regime has expanded its efforts to monitor, intimidate, and sometimes attack its perceived “enemies” abroad, often using criminal gangs to do so.

These targets often include members of the Iranian diaspora as well as Jewish or Israeli-linked institutions. The Islamic Republic frequently conflates Jews with the state of Israel.

In the last four years, British authorities have foiled 40 terrorist attacks linked to Iran. “It is clear that these plots are a conscious strategy of the Iranian regime to stifle criticism through intimidation and fear,” said Dan Jarvis, the British security minister. “These threats are unacceptable. They must and will be defended against at every turn.”

Similar incidents have been reported elsewhere. In Australia last year, the Iranian ambassador was ordered to leave in 2025 after being accused of directing antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

Intelligence services linked Iran to an arson attack on a cafe in Sydney in October 2024 and another on a synagogue in Melbourne in December of the same year. Iran “absolutely rejected” the allegations.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s security service Säpo said Iran may have been involved in the explosions and gunfire that took place near the Israeli embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen in 2024.

“Our response is only catching up,” says Roger MacMillan. “People are finally waking up to how dangerous this particular threat is, but more needs to be done.”

MacMillan was head of security for Iran International, a Persian-language satellite channel based in London, when one of its journalists, Pouria Zeraati, was stabbed by a group of men outside his home in Wimbledon. They were believed to be acting for the Iranian regime.

Leading up to the attack, UK intelligence services had foiled at least 15 plots to kidnap or kill employees of the channel.

Zeraati subsequently left London with his wife, as he believed the UK government wasn’t doing enough to keep people like him safe. He is among a growing number calling for the British government to proscribe the IRGC, an arm of the Iranian state, as a terrorist organization.

Iran’s presence in the UK extends beyond security threats, reaching into religious and community institutions.

A day after Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes, candles and photographs of the supreme leader were placed outside the Islamic Centre of England (ICE) in north London, with grief-stricken mourners turning up to pay their tributes.

A video posted online shows a tearful worshipper chanting: “We will obey you, Khamenei.”

It was far from an isolated scene.

Across Britain, mosques and student organizations have organized vigils and tributes to a dictator who oversaw brutal crackdowns on his own people for over 36 years.

“I find this so sad, it’s like mourning the death of Hitler,” says Ellie Borhan, an Iranian dissident and founder of the London-based Stage of Freedom group. “The Islamic Republic has committed crimes against humanity.”

For critics of the regime, such scenes point to a deeper and more organized network of influence.

About 30 charities, community centers, and other organizations in the UK are allegedly linked to Tehran, according to a landmark new report.

The report warns that Britain has been too slow to confront Tehran’s “soft power” infrastructure.

Eight of the ten charities detailed in the report are already under investigation by the Charity Commission, but Walney points to “systemic delays” and a lack of robust action.

Critics also argue that this hesitation is not only due to bureaucratic inertia, but also to a lack of political will, combined with politicians scared of being accused of Islamophobia.

ICE, a registered charity in London’s Maida Vale, has been described as the Islamic Republic’s “nerve center” in Britain. Its past director was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei.

Last year, the centre was broadcasting daily Ramadan religious messages from the supreme leader. The Intelligence and Security Committee said that ICE may provide Iranian intelligence agents “with a useful base from which to act.”

In 2020, the center received a warning from the Charity Commission, a charity regulator, after it hosted a vigil for Qasem Soleimani, a commander of the IRGC killed by the US. It has been subject to a statutory inquiry since November 2022.

ICE has denied that it acts as the headquarters for any network linked to Iran’s supreme leader, insisting that neither the Iranian political system nor any political figure has influence or control over its activities, and that it does not represent any foreign government.

Lord Walney’s report also details allegations concerning the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). The Wembley-based center is responsible for organizing the annual Al-Quds demonstration linked to the regime. It was due to take place on March 15, but it was banned by the British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to “prevent serious public disorder”. Instead, a static demonstration was permitted, with 12 people subsequently arrested on the day.

Organizers insist the rally, which takes its name from the Arabic word for Jerusalem, is a peaceful event in support of Palestinians. But many others describe it as a “hate march,” accusing IHRC of having links to Iran.

Massoud Shadjareh, the founder and chairman of the IHRC, has previously backed Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Sir Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

At a vigil for Soleimani, Shadjareh said: “We work hard to make sure there will be many, many more Qasem Soleimanis. We aspire to become like him.”

In 2023, Shadjareh praised the Iranian regime during a three-part YouTube interview for the Masaf Institute, accused of being a propaganda outlet for Iran. The same year, he spoke in Tehran at a student event for the Basij Resistance Force, a volunteer paramilitary group sanctioned by the UK.

In response to these allegations, the IHRC denounced Walney as “an active supporter of Israel,” using “his platform to shield Israel from criticism”. With regards to the claims about Iranian links, the centre dismissed them as “tiresome” and yet another example of linking “British Muslims to the latest so-called ‘bogeyman’ in the Middle East,” which “borders on racism.”

Borhan believes tougher action is needed. She wants to see the IRGC proscribed.

“The government really needs to come down harder on these activists and find out who’s funding them,” she says. “If the UK designates the IRGC as a terrorist organization, then they wouldn’t be able to get as much support, and their assets would be frozen.”

When asked at a recent parliamentary debate if the government would move to proscribe the IRGC, Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, simply stated: “We keep all proscription decisions under close review.”

The previous UK government declined to proscribe the IRGC, partly out of concern that it would damage future diplomatic channels with Tehran.

Unlike the Wagner Group—a Russian state-funded paramilitary-mercenary organization which the UK proscribed as a non-state paramilitary organisation in 2023—the IRGC is an official branch of the Iranian state, creating legal and diplomatic complications for its designation under existing counter-terrorism legislation.

When asked to what extent the Iranian state has support in the UK, Roger MacMillan rightly points out that the pro-regime vigils and rallies are vastly outnumbered by the secular dissidents. “But it only takes one person to carry out an attack,” he adds.

The question now is whether Britain’s response will keep pace with the scale of the threat—one that, as the recent arrests in Harrow, Barnet, and Watford show, is already very real on our soil.

Shoaib was preparing for Suhor during Ramadan when the calm of dawn was interrupted by the all-too-familiar sounds of war. “We started the day with the deafening roar of explosions and the relentless rattle of gunfire echoing across the capital,” said the 26-year-old from Kabul. “My family sat in shock with the realization that there are no ‘safe zones’ when the heart of your country is under direct assault,” he added.

Last month, on February 22, Pakistani airstrikes hit Nangarhar province, wiping out an entire family and leaving behind a grieving father and his young son. Images of the aftermath spread on social media before officials could verify or explain them. This has become a key part of the conflict: it is fought on X as much as along the Durand Line, and much of what appears online cannot be independently confirmed.

The roots of the current war run deep and predate even the Taliban itself.

The Durand Line, a 2,611-kilometer border drawn by British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1893, split the Pashtun tribal homeland between present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has never officially recognized it as a real border, despite Amir Abdur Rahman Khan signing the agreement in return for a British subsidy. Pakistan insists it is legitimate. This tension has never been resolved—only managed, suppressed, or used as leverage by whoever was in power in Kabul. The Taliban, a predominantly Pashtun movement, also rejects the line. They see the tribes on both sides as one people, divided by a decision made by outsiders.

Since the Taliban took power in 2021, there have been at least 75 clashes between the Taliban and Pakistani forces along the disputed border. The fighting has grown more intense each time. A ceasefire mediated by Qatar in October 2025 quickly disintegrated, and talks led by Turkey and Saudi Arabia yielded only brief pauses. The main reason for the current crisis is Pakistan’s claim that the Taliban is sheltering the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group that has carried out deadly attacks in Pakistan at an ever-increasing rate since 2021.

The Taliban denies this accusation. However, experts agree that the two groups are closely linked. The Taliban and the TTP have worked together in Afghanistan, and the TTP’s first leader was once part of the Haqqani Network, one of the Taliban’s most feared factions. And the Taliban is known to stand by its allies. After September 11, they refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden even when facing a U.S. invasion. This loyalty is not accidental but rather and integral part of how the Taliban operates.

Pakistan warned about its intentions to strike for weeks. In February 2026, the country faced a week-long attack by the Balochistan Liberation Army, resulting in a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad that killed 36 people, and a TTP attack on a checkpoint in Bajaur that killed 11 soldiers and a child. After trying diplomatic interventions, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan’s “cup of patience had overflowed.”

On February 21, Pakistan launched airstrikes on what it said were TTP training camps in eastern Afghanistan. Five days later, the Taliban struck back. On February 26, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani military posts along the Durand Line. The next day, Khawaja Asif declared a state of “open war” with Afghanistan. Pakistani jets then hit targets across the country, including Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, and Nangarhar. This was Pakistan’s largest attack on the Afghan capital and its first airstrikes on the Taliban’s southern stronghold since 2021.

The Taliban said it carried out drone strikes on Pakistani cities like Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera. Pakistan’s information minister said all drones were intercepted and there were no casualties. As usual, both sides disagree on casualty numbers. Social media makes it even harder to confirm what really happened, as it spreads propaganda from both sides before the facts are clear.

What we do know for sure is that, according to UNAMA, at least 70 civilians were killed and 478 were injured in Afghanistan between October and December 2025, before the latest fighting broke out. The deaths of women and children in Nangarhar are real. The Taliban quickly photographed and shared these images to rally support for a government that has spent four years oppressing the same people it now claims to be protecting.

The use of drones is especially important to note. In August 2025, Middle East Uncovered first reported on the Taliban’s secret drone program, which aimed to develop armed drones after learning from wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Many people dismissed the idea at the time, thinking the Taliban could not pull it off. Now, with the fighting along the Durand Line, the program is being used for the first time. This should not have come as a surprise.

Afghans have largely fallen into three camps in response to the fighting, reflecting the deep divisions and psychological strain created by four years of Taliban rule.

The first group supports the Taliban’s actions. They argue that Pakistan attacked a sovereign country, killed Afghan civilians, and the Taliban is defending its people. This view is easy to understand emotionally. Pakistan has bombed Afghan territory, and the images of dead families are real. The anger is real, too.

But this argument asks Afghans to forget, or even forgive, the thousands who have been killed, kidnapped, tortured, stoned, publicly flogged, and raped under by Taliban members in the past four years. It asks Afghan women, who have been shut out of schools, universities, parks, and public life, to now support those who are actively oppressing them. It asks the families of journalists languishing in Taliban prisons to feel sympathy for their captors. No amount of construction work by the Taliban, such as paving roads or fixing buildings, can make up for their sins. The idea that Taliban military action against Pakistan is really defending the Afghan people falls apart when you ask: which Afghan people?

The second group takes a more logical view. They say this is not Afghanistan’s war. Ordinary Afghans, who have no say in the Taliban’s decision to shelter the TTP, are suffering because of a political choice made in Kandahar. The Taliban has little reason to help Pakistan fight the TTP, since doing so could cause rebellion within their own ranks or push TTP fighters to join ISIS-K, a Taliban rival. Protecting the TTP is a strategic decision, but civilians in Nangarhar and Kabul pay the price, not the leaders in Kandahar. This war could have been avoided. It could still be stopped. If the Taliban halts support for the TTP, the fighting might end quickly.

The third group may be the most risky—not because of the facts, but because of wishful thinking. These Afghans, including some living abroad, believe Pakistan’s military campaign could mark the start of the Taliban’s downfall. They hope Islamabad will support resistance groups, weaken the regime, and free Afghans from their current suffering. Critics describe this view as naïve or politically irresponsible, noting that Pakistan’s actions are aimed at countering militant threats, not dismantling the Taliban government.

Pakistan’s goal is clear and limited: to destroy militant safe havens and stop weapons from reaching the TTP. The Taliban was once a useful ally for Pakistan during the war against the Afghan Republic, but that is no longer the case, and Pakistan has lost its influence. Now that the conflict in Afghanistan is over, the Taliban does not need Pakistan’s support. Importantly, Pakistan’s strikes have not targeted any top Taliban leaders. There is no plan to remove the Taliban or change the regime. Pakistan is not fighting for Afghan women or democracy. It is acting for its own security, and once that goal is met or if the cost becomes too high, it will pull back. Afghans hoping Islamabad will free them are likely to be disappointed.

For more than 26 years, Pakistan has been the main supporter of the Taliban. Its intelligence services helped build, fund, and protect the movement during two decades of American intervention. Pakistan let Taliban leaders plan from Quetta and Peshawar and used the Haqqani Network as a strategic tool. It blocked every peace effort that could have led to a stable Afghan republic, because some in Pakistan’s leadership saw a strong Afghanistan as a threat. These actions have never been those of a true friend.

As the conflict along the Durand Line worsens with no end in sight, diplomatic efforts to contain the fighting have made little progress so far. China recently stepped in through its special envoy for Afghanistan, who spent several days engaging both Islamabad and Kabul in attempts to mediate and push for an immediate ceasefire. Beijing urged the two sides to restart dialogue, emphasizing that disputes between neighboring countries should be settled through consultation rather than continued military escalation. So far, there are no signs of progress, and Pakistan’s aerial campaign continues.

The Taliban’s actions in this crisis follow a pattern the world should recognize: an expansionist mindset by a terrorist group, alliances with other foreign militant groups, refusal to compromise with stronger neighbors, and emotional responses that put civilians at risk. The Taliban has long distrusted Pakistan, despite their alliance. Now that the war in Afghanistan is over, they do not need Pakistan’s support, so Islamabad has lost its influence. But losing leverage is not the same as having complete freedom, and the Taliban is confusing the two.

The historical comparison is uncomfortable but clear. In 2001, the Taliban had a choice: hand over Osama bin Laden or face invasion by a superpower. They refused, saying their code of hospitality, Pashtunwali, would not allow them to give up a guest. Within weeks, their government imploded, and they fled. Now, the Taliban is making a similar choice by protecting a foreign militant group, putting Afghan civilians at risk, and confronting a nuclear-armed neighbor supported by international law.

Nearly a month into the fighting, there is still no clear path to de-escalation.

The Taliban’s first government lasted five years before it fell because of its own poor decisions. The second government has been in power for less than five years. The real question is not whether the Taliban has learned from the past; their actions show they have not. The real question is how many ordinary Afghans will suffer for choices made in Kandahar without their input.

The weeks leading up to the truce were terrifying. Fighting drew closer to Janeh Layle’s home near Qamishli as government forces advanced across Kurdish-held areas in northeast Syria. A lightning offensive by the Damascus army in January had forced the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to relinquish large swathes of territory, prompting waves of displacement. “They were less than an hour away. We were really afraid,” she said.

Days later, crowds gathered in the streets to celebrate an end to weeks of violence. Layle was among them, grateful that war had been averted. But as the immediate danger subsided, deeper anxieties surfaced. After more than a decade of self-rule, how would Kurds preserve their way of life under Syria’s new leadership, in particular, the freedoms that allowed women to live and work as equals?

“Women were given a real chance to develop here. It was an opportunity for us to create a community and shape our environment as it should be,” Layle said.

The January 30 ceasefire deal between interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi ended the Kurdish-run autonomous administration in northeast Syria and set out a path towards integration. It marks a significant step in Damascus’ push to reassert nationwide authority—a process welcomed by Washington as a step towards reconciliation and unity.

Critics, however, warn that compelling the Kurds to surrender hard-won rights could deepen tensions in a country still plagued by division. The SDF previously held about a quarter of the country, managing prisons containing ISIS fighters and major oilfields, which have now been transferred to Damascus.

“The population in the predominantly Kurdish regions is sceptical of the agreement, and rightly so,” said Lea Schneider, a member of the Women Defend Rojava Campaign. Vague wording and lack of detail have fueled concerns that concessions on paper could be pared back in practice. “It does not yet include provisions regarding women’s rights, which is a major worry,” she added.

For more than a decade, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), widely known as Rojava, built a system grounded in gender equality and grassroots governance. Supporters have described it as the world’s “first feminist revolution,” and the birthplace of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Women, Life, Freedom) slogan chanted during 2022 protests in Iran.

However, human rights organizations have at times accused the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) of restricting political pluralism, detaining rivals, and suppressing dissent. “It is important not to romanticize Rojava and to recognize that gaps exist between rhetoric and reality. But where its ideas worked out, they were transformative,” wrote Natasha Walter in The Guardian.

Under the administration’s co-chair system, institutions at every level of government are headed by both a man and a woman. Universities offer classes in jineology, the “science of women,” premised on the idea that society cannot be free without female liberation, while female-only cooperatives promote financial independence.

While visiting the autonomous administration last year, Walter was struck by the everyday feminism she encountered throughout society. Women in all roles—soldiers, university professors, factory workers, farmers, and politicians—were well-versed in feminist literature and eager to debate. “They were talking about how they were building on western feminism and how they had new ideas…they have their own inspirations, but they were very engaged in terms of my traditions as well,” she told Middle East Uncovered.

The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female militia affiliated with Kurdish forces, became a symbol of women’s role in the fight against ISIS and the feminist principles underpinning the Rojava revolution. “We believe that women’s liberty is society’s liberty,” said YPJ commander Nesrin Abdullah.

Speaking before the ceasefire, she warned of a fundamental misalignment between Kurdish communities in Syria and the country’s new government. “This attack on the region is an attack on women. What we have gained in the past 14 years through the revolution, particularly for women, they want to demolish it,” she said.

There is currently one woman in Al-Sharaa’s transitional government. Hind Kabawat, who has served as the minister of social affairs and labour since March 2025, has expressed a commitment to driving change and said she is not in the position for “window dressing.”

Al-Sharaa has insisted that minority and women’s rights will be protected, but analysts question whether the policies practiced under the autonomous administration can endure in a region where women are often marginalized from political life.

“The feminist ideology of PKK and PYD is central to the ideology of the ruling party of Rojava, but it does not equally penetrate the whole Kurdish society,” said Thomas Schmidinger, Associate Professor for Political Science and IR at University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (UKH) and author of several books on Rojava.

Al-Sharaa has gone some way towards addressing grievances that have long marginalized Kurds in Syria. A landmark decree in January granted citizenship to stateless Kurds and recognized Kurdish as a national language. However, many Kurds say these concessions fall short of the constitutional recognition needed to secure their status in Syrian society.

Others warn that the SDF’s forced surrender risks renewed clashes as the implementation process unfolds. Trust between the Damascus government and Syria’s largest minority group is tenuous, particularly after the recent massacres of Druze and Alawite communities raised the specter of further sectarian violence.

Forcing the Kurds to relinquish self-rule in Rojava, “destroys the possibility of a peaceful reunification of Syria under a more inclusive new system,” Schmidinger said. “Druze and Alawites will now rely even more on protection from outside, for example, from Israel.”

While voices in favor of Al-Sharaa’s centralizing mission, including many Western and Arab governments, see reintegration as an opportunity to build a strong, inclusive Syrian state, others warn of further instability as the implementation process unfolds.

“The recognition and protection of human rights for all population groups living here must be guaranteed in order for a democratic Syria to emerge,” said Schneider. Policies introduced during the period of autonomous rule should inform the country’s future political framework, she continued. “It cannot be a one-way thing.”

To many Kurdish women, Al-Sharaa’s background as a jihadist with links to al-Qaeda and ISIS is impossible to reconcile with the lives they lead in Rojava after more than a decade of social and political progress. “His misogynistic attitude can be seen in Raqqa and Tabqa, where Qurans and niqabs were distributed immediately after the occupation. Women who had begun to build free lives there now report living in fear and oppression,” Schneider said.

Kurds have long felt vulnerable in Syria, with hundreds of thousands denied citizenship under Assad’s rule. Banned from speaking their language and excluded from political life by a regime that treated Kurdish identity as a threat, many lived in a grey zone, unable to vote, own property, or secure a marriage license.

When the Syrian uprising erupted in 2011, Layle was a student in Damascus. As a 20-year-old Kurdish woman, she experienced a “double burden” in the university’s patriarchal environment. “You not only had to protect yourself as a woman, but because you were Kurdish as well,” she said.

In 2012, as the regime focused on uprisings in Damascus and Aleppo, the Kurds took advantage of the security vacuum to establish a system of self-governance in the northeast. It felt like a breakthrough had finally been achieved.

Then a new threat emerged. In 2013, an even more violent offshoot of Al-Qaeda was gathering strength amid the chaos consuming the country. Over the next year, ISIS would grow into a formidable force, sweeping across Syria and Iraq to seize vast swathes of territory and announce a new caliphate.

It was Kurdish YPG and YPJ forces, supported by US airstrikes, that finally halted the militants’ rampage. Images of female fighters resisting jihadists captured global attention and cast a sympathetic lens on the political project unfolding in Rojava.

But in the Middle East, self-rule in Rojava faced substantial opposition. Ankara views the SDF as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is proscribed in the United States, the EU, and the UK. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and remains a major security concern for the Turkish government, which further deters Western allies from formally recognizing the Kurdish-led administration in Syria.

When fighters from the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, seized power in December 2024, Kurds in the northeast feared it would be a matter of time before their autonomy came under threat.

That moment arrived in January, when the US announced an abrupt end to its strategic partnership with the SDF and threw its support behind Al-Sharaa. In a statement, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and envoy for Syria, said the SDF’s role had “largely expired” and welcomed Damascus’s push towards centralization.

Many Kurds felt abandoned by the loss of their powerful ally, leaving them exposed in a region where they have few reliable partners.

Since the peace agreement, government forces have swiftly consolidated their control over the northeast. Within days of the deal, borders and checkpoints in former SDF territory were secured, and Damascus officials began assuming authority over ministries and revenue streams.

For women’s organizations, life has already changed. Speaking with colleagues at Mala Jin women’s centers in territories that have come under government control, Bahiya Mourad consoles those who can no longer go to work.

When she helped open the first women’s center over a decade ago, it was considered shameful for women to discuss domestic disputes publicly. Over time, trust grew, and the centers became safe havens for both men and women. “We are really proud of our work,” she said. “If we return to how we were before, women will experience violence and be valueless.”

Funding poses an immediate challenge. “These institutions want to stay, but how are they going to be funded? That’s a huge question as a lot of the big revenue generators will be in the hands of the central government,” said Isabelle Edmonds, a researcher at the Rojava Information Centre.

For now, the ceasefire is holding across northeast Syria, but in Kurdish-majority areas, urgent discussions are underway. The dismantling of the autonomous administration may mark the end of Rojava as a political project, but the social movement it inspired stands strong. Students at Rojava University, where Layle lectures in art, have grown up studying in Kurdish, debating feminist theory, and watching women run ministries and command battalions.

“All the things we have built, we really believe in,” Layle said. “We will not just give them up.”

As regional tensions escalate following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Kurdish women in Rojava are planning for what comes next. “We know very well that women’s rights are often the first victim in any political settlement that does not place equality at its core,” says Shera Osey, of the Syrian Democratic Council.

When news of the ceasefire broke, she was meeting fellow activists. The conversation quickly turned to safeguarding their gains. “My hope is that women’s role will not be reduced to slogans, but translated into real partnership in drafting the constitution and making decisions,” she said. “The future we want is a democratic and pluralistic Syria in which women are full partners, not a political margin.”

In the Middle East, International Women’s Week can feel unrelentingly bleak. Headlines spotlight surging rates of sexual violence and dissect discriminatory laws that layer fresh restrictions on female freedoms.

In recent years, funding cuts have gutted support networks and exacerbated the risks faced by women’s rights actors operating in an increasingly hostile environment. Just last week, Iraqi women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed was shot dead outside her home in Baghdad by an unidentified gunman. Rights groups decried the “chilling pattern of targeted killings” faced by activists in Iraq.

Now, the US-Israeli strikes on Iran threaten to intensify a crisis that has already seen a rollback in women’s rights across the region. The disproportionate impact of war on women and children is well documented, and the UN Secretary General has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

However, this catalogue of decline obscures another truth unfolding simultaneously. From the Gulf, where education has spurred advances in civil liberties, to Iran, where female protesters risk reprisals to speak out, women across the region are shaping their own futures in vastly different contexts.

Even in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s new criminal code has entrenched gender apartheid, women refuse to disappear. Studying in secret and working online, they continue to work, learn, and organize, defying a regime that’s set on erasing them from public life.

These are the stories that inspire us at Ideas Beyond Borders, where we support hundreds of women and girls advancing education, entrepreneurship, and civic participation in some of the region’s most challenging environments. From underground classrooms in Afghanistan and businesses built under repressive conditions to refugee camps in Iraq where Yazidi women rebuild lives shattered by ISIS, this resistance takes many forms.

As authoritarian and patriarchal values gain momentum across the globe, women and girls are creating openings of opportunity that bypass institutional sexism and lay the foundations for freedom in the Middle East.

It’s in these stories—of fathers who refuse to see their daughters’ ambitions erased, teachers risking their safety to keep girls learning, and entrepreneurs who refuse to be intimidated by tradition—that the future of the region rests.

Our ambition is to reinforce this support system so that the forces seeking to censor and oppress fail to dampen female potential, leaving women and girls free to realize their power.

Today, the Middle East is at a tipping point, inching closer to gender equality even as the forces against it intensify. In her statement on International Women’s Day, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous described the stark contradiction facing women and girls: “Stronger laws exist on domestic violence. More girls are in school than ever before. Women’s movements are more connected, more visible, and more crucial than ever before.”

Yet this progress exists alongside a powerful backlash. “Violence is rising, including online. Backlash is organized and well-resourced. Rights are being reversed in real time and at unprecedented speed. Impunity is spreading, in homes, online, and in conflicts,” Bahous warned.

Worldwide, women still have just 64 percent of the legal rights of men. As the war in Iran spreads, those rights come under increased pressure, putting the safety, security, and livelihoods of all civilians, particularly women, at risk. Yet even as conflict creates new uncertainties, women across the region are creating and pursuing opportunities for progress.

‘Afghan Women Tend to Find a Way’: Inside the Secret Classrooms Defying the Taliban’s Ban on Girls’ Education

KABUL, Afghanistan — Scattered across Afghanistan, where girls’ education has been severely restricted, a clandestine network of women educators refuses to surrender the future of their country’s girls.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, which brought a systematic dismantling of girls’ education beyond the sixth grade, some teachers have continued to operate underground schools.

“We started small, just a few students in a safe house,” said Amina, a teacher at the forefront of these secret networks. “Now, even with the risk, we are operating in multiple provinces. The number of students keeps growing because there is no other option. If we stop, these girls will have nothing.”

The World Moved On. She Stayed to Defend Yazidi Women.

KURDISTAN, Iraq — Taban Shoresh never spoke about surviving genocide in Iraq. Growing up in the UK as a refugee, she tried to be “as British as possible” and avoid her painful past.

Shoresh was four years old when Iraqi soldiers came to her family home in Kurdistan. It was the late 1980s, and then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had launched the so-called Anfal campaign, which oversaw the mass extermination of Kurds in northern Iraq amid the ongoing Iran-Iraq War.

Realizing that her lived experience could offer vital insight, Shoresh quit her job at an asset management firm in London and flew to Iraq for the first time since her family fled in the 1980s. “If I can prevent one person from going through what I went through, I’m happy with that,” she said.

In Iraq, Mosul’s Women Find Freedom in Female-Only Transport

MOSUL, Iraq — The clang of construction rings loud throughout Mosul, where homes, cafes, and historic monuments are still emerging from the rubble. Nine years after Iraqi security forces declared victory over ISIS, Iraq’s second-largest city is still forging a new identity as battle-scarred buildings give way to fresh facades, leaving the bitter years of occupation behind.

Many residents remained in displacement, unable to see a future there. Hakam Hesham, 25, was among a handful of local entrepreneurs brave enough to try. In 2023, he launched Lygo, a taxi service for women, becoming the first Iraqi-led service of its kind to both employ and cater to female customers.

Initially staffed by female drivers, the company has revolutionized travel in the conservative city. “If a woman doesn’t have a car, or one of her male relatives doesn’t, she cannot go anywhere,” Hesham said.

She Wanted to Be a Doctor. Now She Fights to Keep Afghan Kids Learning

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — At just 21, Rohila never imagined she would become a teacher. Her dream was to study medicine. Instead, she now stands before classrooms of Afghan children, trying to keep their curiosity alive in a country where education has been gutted, and teachers are disappearing.

“Why shouldn’t learning be fun?” she says of her philosophy. She builds lessons around games, cartoons, and what children see online. “These kids are sensitive. You have to meet them where they are.”

Yet even the most committed teachers cannot escape the reality of Taliban rule. Schools are under constant scrutiny. Curricula are stripped of subjects deemed “un-Islamic.” And qualified teaching staff, particularly women, are being forced out.

Twenty-Five Years After Resolution 1325

Twenty-five years after a landmark United Nations resolution set out to give women a seat at the table, the backward slide in women’s rights is accelerating. Goals that were once difficult now seem impossible as campaigners confront renewed barriers to equality in many parts of the world.

In the Middle East, a question mark hangs over the future of women and girls as military spending increases and support networks vanish.

Hailed as a turning point when it was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on October 31, 2000, Resolution 1325 recognizes the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls and reaffirms their role in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Now it’s coming under fire amid a global ideological backlash that is dismissing gender as a dirty word and threatening decades of hard-won progress.

The Woman Behind Palestine’s Pioneering Brewery

WEST BANK, Palestine — At 4am, while the world around her sleeps, Madees Khoury is wide awake and brewing beer in the hills of the occupied West Bank. “I’m still in my pajamas, but I’m in my zone! It’s fun!” she laughs. “I get my hands dirty, and I work. I love it!”

Khoury is not just doing any job. She’s the only female brewer in the Middle East. And from the Palestinian village of Taybeh, she is making beer under occupation, against the grain of tradition—far from the easiest place to run a business.

“I grew up here, since the age of nine, watching my family build the business and work really hard,” the 39-year-old tells me from the brewery over a Zoom call.

The Vanishing Coverage of Women’s Lives is a Policy Risk

In 2023, I remember sitting with a teenage girl in a motel room in Jordan who was on the run from her father after he tried to force her into marriage. The law offered her no protection; the police sided with her father, a common reality in Jordan and many other countries. Without journalism willing to document her experience, her story—and the system that failed her—would have gone unheard.

As global crises deepen, women and girls sit at the center of conflict, repression, migration, and authoritarianism. Yet the journalism that documents their lives is disappearing.

This truth is unfolding today in Iran, where women are leading one of the bravest movements of our time, risking prison and death for bodily autonomy and basic freedom. Their protests are journalism in themselves: public testimony against a system built on fear and silence. Yet the reporting needed to preserve this moment remains scarce, underfunded, and treated as optional.

Fathers in Afghanistan Refuse to Surrender Their Daughters’ Dreams

KABUL, Afghanistan — The rush of joy when Sayed held his baby daughter for the first time was fleeting. At 20, he was a first-time father, anxious to give the tiny, precious human in his arms the best chances in life. But looking down at his little girl, he felt her happiness had an inevitable expiration date.

“After the initial joy, I felt hopeless,” he said. “In the future, she cannot pursue her studies like girls in other countries, cannot make a good life for herself.”

His concerns echo those of countless fathers across Afghanistan who feel powerless to intervene as their daughters, wives, and sisters watch their dreams dissolve. Women who once led full, productive lives are now stuck at home, hope ebbing under a regime that grows increasingly hardline.

Forgotten Women Defying the Odds

KURDISTAN, Iraq — There’s an eerie quiet on the streets of Essyan Camp. One of the largest refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, this was once a hub of activity, with aid and development agencies from across the world offering support and services to thousands of internally displaced people, many of them Yazidis forced from their homes by ISIS in 2014.

Today, the atmosphere is different. Some people have moved on, emigrating to Europe or returning home to Sinjar and other areas that were overrun by ISIS at the height of their caliphate. Yet the camp remains one of the largest in the region, with families afraid to return to areas with limited infrastructure and a volatile security situation, offering little hope for the future.

The Lotus Flower is among a handful of organizations continuing to provide services to refugees and IDPs in camps and host communities across Kurdistan. Set up by former child genocide survivor Taban Shoresh, they support women and girls affected by conflict and provide the tools they need to rebuild their lives.

The Criminalization of Afghan Women

KABUL, Afghanistan — As Senior Director of Right to Learn Afghanistan, I have spoken with girls inside the country who instinctively lower their voices when they utter the word “future”—not out of shyness, but because they have learned that dreaming of one might draw attention they cannot afford.

With the introduction of the Taliban’s new Criminal Courts Procedure Code, even staying within the confines of the law offers no protection.

The code assigns punishment by social class, denies defendants basic procedural safeguards, and grants judges sweeping discretion to criminalize ordinary behavior. It’s not a system meant to resolve crimes, but one designed to discipline a population—especially women—through the constant threat of arbitrary punishment.

International Women’s Week is a reminder that progress rarely moves in a straight line. Yet across the Middle East, women are continuing to push forward—building classrooms, businesses, and movements that refuse to accept a future dictated by those who would seek to strip them of their agency.

TEHRAN, Iran — Political prisoners in Iran may now be among the most vulnerable victims of the war. Families of detainees warn that the lives of their loved ones are in immediate danger, particularly after new developments inside Evin Prison, one of the country’s most notorious detention facilities.

Evin has long been associated with political detention and human rights abuses, and houses many of Iran’s most prominent political prisoners. Among them are Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a human rights activist jailed for opposing the death penalty and defending women’s rights, and Zeynab Jalalian, a Kurdish activist serving a life sentence since 2008.

It is impossible to determine an exact number of political prisoners currently in Iran due to a lack of transparency, but reports indicate that the regime frequently detains thousands of individuals, including activists, journalists, and protesters, for actions deemed to be against national security. The regime's frequent crackdown on dissent, including arbitrary arrests, ensures that a large number of political prisoners are held at any given time.

According to reports from inside the prison, Ward 209 has been evacuated, and prisoners have been transferred to unknown locations. Other detainees, including political prisoners and individuals imprisoned for financial charges, remain in Ward 7. At the same time, NOPO special forces units have reportedly withdrawn from inside the prison and taken positions in nearby buildings, stoking fears that the facility itself could become a site of violence or military confrontation. NOPO (Nīrū-yi Vizhe-yi Pād Vahshat) is Iran’s elite “Counter-Terrorism” Special Force, operating under the Law Enforcement Command’s Special Units (Yegan Vijeh). Although tasked with hostage rescue and counter-terrorism, it is primarily used for riot control and internal security.

Families say that every hour increases the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The concern is not only about the immediate danger of military strikes. Prisoners are also facing severe shortages of food, a lack of medical care, and increasing isolation from their families. Wartime makes prisons uniquely dangerous. Detainees cannot evacuate or protect themselves if facilities are struck or damaged. In previous attacks on Evin Prison, explosions damaged buildings and left detainees trapped inside damaged wards.

Families report that authorities have moved prisoners between wards or transferred them to undisclosed locations without notifying relatives or lawyers, further intensifying fear and uncertainty.

Across Iran, the issue of political prisoners has become a major public concern. Iranians inside the country and in the diaspora are widely using the hashtag #FreePoliticalPrisoners to draw international attention to the situation and to pressure the Islamic Republic to release detainees before disaster strikes.

These demands, while unlikely to be met, are rooted in existing legal principles. During wartime or emergency conditions, Iranian judicial directives adopted during the Iran–Iraq war require authorities to take measures to protect prisoners’ lives, including reviewing cases, granting temporary release, modifying bail conditions, or transferring detainees to safe locations.

Human rights advocates argue that implementing these measures now could significantly reduce the danger to detainees, especially for those imprisoned for political or civil activities.

Families of prisoners say the solution is clear and urgent. They are calling for the immediate release of political prisoners, at least for the duration of the war, to prevent further tragedy. Keeping detainees locked in prisons that may be targeted or damaged by military operations places them in extreme and unnecessary danger.

Iran’s political system is often described as complex and opaque, but beneath that complexity lies a deliberate architecture. The Islamic Republic is neither a conventional dictatorship nor a normal republic. It is a hybrid order that combines elections with clerical guardianship, public participation with strict ideological supervision. To understand how Iran functions, it is not enough to track who wins elections. The decisive question is where ultimate authority resides and how directives move through the chain of command.

At the center of this order stands the Supreme Leader, known in Persian as Rahbar or more formally Rahbar-e Moʿazzam. The position was created after the 1979 revolution under the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, or the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist. This doctrine holds that in the absence of the Hidden Imam, a senior cleric must assume final responsibility over the state. The Hidden Imam, or Muhammad al-Mahdi, is the 12th and final Imam in Twelver Shia Islam, believed to be a messianic figure who went into divine hiding (occultation) in 874 A.D. to escape persecution. To believers, he is expected to return at the end of time to restore justice and peace and defeat evil, acting as humanity's ultimate guide. The concept holds strong political relevance, particularly in Iran, where it has inspired revolutionary thought and is central to the country's religious identity.

In practice, the Supreme Leader appoints the head of the judiciary, the commanders of the armed forces, the intelligence leadership, and the heads of major state media institutions. He defines the broad direction of domestic and foreign policy and serves as commander in chief. Iran has a president and a parliament, but both operate within parameters set at the apex of the system.

The relevance of that structure has become especially visible in the last twenty-four hours. Following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military and strategic sites, including facilities tied to the country’s security establishment, Iran’s response is not stemming from parliamentary debate or presidential initiative. Retaliatory missile and drone launches against U.S. positions and allied targets across the Gulf were directed through the Supreme National Security Council and executed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Public statements from Tehran reflected a unified line. In moments of acute external threat, the architecture of command goes like this: the presidency manages messaging and diplomacy, but strategic military decisions originate higher up and flow downward through clerical and security channels.

Iran’s elected institutions do matter, but they are not sovereign. The president, or the Rais-e Jomhur, is chosen by popular vote and runs the executive branch, oversees the budget, appoints ministers, and represents Iran abroad. Yet on core issues such as war, peace, nuclear policy, and the structure of the armed forces, his role is circumscribed. Parliament, the Majles-e Shoraye Eslami, debates and passes laws, but legislation must pass through unelected oversight bodies before taking effect. The Assembly of Experts, a clerical body elected by the public and formally tasked with supervising the Supreme Leader, operates discreetly and has historically affirmed the existing order rather than moderating it.

The most consequential filter on political life operates before ballots are cast. All candidates for major elected offices must be approved by the Guardian Council, the Shoraye Negahban. This unelected body reviews parliamentary legislation and can reject laws it considers incompatible with Islamic law or the constitution. More significantly, it vets candidates for the presidency, the parliament, and the Assembly of Experts. Those judged insufficiently aligned with the system’s ideological foundations are disqualified. Elections, therefore, unfold within a bounded spectrum. Citizens choose from options that have already been screened for reliability.

The judiciary, or Ghove-ye Ghazaiyeh, reinforces these boundaries. Its leadership is appointed by the Supreme Leader, and it functions as both a legal and ideological institution. Special courts handle political cases and clerical matters, including the Special Clerical Court, Dadgah-e Vizheh-ye Ruhaniyat, which operates outside the standard judicial framework. Through prosecutions, disqualifications, and selective enforcement, the judiciary maintains discipline among elites and deters overt dissent.

Alongside these clerical and legal institutions stands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami. Originally formed to defend the revolution, it has evolved into a central pillar of the state. It commands ground, naval, and aerospace forces, oversees internal security through the Basij militia, and maintains extensive economic interests. The Guard answers directly to the Supreme Leader rather than to the elected government. In the present confrontation, it is the Guard’s aerospace and missile units that have carried out retaliatory strikes, and it is the Guard’s commanders who define the military posture. The regular army exists, but the strategic levers are concentrated within the IRGC’s hierarchy.

Much of Iran’s governance also runs through councils that sit above or beside formal institutions. The Expediency Discernment Council mediates disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council and advises the Supreme Leader. The Supreme National Security Council formulates key security and foreign policy decisions; its resolutions become binding once approved by the Supreme Leader. During the current crisis, emergency meetings of this council have served as the formal mechanism for authorizing responses to foreign attacks. The structure allows rapid coordination among clerical authorities, military commanders, and senior officials without relying on open legislative processes.

Elections serve a specific purpose within this design. They provide a channel for public participation, allow competition among approved factions, and offer the state a measure of popular legitimacy. Voter turnout can be high, and debates among insiders can be genuine. Yet elections do not determine the country's strategic direction. Decisions about war, deterrence, and nuclear policy remain insulated from electoral volatility.

This produces an order governed by an interlocking network of institutions and elites rather than by a single ruler acting alone. Authority flows through clerical doctrine, security organizations, and supervisory councils, reinforcing one another. The Supreme Leader occupies the apex, but the system's durability rests on the alignment between senior clerics and the commanders of the coercive apparatus. This alignment explains how Iran absorbs protests, manages succession, and responds to external shocks without immediate structural upheaval.

Understanding this chain of command is essential in moments like the present one. When foreign aircraft strike Iranian territory and missiles are launched in reply, the sequence of decisions follows a predictable path: strategic guidance from the Supreme Leader, coordination through the Supreme National Security Council, operational execution by the Revolutionary Guard, and public positioning by the president and foreign ministry. The visible drama of explosions and headlines sits atop a deeply institutionalized command structure.

Now, however, rumors are circulating that the Supreme Leader himself may have been killed. If that were true, the system would enter its most consequential test since 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini died, and the Assembly of Experts moved quickly to appoint his successor. The constitution provides a procedure: the Assembly of Experts is responsible for selecting a new Supreme Leader, and in the interim, a temporary leadership council—composed of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council—can assume certain duties. Yet the formal mechanism tells only part of the story. The decisive question would be whether the Revolutionary Guard and the senior clerical establishment remain aligned during the transition.

In the immediate term, the security apparatus would likely tighten control, restrict information, and project a sense of continuity to prevent panic. The Supreme National Security Council would continue to function, and military operations would proceed under existing chains of command. But succession in wartime carries risks. Rival clerical factions could press competing visions for the future leadership. Senior Guard commanders, whose institutional interests are deeply tied to the current order, would play a central role in shaping the outcome, whether by backing a consensus candidate or by exerting pressure behind the scenes.

If alignment at the top holds, the transition could be managed quickly and with minimal public disruption. If it does not, uncertainty within the senior clerical and security ranks would slow decision-making at a moment when the regime’s survival depends on it. In a system that binds religious authority to the command of armed force, the death of the Supreme Leader would not automatically dismantle the state, but it would test the arrangements that keep its institutions moving in concert.

If the system falters, the initial strain would most likely appear at the summit. The doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih depends on cohesive clerical authority and, crucially, on the loyalty of the security establishment to that authority. Should consensus at the top erode—particularly within the senior ranks of the IRGC—the vertical chain linking religious legitimacy to armed force would weaken. Oversight bodies such as the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts derive their influence from that same chain. The technocratic bureaucracy and local security networks might continue to function for a time, but without unified direction from above, coherence would fade. The decisive variable in Iran’s stability, therefore, lies less in street unrest than in the continued alignment between the Supreme Leader and the institutions that carry out his commands.

In wartime, chains of command are tested in real time. Iran’s is now under its most decisive test in a generation.

What has emerged from Iran’s 2026 uprising represents one of the most profound transformations in the political culture of mourning in the Islamic Republic’s forty-seven-year history. At the fortieth-day memorial ceremonies for those killed in the January massacre, families engaged in acts that would once have been unimaginable in public space. Parents danced at their children’s graves. They wore white instead of black. They brought cake, balloons, wedding dresses, and personal belongings. Some wore their late children’s clothing. They delivered fierce speeches, played music, and asked those gathered to applaud their sons and daughters. They were deliberately reclaiming the narrative, rejecting the regime’s propaganda machine that would see their sons and daughters slandered as traitors.

In the days leading up to those ceremonies, the country witnessed scenes that many Iranians believed to be confined to the darkest chapters of the 1980s. Within a matter of days, security forces killed thousands across multiple cities. Images circulated of bodies laid out in rows on cold concrete floors, wrapped in black plastic, tagged and numbered, exposed in courtyards and refrigerated halls. Families were summoned not to receive condolences, but to identify remains. Some were asked to pay fees to retrieve their children’s bodies. Others were warned not to hold public funerals or speak to the media. The visual record was harrowing: endless lines of shrouded forms on the ground, fathers bending over zipped bags, mothers standing stunned among rows of the dead. The state intended those images to function as a warning, proof of absolute control over life, death, and even burial.

For forty days, these families were subjected to a sustained propaganda campaign portraying their children as rioters, agitators, foreign agents, or enemies of God. State media attempted to reduce complex young lives into criminal categories meant to justify execution and repression. The families were expected to absorb the smear campaign, retreat into private grief, and internalize the language imposed upon them. Instead, when they arrived at the gravesites, they publicly rejected it, insisting that their children were not criminals but upstanding citizens who stood against tyranny. They refused the labels of “sedition” and “chaos”. In doing so, they challenged the regime’s long-standing monopoly over moral language.

For nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic has cultivated a tightly structured culture of Shi’a mourning rooted in ritualized sorrow. Grief is expected to be solemn, controlled, embodied through black clothing, chest-beating, and public displays of submission. Mourning is framed as sacred endurance aligned with the theology of Karbala and sacrificial suffering. The regime has built much of its legitimacy on this symbolic architecture, claiming martyrdom as a theological resource that sanctifies state authority. The word “martyr” became a political cudgel, used to elevate those who die for the regime while delegitimizing those who die resisting it.

The February memorials disrupted that long-standing framework. Parents rejected the regime’s language of martyrdom. Instead, they declared their children heroes of Iran, worthy of applause, who died for dignity and freedom. By refusing the theological vocabulary that the state has monopolized for decades, families detached sacrifice from theocratic submission and connected it to civic aspiration. They took back the right to define national virtue.

The choice to wear white instead of black was deliberate. In the Islamic Republic’s official culture, black is the color of ritual mourning and submission. The ceremonies rejected outright the state’s script. There was music. People moved. Men and women stood together. Some women removed their compulsory veils and danced in public.

Each of these acts crossed a line that has defined public life in Iran for decades—strict dress codes, gender segregation, and limits on music and gathering. Grief is expected to be subdued and politically neutral. At these gravesites, those expectations were openly and forcefully cast aside.

The body itself became a form of political expression at these funerals. In authoritarian systems, power depends not only on force but on carefully controlling public displays of emotion. The regime expects mourning to be somber and subdued. Public funerals are meant to discourage dissent and remind others of the cost of challenging the state.

When a mother dances at her child’s burial site, that expectation no longer holds. What is emerging in the wake of the protest massacres is a culture of people who refuse to allow those who murdered their loved ones to determine how the dead are remembered or what their lives meant.

History is repeating itself. In the 1980s, the Islamic Republic executed thousands of dissidents. During the summer of 1988 alone, in a matter of weeks, more than five thousand political prisoners who had already been serving prison sentences were summarily hanged after brief interrogations. Families were denied bodies, burial sites, and official acknowledgment. Many were told their children were apostates unworthy of graves. The bodies were buried in unmarked mass graves, including at Khavaran, a barren stretch of land in southeast Tehran. Mothers returned repeatedly to that ground despite threats and harassment, insisting that even without recognized graves, their children would not be forgotten.

The parents of 2026 are carrying that torch forward. The mothers of Khavaran stood for long-term, disciplined resistance in the face of intimidation. Today’s parents are confronting the state openly, in full public view, and refusing to temper their anger or hide their pain.

When parents stand at gravesites and declare the state does not get to define who their children were, they are challenging the government’s control over the story. Authoritarian regimes try to control not just land and institutions, but also how history is remembered. They want death to mark the end of the conversation. These families are refusing that, insisting that what happened is not finished and that the injustice still demands accountability.

When mothers dance at their children’s graves with abandon, they’re showing the Islamic Republic that they aren’t afraid anymore. Something fundamental is shifting in Iran—and it is unfolding in the open. By reclaiming the burial grounds of their children, Iranians are sending a direct message to the regime that they will never stop fighting for a free Iran.

Fadel Shaker stood out as a singer because he offered something different. At a time when grand arrangements and flamboyant personas dominated the music scene, he was unique in his restrained style and distinctive warmth, becoming one of Lebanon’s most recognized voices across the Arab world.

Then the region went through a new round of cataclysmic change.

The Syrian Civil War sent shockwaves through Lebanon. In 2012, after growing close to the hardline Sidon cleric Ahmad al-Assir, Shaker abruptly announced that he was quitting music. What would normally be considered a personal career pivot came to be seen as a public political position—one staunchly aligned against Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.

By 2013, Hezbollah’s role in Syria had already become a defining regional fact. As fighting spread to areas near the Lebanese border, the Syrian war intensified sectarian tensions on both sides. In Lebanon, it deepened communal loyalties and pushed many people to seek protection through armed factions rather than state institutions. During this period, Shaker gravitated closer toward the circle of al-Assir—an extremist milieu that promised certainty, belonging, and a sense of moral superiority in the face of a militia now fighting across the border, turning cities and villages into rubble.

Shaker’s later version of events presents that choice as reactive rather than ideological: he was afraid, so he was forced to choose what he thought was the lesser of two evils. He has stated publicly that he only got close to al-Assir after receiving threats from Hezbollah-aligned forces and Assad loyalists. Whether one accepts that as an explanation or an excuse, it frames the moral arc he continues to insist on: a man pushed into a corner, not a man seeking violence.

In June 2013, Shaker stated that his villa in Sidon was stormed and vandalized by men he described as Hezbollah militants. He linked the attack to his support for the Syrian Revolution and described it as political punishment delivered through domestic terror. He also posted about the Bilal bin Rabah mosque in Sidon being attacked, tying the events into a broader story of sectarian violence.

His language was telling. It reflected someone who no longer believed the state would protect him.

From there, things escalated quickly. Shaker said he felt increasingly threatened and saw no consequences for those he blamed, claiming his family narrowly escaped harm and that the authorities failed to intervene. His public statements then began to grow more and more extreme.

On June 23, 2013, clashes broke out in the Abra district of Sidon between supporters of Ahmad al-Assir and the Lebanese Army. The fighting was deadly. The army stormed al-Assir’s compound and took control of the area. Dozens were killed.

Al-Assir fled and was later arrested, while Shaker disappeared into Ain al-Hilweh, the Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Sidon.

From that point on, Shaker’s identity shifted from controversial singer to wanted figure, and warrants for his arrest were issued in terrorism-related cases tied to the Abra clashes. He was later tried and sentenced in absentia for “providing support to a terrorist group.”

Ain al-Hilweh became both a refuge for Shaker and a place that held him in perpetual limbo. Lebanese security forces do not operate inside the camp in the same way they do elsewhere; Palestinian factions manage internal security. For years, Shaker lived there largely out of the state's sight. At the same time, his music continued to be played. He released songs that circulated widely online, and his voice returned to playlists even as his legal status remained unresolved.

Lebanon found itself in an uncomfortable position. A man pursued in serious cases continued to have cultural reach. Court proceedings move slowly, but digital platforms are quick and accessible. The state treated him as a fugitive, but listeners continued to stream his music without waiting for verdicts.

In early October 2025, Shaker surrendered to Lebanese military intelligence at an entrance to Ain al-Hilweh, nullifying prior in-absentia sentences and reopening the case for new proceedings.

His case divided Lebanon into two camps. Supporters argue he never fought, never carried a weapon, and distanced himself from al-Assir before the violence escalated. Critics say the issue was never limited to the Sidon attacks. They contend that his fame gave al-Assir visibility and helped legitimize a movement that culminated in bloodshed. Shaker has described the case against him as politically motivated.

His case is being reviewed by Lebanon’s military judiciary, an institution that has long faced criticism from rights groups and political actors. Over the years, shaped by the Syrian war and Hezbollah’s expanding influence, public debate in Lebanon repeatedly questioned whether the military court applied accountability evenly. Allegations of selective prosecution circulated widely, particularly in cases connected to Hezbollah and its opponents.

Those allegations do not determine Shaker’s guilt or innocence, but they do shape how different audiences interpret his trial. For many of his supporters, the case reflects broader power struggles inside Lebanon rather than a narrow legal question.

His first court appearances did not resolve the divide. Public opinion remained split, and Shaker maintained his innocence as prosecutors continued to pursue a case more than a decade old.

Shaker has said he surrendered to seek an acquittal, not to negotiate a partial settlement. He appears intent on clearing his name in full. For him, the stakes extend beyond prison; he wants to preserve his legacy.

Understanding the pressures of that time period does not excuse extremism. It does, however, help explain how fear and polarization can pull individuals toward hardline circles, especially when trust in institutions erodes.

As the trial proceeds, his professional future is already taking shape. He has signed a production agreement with a Saudi company, with plans linked to concerts and new releases. The arrangement suggests he may rebuild his career outside Lebanon once the case concludes.

The market appears ready to absorb the comeback regardless of the unresolved political debate surrounding him. Is he a pop star turned Islamist? Or simply a man who was trying to protect his family?

Either way, Shaker is responsible for the choices he made.

His case now sits where many Lebanese cases sit: before a military court, delayed by bureaucracy. At the same time, his songs continue to circulate across the region, reminding us all of the songs he sang before the political storm that upended his life.

Over the past eighteen months, my clearest view of what the future has in store has not come from the streets of Paris, where I am based, but from the glow of screens linking Western Europe to the Gulf. I have spent the better part of the last year in the digital trenches of the Middle East venture capital ecosystem. If you are still reading legacy media reports about “oil wealth,” you are looking at a relic of a region that will soon cease to exist.

We are witnessing a great migration of technological intellectual property and human capital—one of the defining shifts of the twenty-first century. A few years ago, the narrative focused on whether the Middle East could attract talent. Today, the more relevant question is how fast startups can scale once they arrive.

I frequently meet seasoned entrepreneurs—people who built their first companies in the pressure cookers of Europe—who are now packing up their lives to plant seeds in the desert. They are anchoring their futures in rising power centers like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Manama.

In many traditional Western tech hubs, innovation has increasingly become a battle of attrition against aging infrastructure and a culture of regulatory cynicism. Founders are exhausted from fighting for basic approvals. When I speak to them as they land in the Gulf, they describe a system in which decision-makers are accessible, and approvals move quickly.

Here, the government does not act as a distant referee but as a sovereign co-founder. Whether through the breakneck pace of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 or the UAE’s regulatory sandboxes, the state is actively de-risking technology entrepreneurship.

That speed, founders are quick to note, requires constant engagement with regulators and a careful reading of political context. In the UAE, for example, multiple entrepreneurs pointed to fintech licensing frameworks that moved from pilot to full implementation in under a year—an unthinkable timeline in most of Europe.

This environment has produced one of the most active and competitive early-stage investment landscapes I have seen in years. While the global tech winter forced much of the West into a defensive crouch, the Gulf used that time to lay foundations.

Founders here are leveraging a blank slate to leapfrog entire generations of technology. They are building decentralized finance rails where traditional banks never reached, and AI-driven logistics systems for cities that did not exist five years ago. With no legacy infrastructure to protect, there is little to slow the adoption of the new.

There is also a kind of modern “Silk Road” alchemy unfolding—something unique to this moment. By relocating to the Middle East, global founders position themselves at the geographic command center of the Emerging South. From Riyadh or Dubai, teams can reach South Asia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia within hours—regions where much of the world’s next middle class will emerge.

Increasingly, tech teams blend global best practices with deep local market knowledge, often led by founders who grew up in the region and trained abroad. The result is products that are globally competitive yet locally affordable, fueled by regional capital with unusually long investment horizons.

Among the hundreds of founders I have met online, the prevailing sentiment is one of post-cynical optimism.

In the West, technology is often cast as the villain of the social narrative. In the Middle East, it is the hero and the engine of national transformation.

That psychological shift may be the most powerful magnet of all.

The Middle East is no longer merely a consumer market for Western technology. It has become one of the world’s most important testing grounds for what comes next. From investment flows and hiring patterns to the relocation of founding teams, the region is maturing into a durable ecosystem for innovation—one likely to shape how technology evolves far beyond the region.

As Iran’s December 2025–January 2026 protests reached their deadliest phase, witnesses and bereaved families described a chilling shift in tactics in a central-west Tehran corridor: fewer signs of live fire, and mounting evidence of pellet wounds followed by repeated knife or cleaver attacks.

Since late December 2025, Iran has faced countrywide protests followed by a sweeping and exceptionally violent crackdown. Compared with earlier waves, such as the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising (2022) and the Bloody November protests (2019), some activists and monitoring networks say the geography of casualties may have shifted, with reports suggesting higher numbers in parts of central Iran than in historically marginalized regions such as Baluchistan, Khuzestan, and Kurdistan.

At the same time, the overall death toll remains fiercely contested and exceptionally hard to verify under censorship, intimidation, and prolonged internet restrictions. Public estimates range from the authorities’ far lower figures to substantially higher counts circulated by medical networks and investigative reporting. TIME has suggested the number of victims was likely above 30,000, and The Guardian, citing its own research and sources, indicated a similar scale—claims that are difficult to independently corroborate in the absence of transparent access to forensic records, hospital data, and unrestricted reporting.

HIWA, a Washington-based human rights organization that documents alleged state violence, focused our investigation on a narrower—and particularly disturbing—set of allegations from one night in Tehran. During the countrywide digital blackout, multiple witnesses contacted our organization directly. Using Starlink connectivity, they described an unusual pattern of killing on Thursday, January 8th, in a west–central Tehran corridor around Ayatollah Kashani Boulevard, 2nd Sadeghieh Square, and the start of Sattar Khan Street. Witnesses alleged that specialized suppressive forces killed protesters with knives or cleavers—an account HIWA could not independently verify at the time because the internet shutdown severely constrained corroboration and access to evidence.

One of the cases brought to our attention is Aref Mousavi Dehshali, 33. According to relatives, Aref was originally from Dehshal village in Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh (Gilan Province). They recounted suppressors first shooting him in the leg with shotgun pellets, and then killing him at close range with sustained violence described as repeated knife and cleaver strikes. Relatives reported that the marks of blade strikes were clearly visible on his arms, hands, and legs, and that the number of separate stab wounds was especially striking. According to these accounts, Aref was killed at the end of Kashani Boulevard, near Esteghlal Park, and around 2nd Sadeghieh Square that night. His family also alleges that the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence in Gilan later attempted to portray him as affiliated with the Basij (a paramilitary volunteer militia within the IRGC)—a claim the family firmly rejects.

Another is Amir Safari, 46, a father of two children who, relatives said, ran a clothing shop in the Selsebil area of Tehran. According to accounts we received, Amir was detained on Sattar Khan Street on the same night. Witnesses told HIWA that as people surged forward attempting to free him, his throat was cut with a box cutter, and he was left on the ground amid the crowd. He reportedly died the following day, 9 January 2026. Two other victims were referenced in testimonies, but due to security concerns, we are withholding their names.

Eyewitnesses report that when live ammunition was depleted, the crackdown took a deadly turn toward deliberate, close-range violence.

The claim that live ammunition ran out cannot be independently confirmed. But the allegation matters because it suggests more than a change in weapon: it points to a deliberate move toward close-range “finishing” violence—a tactic that reduces the chance of rescue and increases lethality even when the initial injuries might not be immediately fatal.

Taken together, these testimonies and family accounts suggest a single, chilling inference: in that corridor, at those hours, state security forces behaved as if they had been ordered to kill protesters by any means necessary—even when live ammunition was reportedly no longer in supply.

These allegations demand sustained international attention. The accounts point to a form of repression designed to ensure lethality even when conventional means were exhausted, and to do so under conditions of blackout and fear that limit accountability. The international community can no longer plausibly claim uncertainty about the scale or nature of violence being used against Iranian protesters. The question now is whether governments, multilateral institutions, and human rights mechanisms will maintain scrutiny and pursue accountability—or allow silence and inaction to become accomplices to a campaign of repression that shows no sign of restraint.

Standing on the front line in the Kurdish-majority town of Kobane, Nesrin Abdullah can see a new Syria taking shape—and it’s not the vision that her female fighters gave their lives for in the battle to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). For those who fought an existential war for self-determination, that future now feels stripped away.

“The pursuit of democracy, freedom, and nation-building—where people could live with dignity—has been dismantled,” the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) commander said. “Syria, as we knew it, is dying.”

After weeks of bitter fighting, government-linked troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reached an agreement on Friday that spells the end of Kurdish autonomy in northeast Syria. The deal will fold Kurdish forces and civilian structures into the central state, forcing Kurds to relinquish hard-won rights and watch a decade of self-rule evaporate.

In January, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa answered longstanding Kurdish grievances with a landmark decree recognizing Kurdish civil rights. Citizenship was restored to all Kurdish Syrians, ending decades of statelessness for tens of thousands stripped of their nationality under the Assad regime.

Cautious optimism greeted the move, which made Kurdish a national language and marked the first official recognition of Kurdish rights in Syrian legal history. But after decades of repression, minority communities are wary. Kurds are familiar with broken promises and question the government’s commitment to the decree.

“The Kurds in north-east Syria are right to fear what [government] control would look like,” said Natasha Walter, citing the recent massacres of other minorities in the country. “Al-Sharaa, with his background in al-Qaida and desire for a centralized national government, represents the polar opposite of the secular, decentralized ideals of the autonomous administration,” she told The Guardian.

Al-Sharaa is now following through on his vow to unify Syria and dissolve the system of self-governance that Kurds have operated for over a decade in the de facto autonomous state of Rojava.

On Tuesday, Syrian government forces entered the northeastern city of Qamishli to dismantle one of the last remaining SDF strongholds under the terms of the ceasefire deal.

Talks between the two groups began soon after the fall of the Assad regime, as al-Sharaa looked to consolidate his control over the fractured country. But negotiations over the integration of Kurdish institutions into the state stalled at the end of last year. Frustrated, al-Sharaa ordered government troops to launch a lightning offensive and seize swathes of SDF-held territory in northeast Syria.

In Kobane, the streets are heaving with people displaced by the fighting. Kurdish forces accused government troops of imposing a siege on the town, which is seen as a symbol of the victory against ISIS and the birthplace of the Rojava Revolution.

Observers warned of a humanitarian disaster unfolding with food, water, and electricity in short supply, with reports of several babies dying from cold exposure in freezing temperatures.

A UN humanitarian convoy was allowed to enter Kobane following the extension of a ceasefire.

Reports that Damascus-affiliated factions desecrated the bodies of Kurdish female fighters fueled further outrage. Videos circulating on social media showed the body of SDF fighter Deniz Çiya being thrown from a building, while others showed female fighters being harassed and taunted by Syrian Arab Army soldiers.

“Today, there is a massive assault on our people and on the region as a whole. This attack does not target only the Kurds; it affects many communities. What is unfolding in Syria is a grave and far-reaching crisis,” said Abdullah.

Under Friday’s deal, the SDF, which previously controlled around a third of Syrian territory, will withdraw from the frontlines. Government forces will enter the Kurdish-controlled cities of Hassakeh and Qamishli, and three brigades will be created to begin the phased integration of the SDF into the Syrian army.

A previous integration deal, signed last March, fell apart.

In a statement on X, US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack hailed the new agreement as a “profound and historic milestone in Syria’s journey toward national reconciliation, unity, and enduring stability.”

However, concerns that a centralized Syria will leave Kurdish communities exposed are reinforced by the loss of their former Western partners, who have shifted their support to the transitional government.

A short-term deal based on rapid integration at the expense of a more complicated and inclusive transition process is “doomed to failure,” said Thomas Schmidinger, Associate Professor for Political Science and IR at University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (UKH) and author of several books on Rojava.

“In the long-term, it does not bring stability and could ultimately tear the country apart.”

Kurds make up around 10 percent of the population in Syria. Forcing the SDF to relinquish self-rule risks reinforcing deep divisions in the country, where massacres of other minorities have stoked fears of further sectarian violence.

“It destroys what little trust minorities have left in the new state and jeopardizes Syria’s unity. Druze and Alawites will now rely even more on protection from outside, for example, from Israel,” Schmidinger added.

The Democratic Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (DAANES), more commonly known as Rojava, first emerged in 2012, when Kurdish forces established a system of self-governance based on democratic confederalism, grassroots democracy, women’s liberation, and ethnic inclusivity.

Feted for its unique commitment to gender equality and power sharing, the Rojava model proved that a viable alternative could exist in a region where patriarchal control and authoritarianism prevail.

This proved uncomfortable for neighboring Turkey, which, like Syria, has long sought to oppress its Kurdish population by force. But for a time, the SDF was untouchable as a vital US partner in the war against ISIS.

As Kurdish forces recaptured areas seized by the militants in 2014, western media celebrated the brave fighters of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) with glossy photoshoots of young women on the frontlines.

Now, the US has shifted strategies in Syria, throwing its support behind al-Sharaa, whose rebel offensive overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Confirmation came via X when Barrack announced the end of US support for the SDF, stating that the original purpose of the partnership had “largely expired.”

“Today, the situation has fundamentally changed. Syria now has an acknowledged central government that has joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (as its 90th member in late 2025), signaling a westward pivot and cooperation with the U.S on counterterrorism.”

“Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps,” he added.

Other US politicians voiced concern over the dangers posed by another Western betrayal of the Kurds.

“I support a fair chance for the new Syrian government, however if there’s an escalation of attacks against the Kurds by Syrian forces supported by Turkey, this will create a whole new dynamic,” Senator Lindsay Graham wrote on X.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed these sentiments, stating that “turning our backs on our Kurdish allies would be a moral and strategic disaster.”

He also warned of the wider risk posed by the escape of ISIS members from SDF-held prisons in Syria. “If unchecked, we could soon see mass displacement, ethnic cleansing, and the possible reemergence of ISIS as a powerful player inside Syria and a global terrorist threat,” he said in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.

Until fighting erupted, the SDF held around 8,000 suspected ISIS fighters and over 30,000 people linked to the group in prisons across north-eastern Syria. Among them are women and children detained at al-Hol, including foreign nationals from countries that refuse to repatriate them.

As clashes escalated, dozens of ISIS detainees escaped from al-Shaddadi prison in northeast Syria, some of whom were later rounded up. The US is in the process of transferring around 7,000 prisoners to a “secure location” in Iraq, reflecting Washington’s underlying doubts over the security capabilities of al-Sharaa’s administration.

Publicly, US President Donald Trump has embraced Syria’s interim President, describing him as a “young, attractive guy—tough guy” when they met last year.

Al-Sharaa, a former jihadist who until 2024 had a $10 million bounty on his head for past links to al-Qaida and ISIS, has “a real shot at pulling it all together,” President Trump said at the time.

In the aftermath of a tentative truce, prospects for a peaceful resolution remain to be seen. The agreement lays out a path to national unity, but for Syria’s Kurds, who made huge sacrifices in the war against ISIS, forcible inclusion comes at the cost of hard-won achievements over the past decade.

“What is threatened is the right to political and cultural existence within a unified Syria, not as a marginal component or a victim, but as a real partner in shaping the future,” said Eminê Osê, deputy co-chair of the DAANES Executive Council.

In Kobane, where self-rule offered an alternative to authoritarianism and extremism, the government offensive reinforces a familiar cycle, where repression fuels resistance and violence ensues.

For many Kurds, the dismantling of Rojava relinquishes more than territory. “Targeting this model means closing one of the few remaining paths toward real peace built on justice, recognition, women’s participation, and the protection of diversity,” Osê said.

“What is at stake is not a piece of geography, but the possibility of a different Syria.”