Latest writing and updates:
Ahrar al-Sham media activist: "I won’t claim that al-Fou’ah and Kafarya are entirely besieged."
Below is something I thought might be pertinent amid the coverage of Madaya, the Damascus countryside town that has recently been subjected to a crushing siege by the regime and Hizbullah. I’ve translated a response from Ahrar al-Sham media activist Marwan Khalil (Abu Khaled al-I’lami) to criticism of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusrah’s blockade of the Shi’ite regime loyalist towns of Kafarya and al-Fou’ah. The criticism, which Ahrar and Nusrah have received from multiple opposition quarters: Their siege of the towns actually isn’t intense enough…
Jabhat al-Nusrah's Abu Muhammad al-Jolani: "Of course we won’t be bound by [Riyadh]."
Below are some notes on Jabhat al-Nusrah chief Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s recent “press conference,” which aired on December 12. In the conference, al-Jolani entertained questions from Mousa al-Omar of al-Ghad al-Arabi, Adham Abul-Husam of Al Jazeera, Muhammad al-Feisal of Orient and independent celebrity activist Hadi al-Abdullah. These notes aren’t meant to be comprehensive – there’s more to the conference, which is worth watching in full – but they do highlight a few of the things I thought were most interesting…