Below is a translation of the editorial from issue 236 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba, in which the group theorizes guerrilla warfare.

In the editorial, the Islamic State offers its membership a religious-jurisprudential justification for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare when they are outmatched conventionally…

Below is another translation from issue 192 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba, this time the latest in a series of columns on operational guidance titled “Take Care.”

This seems notable in terms of how it presents a sort of Unified Theory of operations, conceptualizing Islamic State units’ modal shift from high-volume rudimentary violence to more sophisticated attacks, to in-between hybrid approaches, depending on that unit’s capability and circumstance…

Below is a translation of the editorial from issue 192 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba. The editorial – which is presumably aimed at the Islamic State’s core supporters, including militants active in the field – takes a derisive tone on Iraqi security forces’ pursuit of Islamic State fighters, and emphasizes the futility and emptiness of their efforts. Per the editorial, Iraqi forces’ energetic operations are driven by their fear of once more ceding the country’s countryside to the insurgent group, allowing it to reorganize and penetrate Iraq’s cities. Islamic State militants must therefore cultivate that fear and recall the divine reward awaiting them, even as they now live as fugitives…

Below is a 17 September Telegram post from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shar’i Abu al-Yaqadhan al-Masri, one of a number of Tahrir al-Sham officials/media personalities who have reacted unfavorably to the announcement of a new Turkish-Russian deal for Syria’s Idlib province…

Below are translations of two voice recordings purported to be of Tahrir al-Sham emir “Abu Ikrimah al-Urduni,” via anti-Jabhat al-Nusrah/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group “JAN Violations.” The voice messages are notable for their apparently acute sensitivity to the optics of Idlib’s protests and those protests’ portrayal in foreign media, which Abu Ikrimah sees as directly linked to action against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Abu Ikrimah coaches his Tahrir al-Sham audience on flexibility and subtlety in dealing with protesters in order to avoid embarrassing anti-Tahrir al-Sham scenes…

Below is how I think Hayat Tahrir al-Sham may now be fighting the Syrian regime’s forces, as the latter push deeper into rebel-held Idlib. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seems not to be mounting a valiant, heels-dug-in last stand, but rather a fighting, attritive retreat paired with asymmetric insurgent tactics…

For War on the Rocks, I’ve written a companion piece to my recent Century Foundation commentary on America’s re-investment in Syria’s Geneva talks. In this latest, I try to answer: If Geneva won’t secure U.S. interests in Syria, what will? …

New paper from me, for a special al-Qaeda-focused issue of Perspectives on Terrorism:

For this issue, I wrote on the strategic thinking behind the 2017 establishment of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the latest iteration of former Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah…

Today at The Century Foundation, I have a new report on the stakes of Tuesday’s expected vote to renew UN Security Council Resolution 2165 – the international legal mandate for Syria’s cross-border humanitarian response…

At The Century Foundation, I’ve written about America’s reinvestment in Geneva peace talks and how – as I understand it – Russia is simultaneously managing Geneva and its own set of parallel processes…

For The Century Foundation (originally published November 28):

More than a month after Turkey’s intervention to enforce a “de-escalation” in Syria’s Idlib province, there’s still little clarity on exactly what Turkey is doing in Syria…

New from me today on War on the Rocks:

The American base in Tanaf, in Syria’s southeastern desert, has taken on outsized political import. It was originally meant to be a staging ground for a southern prong of the counter-ISIS military campaign. Then, for a brief, overheated moment, it was supposedly where America would block an Iranian “land bridge.” Now it is a symbol of Washington’s refusal to yield to Syrian, Iranian, and Russia pressure and, in theory, key leverage on Damascus and its allies…

New from me for World Politics Review:

The United States and its Coalition allies never had a real political vision for a post-ISIS Syria. Now the country’s post-ISIS political order will be defined by the ground reality of how, militarily, ISIS lost…

My latest for The Century Foundation:

I went to Jordan in September to get a sense of one of America’s last major policy efforts in Syria: the “de-escalation” agreement covering Syria’s southwest. The de-escalation is the product of months of trilateral negotiations between the United States, Russia, and Jordan. So far it has yielded a clear reduction in violence – but its future is uncertain…

Below is a translation of a 13 October Telegram post by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (previously Jabhat al-Nusrah) media official Muhammad Nazzal (“Abu Khattab al-Maqdisi”).

This post represents the purest distillation I’ve seen of how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seems to be justifying the limited entrance of Turkish forces in the northern Idlib/western Aleppo countryside, including the various pragmatic considerations at work and the mutually agreed-upon, explicit conditions of the Turkish presence…

New from me from for Foreign Affairs:

As the regime of Bashar al-Assad draws closer to a victory on the battlefield, domestic Syrian and international attention has turned to the next fight – the terms of Syrian reconstruction. The opposition’s Western backers have supposed that reconstruction funds are their last useful means of extracting concessions from the regime, while experts have theorized how reconstruction efforts can be insulated from the politics of re-legitimizing Assad…

مقالتي الأولى لصحيفة “المدن”، حول معارك البادية والموقف الأمريكي…

مشاركتي في برنامج “سورية في أسبوع” على قناة “حلب اليوم” حول أولويات الغرب في سوريا وآفاق القضية السورية…

New from me for The Century Foundation:

In the Badiyah desert, the Syrian regime’s eastward advance has jammed together America’s covert war in Syria, its overt campaign against the Islamic State, and two camps holding tens of thousands of vulnerable displaced people, all in one shrinking space…

New from me for War on the Rocks:

Whatever else Syria’s rebels were, and whatever the reasons for backing them – they were never going to be a “counter-terrorism force” …