Syria Direct

Ten years after Burning Country, Robin Yassin-Kassab examines post-Assad Syria, capturing the possibilities of revolution alongside the violence, communal tensions and external threats confronting the country’s fragile political transition. Mural in Daraa reading that the revolution "started from here" 02/10/2025 (Photo: Tam Hussein) In his great poem “Easter, 1916,” the Irish Nobel laureate W.B. Yeats describes revolution as a “terrible beauty.” The phrase captures the poet’s ambivalence.

Under mounting regional pressure and facing deep internal divisions, Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood is weighing its political future as the country’s uncertain transition raises questions over political parties and pluralism.

Syria’s diplomatic rehabilitation has moved at breakneck speed. Now, al-Sharaa faces a harder challenge: turning international acceptance into economic progress, stronger institutions and restored sovereignty for Syrians at home. President Ahmad al-Sharaa and UN Secretary General António Guterres shaking hands.

Winter is coming and Deir ez-Zor’s Conoco gas plant restarts production amid allegations of mismanagement and shoddy repairs Conoco gas plant Deir E-Zor DEIR E-ZOR — The Syrian Petroleum Company’s report struck an optimistic note: “From rubble to a functioning production line” was how engineers at the All-Tabiyah gas plant, better known as “Conoco”, summed up three months of repairs. Officials and pro-government media have since celebrated the plant’s reported return to production.

Fuel price hikes have sparked widespread protests across Syria, with anger reaching Idlib’s Maarat al-Numan, where residents say rising costs threaten livelihoods, reconstruction and the country’s agricultural sector.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani’s trip to Islamabad last month was the first such trip by a high-ranking minister from Syria in 19 years. The visit offers clues as to how the relationship between the two countries might look post-Assad. There has been a perception, backed up by some evidence, that the Pakistani government has been reluctant to establish meaningful ties with al-Sharaa’s government due to its previous long-standing ties with Assad.

Hundreds of red-and-white fuel tankers hurtle down the highway between Tartous and Homs, the giant trucks weaving in and out of traffic with a concerning lack of control. The drivers sit hunched in their cabins, smoking cheap cigarettes as they race toward the Iraqi border, their galabeyas drenched in sweat from the unforgiving sun. Their work is done and it’s time to go home. But they will be back later.

Ask an ordinary Syrian on the street what he thinks of September 11, on its 25th anniversary, and the answer may well be: “The Jews did it.” The claim has an obvious emotional and psychological appeal. Arabs and Muslims are not only innocent of the crime; they were framed for it. Point to al-Qaeda’s own admission of responsibility and the conspiracy expands: “Who is al-Qaeda?

DAMASCUS — On a hot August day, ululations echoed through the cool hallways of Damascus University’s Political Science Faculty. It was graduation day. Students in black robes gathered with friends and family marking the occasion. Their joy stood in stark contrast to the university’s somber mood during the war, when students were detained and disappeared.

Roman-era funerary stones and a 12-grave burial site discovered in Afrin offer glimpses into the region’s ancient past, as its archaeological heritage continues to face looting and destruction. Classical Roman relics discovered in Afrin, Aleppo, 24/8/2026 (National Museum Aleppo/Syria Direct) On August 19, the Afrin Antiquities Office in northern Aleppo province discovered two funerary stones in a house in Kurdo village near Afrin after residents alerted local police.