Syria Survey

While most of the high-profile Gulf-based financiers sending money to Syrian rebel groups emerged in late 2011-mid 2012, there are late entrants still getting in the game. One of these sheikhs, r...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/11/saudi-preacher-relocates-to-syria.html

In late June, Syria Survey reported that the rebels’ Gulf financiers were regularly traveling to northern Syria for battlefield visits with their clients. This week, Kuwait’s Ajmi clan, amo...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/07/an-ajmi-dies-in-idlib.html

It is well know that Muslim males, from teenagers to middle aged men, are travelling to Syria to fight, and in some cases die, with the Sunni rebels. The stories of some of these martyrs, which ...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-former-uae-colonel-dies-in-syria.html

 al-Hajri (left) and al-Ajmi (right) in Northern Syria Sheikhs in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and across the Gulf are financing Syrian rebel groups. Those leading the fundraising efforts ar...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/06/rebel-financiers-flock-to-northern-syria.html

Housam Najjair , a veteran of both the Libyan and Syrian revolts, is preparing to reenter the fray in post-Qaddafi Libya. I spoke with Najjair recently and it was clear that he is frustrated wit...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/04/housam-najjair-planning-return-to.html

Reports of Iranians fighting in Syria heated up this week. First, on April 2, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that members of the National Defense Forces, a pro-regime param...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/04/reports-of-iranians-fighting-in-syria.html

The Syrian rebel leadership may hold more sway over the revolution's political future than the Syrian opposition's external political leadership which is falling back into disarray after sh...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-umma-brigades-political-manifesto.html

Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade Logo The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, formed in the late summer of 2012, is based around the village of Sahem in southwestern Deraa Province near the intersection of Jor...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-yarmouk-martyrs-brigade-and-capture.html

Local councils in northern Syria are continuously scrambling to feed the residents of their towns. This has provided an opening for Jihadi groups to play the role of provider. David Kirkpatrick o...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-struggle-to-feed-northern-syria.html

Liz Sly and Karen DeYoung published an article  last week, based on research by a British blogger named Elliot Higgins as well as conversations with Arab officials, asserting that Arab state...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-omari-brigade-recipient-of-external.html

There are towns across Idlib Province that are free of any regime presence. The Idlib Revolutionary Council is reorganizing activists in these towns into Civil and Local Administration Councils ...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2013/01/local-governance-in-sarmada.html

The Battle for control of Wadi Deif, a military base just east of Maarat al-Numan, began in mid-October and continues more than two months later. For some rebels, the length of the battle and t...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/12/who-is-responsible-for-failure-at-wadi.html

Syrian rebels have secured towns across Idlib province, but the provincial capital, Idlib city remains in regime hands. Although Idlib's rebels often speak of liberating the city, it appears that...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/12/is-battle-for-idlib-city-approaching.html

The Idlib Revolutionary Council held a meeting in Reyhanli, Turkey this week in which a new member was elected to the council and rules of procedure were adopted. Continuing the council’s pol...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-to-do-with-idlibs-islamists.html

In late November, the Syrian government presented the UN Security Council with a list of 142 foreigner fighters killed in Syria from September through November. A week later, the Syrian news...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-regimes-foreign-fighter-list.html

One day in mid-October Jamal Maaruf and the men of Shuhada Suriya heard the sound of explosions to the south. They inquired with contacts and learned that fighters aligned with Afif Suleiman’...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/11/jamal-maaruf-taunts-afif-suleiman.html

Idlib’s ‘other ’ military council, led by Mustafa Abdulkarim had its first success in early November when it captured the Duwailah air defense station outside Salqin after a month long sie...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-capture-of-air-defense-stations.html

Basil Issa, one of northern Idlib’s primary rebel leaders was killed in an airstrike yesterday. Issa's Shuhada Idlib Brigade, captured the town of the Harem near Syria’s northwestern border ...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/11/rebel-leader-basil-issa-dies.html

When provincial military councils began forming in the early 2012, the idea was for every province to have one council, creating a unified rebel leadership in each province capable of coordinatin...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/11/military-councils-proliferate.html

While Syrian rebel leaders have become household names across the Middle East, the opposition’s civilian leadership inside Syria has remained in the shadows. Their survival required maintaining...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-syrian-oppositions-internal.html

The Foreign Policy Research Institute published my article detailing the Syrian rebels' use of social media. View the PDF here: http://www.fpri.org/articles/2012/10/syrian-rebel-use-social-media...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-syrian-rebels-use-of-social-media.html

The International Crisis Group released a great report last week detailing the evolving role of Salafists in the Syrian civil war. The report identified rebel groups with Salafist leanings whos...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-idlib-tawhid-brigade-should-be.html

Download The PDF The Fight for Nothern Idlib Province An explanation of the fight for northern Idlib Province. Includes a look at the battles for Harem, Salqin, Bab Hawa, and Idlib city and e...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fight-for-northern-idlib-province.html

The system distributing funds to Syrian rebel groups fosters divisions, sustains extremism, and creates organizational incoherence among rebel groups. Ideally, the system would work as foll...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-problem-with-rebels-financial.html

A recent article by Rania Abouzeid brought important parts of the rebel supply network into the light. The following blog post aims to build on Rania’s impressive reporting by outlining the K...

http://syriasurvey.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-kuwaiti-supply-network.html