A curious link to Syria was seen at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville: an admiration for dictator Bashar Assad. James Fieldsâdetained after his car rammed counter-protesters, killing oneâfeatured Assad on his Facebook page. Marchers chanted in support of Assad and wore T-shirts celebrating his barrel-bombs that have killed thousands of Syrians.
The Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northern Syria has set dates for local council and regional assembly electionsâa move immediately rejected by the Bashar Assad regime. Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters from Damascus that the elections “will be a joke. Syria will never ever allow any part of its territory to be separated… Those who will move in those directions know what price they have to pay.”
Washington has now made it official that its enemy in Syria is just ISIS and al-Qaedaâand explicitly not the Bashar Assad dictatorship. A US Army representative told CNN that the Coalition has issued a directive to rebel forces operating out if its base in southern Syria that they must be exclusively focused on fighting ISIS and not the Damascus regime. One rebel faction, Shohada al-Quartyan, has refused to accept this ultimatum, and left the base.
The democratic transition in Tunisia since the 2011 uprising has been the one real success story of the Arab Revolutionâand the Tunisian revolution was also the first that served to spark the subsequent wave. So Tunisia’s pro-democracy forces have international responsibilities, seen as keepers of the flame. It is distressing to learn that the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), a pillar of the country’s pro-democracy movement, sent a delegation to Damascus to meet with dictator Bashar Assad and express solidarity with his “war against terrorism.”
Among international volunteer brigades drawn by the anarchist-influenced politics of the Rojava Kurds is now the first explicitly LGBT military unit in the Syrian warâthe Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army (TQILA). But these international brigades are attached to the Kurdish militia force being backed by the Pentagon to take Raqqa from ISIS. Mounting civilian casualties of US air-strikes on Raqqa, as well as charges of abuses by the advancing Kurdish forces, raise grim questions about northern Syria’s future after the eventual defeat of ISIS.
Residents of Saraqeb town in Syria’s Idlib province rose up and drove off fighters of the local al-Qaeda affiliate after jihadists fired on protesters. The incident began when Saraqeb residents held self-organized elections for the town council, and raised the Free Syria flag from the radio tower in celebration. Tahrir al-Sham fighters responded by tearing down the flag, trampling it, and firing in the air in a display of defiance. This sparked a general uprising against the group’s presence in Saraqeb.
Civilian casualties from the US-led war against ISIS are set to double under President Trump, according to the AirWars website that has been monitoring the toll of the conflict. At least 2,300 civilians were killed in Coalition strikes overseen by the Obama White House in Iraq and Syria. As of July, more than 2,200 additional civilians appear to have been killed in Coalition raids since Trump was inaugurated.
Russia announced that it is sending forces to police the “de-escalation zones” in Syriaâwhich could provide a spark for massive escalation.
The UN reports a “notable trend of spontaneous returns” of displaced Syrians as regime gains bring a modicum of peace to some areasâbut mass killings  by regime forces continue.
With the Syrian Kurds now facing open war from both Turkey and the Assad regime, the imminent taking of Raqqa portends a multi-sided scramble for former ISIS territory.
The US Supreme Court agreed to review the Trump administration's travel ban, partially lifting the temporary injunction that had blocked the ban's enforcement.
Thousands of residents have repeatedly taken to the streets of Ma’arat al-Numan, a town in Syria’s Idlib governorate, to oppose the rule of jihadist forces that have seized control there.
