Recommended Reading
Thu, Dec 3, 2020
Limited and constrained: The Biden administration and the prospects of a Syria policy
While any departure from the Trump administration’s transactional and inconsistent leadership is welcomed, the hopes surrounding the incoming Biden administration’s return to engagement in Syria requires more in-depth scrutiny.
MENASource
Mon, Oct 26, 2020
Will US troops actually leave Syria in exchange for hostages?
While the talks between Washington and the Bashar al-Assad regime may be in its early stages, Donald Trump may want to secure some pre-election victories by securing the release of hostages and the return of soldiers.
MENASource
Tue, Sep 22, 2020
Reliable no more? The current state of the Syrian armed forces
The current conflict has truly impacted the configuration of the Bashar al-Assad regime as well as the structure and orientation of its military institution, putting the latter’s loyalty in question.
MENASource
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Abdulrahman al-Masri is a nonresident fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs, focusing on the Syrian conflict and its regional impact. His research areas include conflict dynamics and management, ethnic conflict, civil-military relations, defense and security sector reform in authoritarian contexts, and US and Canadian foreign and defense policies towards the Middle East.
Based in Ottawa, al-Masri previously worked as a research fellow and project advisor at the SecDev Foundation, where he supported digital safety programming with research on information warfare and the ICT risk environment in Syria. Prior to that, he worked as a research analyst at the SecDev Group, a private consultancy, providing research and analysis on conflict situational environments in the Middle East and North Africa. Between 2013-2014, he was a lead reporter at Syria Direct, an Amman-based media organization, covering the political and military developments of the Syrian conflict.
Al-Masri’s work has appeared in The Arab Weekly, News Deeply, the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, the Carnegie Endowment, Open Canada, and USA Today, among others. Al-Masri holds an MA in Political Studies from Queen’s University and a BA in Political Science and Religion from Carleton University. He also previously studied banking and finance at the University of Damascus.