Rime Allaf (@rallaf) / X

Rime Allaf

17.6K posts

Rime Allaf

@rallaf

Author of It Started in Damascus - How the Long Syrian Revolution Reshaped Our World (represented by @DHAbooks). Geopolitics & Diplomacy & Communications.

rime-allaf.com/book

Joined September 2008

Pinned
Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Nov 6, 2025
Days before Assad fled Syria and his violent 54-year regime collapsed in December 2024, my book nearly fully written, I could not have imagined I would be there myself almost a year later, with my book, on the day of its release. It Started in Damascus, in bookshops as of today.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Jun 10, 2020
20 years ago today, I was at a Damascus hair salon when an assistant rushed to tell us Hafez Assad had died. What I saw and lived in the next days and years is set in stone in my memory. This thread is but a glimpse of life in #Syria then and the slow descent into implosion. /1
Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 7, 2024
I'm Syrian and have written, spoken & worked on Syrian affairs since 2000. I am overwhelmed by the sense of collective hope we are sharing, the determination to survive our grief & build this beautiful country after not just 13 years of war, but 54 years of violent Assadism.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 9, 2024
I have never seen so many grown men cry, unashamedly, openly, as they should. The Syrian trauma is immense, and we have only just begun to scratch the surface of the Assads' savagery and depravity. If this is the first time you hear about Sednaya and other jails, see this book.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 13, 2024
Non-Syrian 'analysts' keep explaining that Syrians do not have a national identity. Really? Here's Hama today with Janna - paradise, our nation is paradise, the song Abdelbasset Sarout used to sing in Homs as everyone sang & swayed along during the first months of the revolution.
00:00
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Nov 29, 2024
This was in Aleppo, Syria, in November 2016. For people with short memories. (Translated from Arabic leaflets dropped in their thousands on helpless inhabitants.)
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 12, 2024
This is Osama Othman, civil engineer, otherwise known as Caesar, the brave man who photographed bodies of Syrian detainees who had been tortured to death & brought to the Military Hospital in Mezzeh, Damascus. Clips in this piece.
«مهرّب» أرشيف التعذيب السوري يكشف هويته لـ«الشرق الأوسط»
From aawsat.com
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Nov 29, 2024
Students at Aleppo University in May 2012. They wanted dignity and freedom too, like millions of other Syrians. Remember how it started.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Sep 7, 2018
Barrel bombed, gassed, starved, forcibly displaced, tortured, besieged, and about to face the heavily advertised final onslaught by Russia, Iran & Assad's militias. So what do these Syrians do today? They call for freedom and democracy. Still. Always. #Idlib #Syria
Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 13, 2024
Today all of Syria was ALIVE for the first time in more than half a century. No people bussed in by the regime. No coercion, and no photos or empty slogans brandished by anyone. Just seas of people freely celebrating their country under the Independence Flag, chanting SOURIA.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Feb 6, 2019
I don't think there is a woman on earth, regardless of her politics, who doesn't relate to this photo, and who is not also mentally photoshopping it with other women and men relevant to her life, from news to work to home. We need the #PelosiClap as an emoji!
Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Nov 30, 2024
Many Syrians got emotional seeing prisoners liberated in Aleppo last night; there are still some 150,000 - 200,000 political detainees in Assad's jails (inc. many women). He refuses to release them despite Security Council Res 2254, even though it would cost him nothing.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Dec 5, 2024
Many non-Syrians will not get it, but the rebels' liberation of Hama from the Assad regime is even more important than that of Aleppo. We don't know what happens next, but this is BIG.
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Rime Allaf
@rallaf
Feb 7, 2022
Today's meeting between #France President Emmanuel Macron and #Russia President Vladimir Putin reminded me of the latter's meeting with another French president, 15 years ago, in circumstances revealed later which shocked many in France but didn't get much airplay abroad. 1/8