Robert Bociaga

2 weeks ago | english.alaraby.co.uk | Robert Bociaga

Formally integrating foreign fighters into Syria's new army is viewed as a pragmatic political move, but one which alarms many in Syrian society Damascus, Syria - What happens when foreign fighters no longer roam the desert but march in formation under a national flag? In Syria, this question is no longer hypothetical.

2 weeks ago | newarab.com | Robert Bociaga

Damascus, Syria - What happens when foreign fighters no longer roam the desert but march in formation under a national flag? In Syria, this question is no longer hypothetical. The interim government under Ahmed Al-Sharaa has begun formally integrating around 3,500 foreign fighters - many of them Uyghurs from China and central Asia - into the newly created 84th Division of the Syrian army.

3 weeks ago | arabnews.com | Robert Bociaga

JEDDAH: A dry wind carries the first sign: a curl of frankincense smoke, sharp and sweet, drifting over the desert flats. It seeps through windows, clings to clothes, lingers on skin. Najran once sat at the center of the incense trade, and the scent still clings to its streets like a memory too deep to wash away. In Najran’s Old City, sun-drenched alleys wind between mud-brick towers etched with delicate patterns.

1 month ago | newarab.com | Robert Bociaga

Damascus, Syria - The world watched with a mixture of disbelief and caution as US President Donald Trump stood beside Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in Riyadh on 13 May and announced the lifting of all US sanctions on Syria. It was the kind of geopolitical move that could only happen in a transactional world order, where former enemies are rebranded as partners and pariah states are brought back into the fold, not for democratic reform, but for calculated strategic returns.

1 month ago | arabnews.com | Robert Bociaga

DAMMAM: Near Hofuf, at the edge of Al-Ahsa Oasis, where the palms thin out and the desert hushes before turning to stone, Jabal Al-Qarah rises. Low and wide, its sculpted sandstone flanks have been worn into curves and fissures.   I first saw the mountain just after dawn as the road, having coiled gently through date groves and irrigation canals, veers toward the open plain. In the distance, the mountain appeared — not dramatically, but deliberately.