Some people went mad when Ahmed al-Sharaa (you might know him as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the now de facto leader of Syria) refrained from shaking the hand of Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister of Germany, when she visited Damascus this week.
Not shaking hands with a woman! Al-Sharaa is the same jihadist he always was!
Another story which fixates westerners: the bars in Damascus – the centrepieces of the Assad regime’s propaganda tours, where journalists and vloggers were made pleasantly drunk within earshot of concentration camps – do they still serve their favourite poison? If they don’t, my oh my, it’s a terrible sign…
Islamist law often means austere law
Every Syrian I have spoken to or whose words I have read cannot believe this is what the world wants to talk about. They are incredulous. The previous regime operated torture chambers for 50 years, it invaded Lebanon and assassinated its former prime minister.
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