Briefing Room 10.10.25 - Syria on the Brink (Again)

Welcome back to The Briefing Room, our weekly subscriber-only roundup of all the news to minor to get its own warfronts video, but too major to outright ignore. I'm Simon, and this week we're traveling to Syria, I mean, not literally, probably for the best, where once again a flare-up of violence threatens to tip the nation back into civil war.

Aside from that, we're checking in on the growing Gen Z protests in Morocco and Madagascar before highly traveling over to Denmark, where new restrictions have been announced targeting Russia's Shadow Fleet.

Before we get started, though, just a quick thank you to all of you who have subscribed so far. Your contributions have allowed us to not just produce this bonus content, but also keep the main channel above water, so that's awesome. Appreciate you guys.

Thank you so much. Let's get to Syria, shall we? This week, someone, somewhere in Damascus, seemingly pulls Syrian transitional leader Ahmed al-Shara aside and politely reminded him, Mr. President, it has been more than a month since all the foreign analysts were last able to write their think pieces warning that Syria is on the brink.

Whether or not that conversation happens, we're at France, we can't directly confirm it. But if that conversation did happen, then Ahmed al-Shara and his Damascus administration have delivered, because today, in October of 2025, we've got to say it yet again.

Syria is on a knife's edge, and there's a real possibility that there's going to be a return to all-out war.

This time, the crisis ahead doesn't revolve around Syria's Alawite minority in the Northwest, or the Druze population in the South, or even the resurgence of the Islamic State in the open desert.

Instead, the crisis in Syria today is between the transitional government in Damascus and the heavily armed paramilitary, the Syrian Democratic Forces, the primary armed group that defends Syria's Kurdish-led autonomous region in the Northeast, Riyadh.

Now look, if, like most of the world, you thought it was safe to temporarily turn your attention away from the flashpoint between Damascus and Riyadh, then you probably made that decision because of an agreement signed this past March.

As a part of that accord, Riyadh and Syria's interim government agreed to implement a ceasefire, work toward the integration of Riyadh into the new Syrian state, and eventually reunify this divided, broken nation. At the time, the agreement was cause for celebration across Syria, and real, genuine optimism about where the country could be headed.

But after the initial deal was agreed, the implementation process has gotten nasty.

At issue is Damascus' insistence that the SDF integrate fully to Syria's defense forces instead of serving as a regional affiliate, Riyadh's concerns about Syria's closeness with Riyadh's long-time adversary, Turkey, and the treatment of Syrian Alawites, Druze, and Christians under the new government in Damascus, seeming to suggest that the Kurds could

Suffer a similar fate.

Tensions have been building for a while now, starting in the city of Aleppo, where the Damascus government is largely in control, but the SDF maintains a presence, and Turkish-backed militias oppose them as a constant counterweight. At the start of July, the Syrian government started to blockade fuel from reaching majority countries.

Kurdish neighborhoods in the city, a situation that only got worse over the following months.

In August, Damascus started pushing for a series of new elections that have now taken place across most of Syria, but that did not take place in areas outside of Damascus's control, leading Riyadh to accuse Damascus of undermining and even ignoring the proper democratic process.

Local Arab tribes aligned with Damascus have started to mobilize against the SDF in the city of Deir Azor, while Islamic State fighters took advantage of the growing instability and started to get more active.

The SDF responded to both groups, as well as the problems in Aleppo, by sending reinforcements all up and down that frozen front line that divides Damascus-led and Riyadh territory, and seeing the SDFs build up, the government in Damascus did the same. In short, the two sides created a standoff, and very quickly the standoff started to unravel.

Now, sporadic small skirmishers have been ongoing almost weekly since early August, escalating in September when Turkey carried out airstrikes against Kurdish positions, and when the SDF and Turkish-backed militias shelled each other across the town of Maskenar.

On the 20th of September, the SDF alleged that shelling and drone attacks by the Syrian army killed seven civilians, five women, and two children in what the SDF described as a massacre. Syria denied the allegations, which the SDF only amplified when an infant died of his wounds two days later.

From there, skirmishers grew more intense, sniper fire, shelling, and drone attacks became more common, both sides began setting up roadblocks, and forces started massing near a strategically critical target, the Tishrin Dam.

Earlier this week, the tensions around Aleppo finally boiled over. Heavy fighting broke out around the dam using larger units than either side had been relying on up until that point, and both sides closed off access to their territory through all remaining entry points.

By Monday, October 6th, two Kurdish majority neighbourhoods in Aleppo that were at the centre of the flare-up had been fully besieged by the Syrian government.

Peaceful protests were greeted with live ammunition, SDF and Syrian troops engaged in street battles across the city, and according to Kurdish media, over 60 civilians were injured and two were killed, mostly as a result of shelling by the Syrian army.

Although each side only admits a couple of casualties thus far, the death toll on both sides is almost certainly higher as both the SDF and the Syrian army tend to under-report. Right now, the situation is being held together by a very fragile ceasefire agreed between Damascus and Riyadh on October 7th.

For now, both sides have agreed to a comprehensive agreement brokered by the United States, and they'll have a chance to reopen negotiations on a larger political settlement if their leaders decide to take advantage.

But neither side has started to draw down troop deployments, neither side is interested in letting go of Aleppo, and Turkey is sitting on the sidelines still fanning the flames. And unfortunately, it's time to reset our calendar again.

Zero days since Syria was at risk of full-scale civil war. For our next story, we head to Africa, where since late September, all eyes have been focused on Morocco and Madagascar, the latest countries to be swept up in the Gen Z wave.

Since we already covered the situation in Madagascar in depth in our analysis of the Gen Z spring, we'll start with Morocco, before zipping over to Antananarivo to see what has changed since we last visited.

In the days leading up to the 27th of September, an idea spread across Moroccan social media almost as quickly as Taylor Swift's new album shot to the top of the charts. An anonymous collective calling itself Gen Z212, a reference to Morocco's international dialing code, was calling for nationwide demonstrations.

The movement rapidly gained traction, particularly on Discord and TikTok, where an idea was transforming into calls for action.

Now, if you've been following our coverage of protests around the world from Kenya to Nepal, you know that most times the issue that takes people to the streets are the same ones the world over. Elite corruption, unemployment, and a general anger at their government and its handling of the economy. And Morocco has all of those.

You'll also likely know that every protest has its own local spark, a reason that's unique to every country that gets people riled up enough to say, hey, that's a mighty incompetent government you've got there. It sure would be a shame if someone protested against it.

Now, Nepal had the social media ban, Madagascar has, or rather doesn't have access to water and electricity, and Morocco has a government that decided spending money to host football events was way more important than providing the country's dilapidated public services.

Those calls to action were answered on the 27th when the youth took to the streets in Rabat, Marrakesh, and Casablanca, three of the largest cities in the country. By the 30th, the protests had spread to other smaller cities like Tamara, Ouija, and Altamira. The 30th also saw the greatest escalation in violence from the police.

Initially, they had stuck to the classics, batons, arbitrary arrests, and intimidation. But on this day, a police car deliberately swerved onto a sidewalk, hitting 19-year-old Amin Basada, and Amin would subsequently lose a leg. After that, it's fair to say that all hell broke loose.

According to The Guardian, the police killed two people in the southern city of Le Clire, and they claimed they were acting in self-defense after protesters tried to break into a restricted area to seize police weapons. The protesters dispute this version of events alleging that they didn't attempt to break in.

Protests continued across much of the country until a pause this week.

According to organizers who spoke to the Associated Press, this was designed to focus energies on one final push before King Mohammed VI's address to the nation's parliament on Friday.

The protesters hope that it will be enough to convince King Mohammed VI to fire the prime minister and deliver long-promised reforms to tackle corruption and improve public services. While the protests may push the king to change the government, there are fears that they have already reached their peak and might not be as effective.

The Associated Press noted that Thursday's protests appeared smaller than some last week. weakened over the weekend, which suggests that momentum might be fading, something we've seen before in youthhood movements in Nairobi. At the time of writing this, the king is yet to address parliament, so we don't know whether the protest was effective or not.

Even if he does choose to dissolve the government, that's far from the end.

As Nepal has shown us, for protesters, having a plan in place in case the best-case scenario happens is perhaps more important than the best-case scenario happening.

Whatever happens in Rabat on Friday will either mark the beginning of a new chapter for the country or prove, once again, that protests are only as meaningful as the numbers they can command in the moment. And now, let's hop over to Madagascar.

When we last checked in on the country, President Andrei Aragilina had dissolved the government and was on the hunt for a new prime minister who could appease the protesters.

He would go on to choose Rufin Fortinad Zafasambo, a military general which suggests that he has consolidating power and gathering allies to reduce the odds of the protesters toppling his government.

He also announced plans for a national dialogue that would be attended by spiritual leaders, students, youth representatives, among others, and insisted that he wanted the participants to be honest with him.

We'll quote him here. I don't want flattery. I want to hear the truth.

It's the people who kept telling me that everything was fine who are responsible for our current situation. However, that has done little to calm public anger with protesters who are saying that they wouldn't participate in talks with the government that, and we'll quote them here, represses, assaults, and humiliates its youth in the streets. End quote.

All right, so where does that leave Madagascar? Whilst that is in limbo, with an intransient president on one side and an unrelenting youth movement on the other, this is a stalemate that could drag on for weeks or collapse into further violence at any moment.

Like Morocco, Madagascar's fate now hinges on whether its leaders will listen to the youth or dig in their heels.

And I guess we'll find out soon. For our final story today, we turn our attention to the Russia-Ukraine war, but not in the traditional sense. While everyone was focused on Kyiv, and we'll use a technical term here, bobbing the fuck out of all refineries and ammo plants in Russia, another story slipped under the radar.

The Danish government quietly announced that it would tighten environmental oversight of the ships in the port of Skagen. Copenhagen would primarily target all the ships for these inspections.

Now, unless you're one of our Danish viewers, the name Skagen probably means absolutely nothing to you, and you're probably wondering how environmental inspections in Denmark tie into the war in Ukraine.

Well, Skagen is one of Denmark's most important ports. Every year, thousands of vessels pass through it en route from the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic.

According to the Danish government, some of these ships traversing through the port are part of Russia's Shadow Fleet, a secret network of hundreds of vessels allowing Russia to transport all worldwide, evade sanctions, and finance the war in Ukraine.

Now, when we say fleets, you're probably picturing several majestic vessels sailing the high seas. But Russia's Shadow Fleet isn't anything remotely close to that. Most of the ships are almost at the end of their lifespan and are an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

According to Politico, at least five of these ships have leaked oil into European waters over the past year. And we don't need to state the obvious, but oil spills are not just catastrophic for the marine environment, they're also pretty horrific for nearby communities. This is where environmental protection dovetails with geopolitics.

By targeting older ships, Denmark is not only safeguarding its marine ecosystems, but also limiting the likelihood that Russia chooses Danish waters as an option for its shadow fleet out of fear of an inspection. Fewer route options mean there are fewer ways for Russia's customers to get and pay for the oil.

And if Ukraine can continue to hammer the refineries, then Russia will face a double squeeze.

They'll be producing less oil to sell and have fewer ways to transport the little oil that they can produce. Eventually, this would mean less money to feed the war machine, and that could bring about not just a faster peace, but a peace that is better for Ukraine.

You'll notice that we use a lot of coulds, ifs, woulds, and cans when describing how the increased maritime enforcement will affect the war in Ukraine.

That's because, for now, it's all just purely hypothetical. Danish government's press release specifically says, In future, the Danish Maritime Authority will, in cooperation with the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, carry out several environmental inspections with the ships to ensure that they comply with the environmental rules.

This means that any predictions we make now could be proven wrong as soon as next year.

We're also hedging our bets because maritime experts don't believe that this will have much of an impact on Russia.

Mark Douglas, an analyst with Starboard Maritime Intelligence, a firm that provides maritime intelligence for governments and defense agencies, told independent Russian outlet The Insider that this new enforcement wouldn't stop the Kremlin's tankers, quoting him here.

From everything I've seen, Denmark is just going to be more closely monitoring these tankers.

Over 50 false flag tankers have been through the Danish straits since the EU ministers announced stricter controls on those tankers in June, so I don't think this announcement will see any tankers being stopped.

What seems more likely, and I would think other oversight measures have done, is provide more information to enable sanctioning on tankers and also the insurance companies that enable them." So, if the increased environmental oversight won't cause a noticeable change for Russia's oil transport and capabilities, but why did Denmark announce it now?

The answer might be in the sky.

In late September, several airports in Denmark, including the Copenhagen Airport, Belund Airport, and Arborg Airport, had to close temporarily because drones were sighted nearby. Drones were also spotted near Flavastash and Skridstrup, home to Denmark's F-16 and F-35 fighter jets.

Russian fingerprints were all over these sightings, not least because of a similar pattern of incursions throughout Europe.

The Kremlin denied being responsible for the drone incursions, but expecting the Kremlin to tell the truth these days is a little like expecting meatloaf to do that for love. Danish Prime Minister Matej Friedrichsen basically said as much. telling local media she could not rule out Russian involvement.

One reason why Copenhagen could be less inclined to trust Russia is the fact that Ukrainian President Zelensky accused the Kremlin of using its shadow fleet to launch and control drones over European cities.

And while this could just be Zelensky trying to push his Western allies into cracking down on the shadow fleet, it also tracks pretty closely with known Russian tactics. So the odds that Zelensky is telling the truth and the Kremlin is lying are pretty high here.

And that would mean that Denmark's increased environmental oversight is a strategy meant to make it as difficult as possible for Russia to launch its hybrid drone attacks by providing more data so that the West can better identify, target, and sanction tankers and insurance companies that serve them.

Exactly as Mark Douglas said. Additionally, if during an inspection Copenhagen actually manages to confiscate Russian drones, then that would be the smoking gun that justifies far more aggressive action, not just against the shadow fleet, but against the entirety of Russia. Now that's a pretty big if, but it does get to a core point that we want to make.

Russia's hybrid war against Europe is only just beginning, and unless the West comes up with new ways of deterring the Kremlin and fast, then we should expect things to get even worse. Thank you for watching.