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You know, one of the questions I think people had was why this all happened so quickly. The government offensive moved so fast. And I think a big part of the answer is, as you mentioned earlier,

there was a defection among Arab tribes.

There were Arab tribes in those areas that were never really on board with the SDF

to begin with, to my understanding, but the ones who were seemed to have defected over

to Damascus.

And I guess, what did you learn from talking to people

in terms of why that happened so quickly, so fluidly?

So I guess the long short of it is that the SDF's legitimacy

in these areas came within the context of the anti-Islamic state campaign.

And at the time in eastern Syria,

they were viewed by almost everyone as, well, maybe not almost everyone, but a large majority

of the population as better than the Islamic State and better than the Assad regime, who had

been present on the western side of the Euphrates.

So we're talking about the eastern side.

And there was some rebuilding. There was early on some efforts to engage with local civil society to incorporate people.

But over time, for various reasons that we'll get into this deteriorated. And then with

the fall of the regime, this legitimacy that the SCF had in terms of not being Assad, you know,

vanished overnight. So, like, following the news,

well, like through my newsletter, like I'm writing about weekly events,

there was clearly a constant stream of reports of protests,

reports of quite securitized control by the SDF over these areas.

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