Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

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Welcome to the Colette Podcast.

I'm Jonathan Kay.

There's been both good and bad news out of Syria in recent days.

On one hand, U.S. Special Forces killed the leader of the terrorist group ISIS.

On the other hand, the departure of some U.S. troops has led to a weakened security situation

for many of the Syrians who have been persecuted

under Bashar Assad's dictatorship. Many listeners, even those who follow

foreign affairs closely, may find themselves confused by developments in

Syria since the beginning of that country's

Civil War in 2011, as the country has become a deadly patchwork of different areas of control,

with involvement from Russia, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and sometimes even

Israel.

With me to discuss the situation in Syria is David Adesnick, Director of research at the Washington-based Foundation for

Defense of democracies. I spoke to him by phone earlier this week. Here are excerpts

from our conversation. First let's focus on the most immediate news, the death of the leader of ISIS.

What ramifications will that have for the situation in Syria?

...