The Syrian Civil War Pt.5: The Siege of Southern Damascus

CONFLICTED

Message Heard

Religion & Spirituality, History

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Conflicted returns with another episode in our series on the Syrian Civil War, this time with a new contributor, who begins today a two episode arc where we’ll be looking at the Siege of Southern Damascus… Thomas Small has invited on Matar Ismaeel, a documentary filmmaker and political activist from Masyaf, Syria. Now back in his homeland after years of exile, Matar speaks to us from Masyaf itself, relaying an extraordinary story of resilience and courage in the Syrian capital. Matar tells us about his family's political background, and his early involvement in documenting protests on his digital camera in 2011. He recounts the dangers he faced as a media activist, including arrests and torture in Syrian prisons. Matar's commitment to the revolution led him to southern Damascus, where he witnessed the brutal siege by the Assad regime and the rise of jihadist groups, including ISIS. The conversation highlights the complexities of the conflict, the humanitarian crisis, and the personal toll of war. New Conflicted Season 5 episodes will be coming every two weeks, but if you want to have your Conflicted fix every single week, then you’ll have to join our Conflicted Community. Subscribers will get bonus episodes every other week, and can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more. All the information you need to sign up to the Conflicted Community is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Conflicted is proudly made by Message Heard, a full-stack podcast production agency which uses its extensive expertise to make its own shows such as Conflicted, shows for commissioners such as the BBC, Spotify and Al Jazeera, and powerfully effective podcasts for other companies too. If you’d like to find out how we can help get your organisation’s message heard, visit messageheard.com or drop an email to [email protected]! Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For exclusive bonus episodes of Conflicted, including interviews with renowned thinkers about the Muslim world, access to our Discord chat hub and ad-free listening, become a dearest listener now by signing up to the conflicted community.
0:17.7	The link to join is in our show notes, or just go to conflicted.
0:21.7	...supportingcast.fm.
0:25.8	Amazon offers term time working to their employees, like Anton, who's home to look after
0:33.7	his daughters during their holidays.
0:35.2	Hello!
0:36.0	To him, this is the best sound in the world.
0:38.3	Daddy!
0:39.3	Actually, maybe that's the best sound of all.
0:45.3	Now that's term time working.
0:48.3	Offered at Amazon.
0:50.3	Ten weeks off guaranteed per year.
0:52.3	Mix of paid holiday and unpaid time off. Conditions apply.
0:56.1	Welcome back, dear listeners, Thomas Small here for another episode of Conflicted.
1:01.7	We're continuing our retrospective of the Syrian Civil War with contributors from across Syria
1:08.7	who experienced the war firsthand to help you and us make sense of the conflict from as many different perspectives as possible.
1:18.4	We just finished three episodes with the wonderful Ronnie Hamada, a Kurdish civilian who so brilliantly explained how war came to his home city of Aleppo, how he fled to the northern province of Afrin, then under YPG control,
1:33.3	how he survived a devastating siege before his final flight to Turkey.
1:38.3	Well, today I am joined by another extraordinary person whose experiences as a young man during the war
1:46.0	are equally thrilling, terrifying, and a real tale of courage and resilience.
1:52.5	Our guest for the next couple of episodes is a documentary filmmaker from Mishyaf, a city in
1:57.8	the north of Syria on the road between Hama and the coast.
	...

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