Sectarianism, Siege and Displacement: The Memoir of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya

Throughout the Syrian civil war, Syrians produced a growing corpus of memoirs aimed at documenting their personal experiences and the wider catastrophe engulfing the country. Many of these works, often written from exile or in collaboration with translators, have been published in English by major Western publishers and occupy a unique space between testimony, political analysis, and literary reflection.Among the most prominent is Samar Yazbek’s A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution (Haus Publishing, 2012), which records the early days of protest and repression before her flight into exile. Her later volume, The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria (Ebury Press, 2015), chronicles clandestine returns to rebel-held areas, offering both harrowing witness accounts and a personal meditation on Syria’s disintegration. Similarly influential is Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy (Hurst, 2017), which combines the perspective of a former political prisoner with trenchant analysis of the Assad regime, opposition movements, and foreign intervention.Other memoirs contribute different vantage points. Alia Malek’s The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria (Nation Books, 2017) intertwines personal and family history with Syria’s broader political trajectory, situating the revolution and war within longer cycles of repression, corruption, and cultural life. Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple’s Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War (One World, 2018) offers an unusual hybrid of text and illustration, depicting life under Islamic State rule in Raqqa through an intimate narrative and visual storytelling. Kassem Eid’s My Country: A Syrian Memoir (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), in contrast, provides the perspective of a survivor of the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Muʿadamiyyat al-Sham (Western Ghouta southwest of Damascus), providing visceral testimony of atrocities as well as a political plea to the international community. Together, these works illustrate the diversity of form and narrative strategy through which Syrians have sought to preserve memory and communicate their experiences to global audiences.As a body of literature, Syrian war memoirs are marked by certain shared strengths. They offer moral witness, counter official regime narratives, and humanize an otherwise abstract geopolitical crisis. By foregrounding lived experience, whether their own or that of other Syrians, they keep from erasing and reducing Syria, Syrians, and the war to mere statistics of death and displacement. Yet the corpus is also fraught with tensions. These works illuminate personal histories and national trauma, but they are shaped by the politics of exile, the demands of translation, editorial framing, and the expectations of Western publishers and foreign audiences, which may seek familiar narratives of authoritarian brutality, Islamist radicalism and extremism, and the suffering and plight of refugees. Consequently, while these memoirs are invaluable records of the Syrian civil war, they are both testimonies and literary constructions that are necessarily partial and uneven.The memoir Al-Fua and Kafariya: A Story of Glory and Defiance by Muhammad Hasan Taqi (b. 1954) and translated into English by Dr. Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi is one of the most recent additions to this corpus. In his work, Taqi relates the story of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya, two adjacent Shiʿa-majority villages situated northeast of Idlib. Taqi, a prominent local sheikh educated at Damascus University and at the Islamic Seminary in Qom, headed the two villages’ emergency committee, which oversaw the distribution of aid and governance when they were besieged by Islamist rebels in the course of the Syrian civil war and eventually evacuated in July 2018.However, compared to the abovementioned memoirs and others, Taqi’s stands apart in several critical regards. Unlike other memoirs often written in exile or collaboration with translators and published in English by Western publishers, Taqi wrote his in Arabic after al-Fuʿah and Kafriya were evacuated, while residing in Damascus, and did not necessarily seek to have it translated and published in the West. He sought to “bear witness to the suffering . . . and transmit it” (7) by collecting, archiving, and recording as much information as possible, presenting a testimony rather than constructing a literary work intended for a particular audience, Western, Arab, or other.Taqi’s writing is sparse and his language direct; his prose lacks rhetorical embellishment and flourish. But this does not mean his book is not rich with information and valuable insights. Woven into the narrative are detailed accounts of personalities, meetings, activities, battles, amounts of supplies, and the economic, social, health, agricultural, and water situation in the two villages before and during the siege. The result is a revealing portrait of the local dynamics of conflict, the involvement of external actors in conflict, the instrumentalization of sectarian identity, the use of siege and displacement as wartime strategies, and the erosion of humanitarian norms in the Syrian civil war.The greatest difference, however, between Al-Fua and Kafariya: A Story of Glory and Defiance and the corpus of memoirs that have been published in English thus far is the perspective from which it is written—that of a Shiʿi Syrian who, along with those in his community and for various—sometimes, legitimate—reasons, did not support the popular uprisings and revolution against Bashar al-Assad and aligned themselves with the Baʿathist regime. It would be reductionist and unfair to characterize and dismiss Taqi’s work as “pro-regime,” despite his praise of Assad, his expression of hope that Assad would continue to rule, and his gratitude for the support the villages received from the “axis of resistance”—Iran, Hizballah, and Afghan and Iraqi Shiʿi militias (for example, 8, 162, 386–87). From Taqi’s perspective and that of his Shiʿi compatriots, the revolution, from the outset, was not a positive development that offered an opportunity for a better future; rather, it exposed the communities to danger, particularly as they were isolated in a predominantly Sunni, pro-opposition area.Beginning before the uprising, Taqi relates the story of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya, two small agrarian communities in Idlib province with estimated populations of 24,000 and 10,000, respectively. Their residents adhered primarily to Twelver Shiʿism in a region dominated by Sunni Muslims, directly adjacent to the towns of Maʿarat Misrin (population 35,000, among whom were 2,000 Shiʿa) and Binnish (population 52,000) (14–29). Under the Baʿathist regime, the sectarian distinctions that marked al-Fuʿah and Kafriya’s identity were muted by a dominant state narrative of Arab nationalism and cross-sectarian unity.This changed with the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in 2011, rapidly transforming the situation in these villages, becoming contested sites of sectarian confrontation. Taqi notes how sectarian graffiti condemning Iran, Hizballah, and then-Hizballah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah appeared along the road connecting al-Fuʿah and Binnish and a school where students from both communities studied (31–32). Over the next year into early 2012, the situation deteriorated between the two towns—armed checkpoints were established, kidnappings and robbery became common, and the two sides gradually lost trust in each other. Multiple efforts by leaders and elders of both towns to reconcile and reach agreements to maintain peaceful relations failed to materialize or to be implemented (33–49).As the Syrian state lost control over large swaths of Idlib province by 2012–13, al-Fuʿah and Kafriya became de facto enclaves of government loyalism, increasingly isolated within an opposition-dominated environment. The Assad regime’s retention of the villages, bolstered by local National Defense Forces (NDF) and later supported symbolically by Hizballah and Iranian-affiliated groups, served both strategic and propagandistic ends. For Damascus, maintaining control over the two villages projected the image of a regime still capable of defending its constituents, especially minority communities. For Iran and Hizballah, al-Fuʿah and Kafriya took on additional resonance, standing as symbols of resistance and martyrdom within a narrative of Shiʿi perseverance against Sunni jihadism.By early 2015, the security situation around the villages had drastically worsened. That March, the Army of Conquest (Jaysh al-Fatah)—an Islamist coalition led by Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra (then al-Qaʿida’s Syrian affiliate)—launched a successful offensive capturing Idlib city and its surroundings. With this advance, the siege of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya was formalized. Opposition forces blocked all land routes, and sporadic shelling and sniper fire made entering or leaving dangerous. Syrian and Iranian helicopters resorted to airdropping limited supplies, including food, fuel, and medical equipment, while international humanitarian aid was largely impeded by the fractured security environment and lack of sustained truces. The civilian population within the villages endured extreme scarcity, malnutrition, and inadequate access to healthcare, while militia presence and militarization further compromised civilian life.The siege of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya, as documented by Taqi, was part of a broader phenomenon in the Syrian war: the weaponization of siege and starvation as tools of war. This is the heart of Taqi’s memoir (chapters 4–7, 10), which provides a detailed account of life under siege. At first, Taqi and others did not believe the siege of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya would last long, thinking their food and other supplies, enough for one month, would sustain them (68–69). These hopes quickly faded away as the siege continued, worsening the crisis in the two communities. For example, the price of table salt jumped from 20 Syrian pounds to 12,000 Syrian pounds (71), while the prices of other goods rose similarly. As head of the emergency committee, Taqi, together with other members responsible for managing the crisis and preserving, to the best of their ability, a minimum standard of living for the people of the communities, provided them with food, water, medicine, healthcare, education, and social activities. Food shortages, shortages of medical personnel, damaged hospitals and clinics, reduced agricultural production, and damaged water infrastructure made life in the communities extremely difficult.After addressing the humanitarian situation at length, Taqi turns his attention (chapter 8) to the fighting that occurred before and during the siege. What emerges from Taqi’s account of various battles is the increasingly sectarian tone of the conflict. From the outset of the revolution, the two Shiʿi towns were regarded by their neighbors and many opposition factions as regime-aligned military outposts complicit in attacks on nearby Sunni cities. However, the language Taqi adopts in his descriptions of the battles, initially absent in his writing on the first years of the conflict, is that of the regime and the Shiʿi “axis of resistance,” reflecting a hardening of sectarian views and divisions. For Taqi, those defending the towns were “mujahidin” filled with “patriotic spirit” and “protecting the creed” (141), while those the “mujahidin” fought were ruthless, harsh “insurgents,” “takfiris,” and “terrorists” (for example, 142–45). Relating the details of certain battles, Taqi frames the conflict in sectarian Shiʿi terms, describing the opposition forces as those who “participated in the killing of al-Husayn” (153) and an opposition effort to destroy al-Fuʿah’s water tank as a repeat of history, similar to “what happened to Imam al-Husayn . . . and his companions at Karbala” (158).A partial breakthrough in the siege occurred in April 2017 through what became known as the “Four Towns Agreement,” a controversial population exchange involving al-Fuʿah and Kafriya in the north and Madaya and Zabadani—two Sunni-majority towns besieged by Hizballah and the regime—near Damascus. Mediated by Qatar and Iran, the agreement permitted the phased evacuation of civilians and fighters from all four towns, coupled with the promise of humanitarian aid deliveries. The deal’s fragility was exposed in April 2017 when a convoy carrying evacuees from al-Fuʿah and Kafriya was attacked in the Rashidin district, west of Aleppo (167–68). There, a car bomb detonated near buses transporting civilians, killing at least 126 people, including more than 60 children. The group responsible for the massacre was never ascertained.The final chapter in the towns’ wartime trajectory, which Taqi characterizes as “the forced departure and bitter torment” (179–85), unfolded the following year in July 2018. After prolonged negotiations, an agreement was reached between the Syrian government and Hayʾat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the successor to Jabhat al-Nusra, with Turkish mediation. The remaining residents—estimated at around 6,000—were evacuated to regime-controlled areas in northern Syria, particularly Aleppo, Hama, Latakia, and Damascus. In return, the government released several hundred detainees from its prisons. With this evacuation, the Shiʿa presence in Idlib province was effectively eliminated, and al-Fuʿah and Kafriya were handed over to HTS control. Reports suggest that the villages were subsequently looted, partially destroyed, and left largely uninhabited. Unlike other evacuations that were framed in terms of military surrender, the departure of al-Fuʿah and Kafriya’s residents was shaped by a negotiated sectarian logic—one that tacitly acknowledged the impossibility of coexistence in an increasingly homogenized and fragmented wartime geography.Two large appendices appear at the end of the memoir with documents, correspondence, and images related to the siege, including letters to the Syrian government, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, then-Hizballah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah; correspondence of the emergency committee; and a list of all those killed in the towns (187–383). This rich trove of material provides excellent material for researchers on the workings of the committee, the state of the two towns during the crisis, and the dynamics of crisis management.Taqi’s memoir is an important and valuable addition to the corpus of memoirs on the Syrian civil war. Some may dismiss Taqi’s perspective, given he and his community aligned with the regime, supported the regime, and expressed hope that the regime would continue to govern Syria and defeat the opposition (8, 386–87). Certainly nothing should be done to excuse, justify, or absolve the Assad regime of the crimes it committed against the Syrian people over five decades of rule and the brutality and violence with which it tried to defeat the revolution. Nevertheless, as Taqi’s memoir demonstrates, the opposition, particularly Jabhat al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Fath, among others, should not be absolved of the crimes they committed against civilians. All the more so when read in light of the Assad regime’s overthrow in December 2024, the rise of Jabhat al-Nusra and HTS head Ahmed al-Sharaʿa to the Syrian presidency, and the massacres of Alawis and Druze in 2025 by Sunni Islamists and others allied with Sharaʿa’s new government.