Podcast appearances and mentions of sasha ghosh siminoff

In this edition of The New Lines Institute Middle East Center's Post-Assad Podcast series, Middle East Center co-director Nicholas A. Heras sits down with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff to analyze how humanitarian and economic rehabilitation efforts can support peacebuilding in Syria. Sasha is a Nonresident Fellow with the Middle East Center at The New Lines Institute who has a granular and nuanced perspective on Syria that comes from his oversight over targeted civil society capacity building and humanitarian assistance programs throughout Syria. He is also currently the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and a Security Fellow at the Truman National Security Project. Heras and Ghosh-Siminoff also assess what should be the priorities for international organizations looking to support the rehabilitation of Syria.

In this episode of Contours, host Carolyn Moorman sits down with experts Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff and Jesse Marks to talk about current breakthroughs and obstacles in getting aid to Syria. This includes a recent aid delivery made to a blockaded refugee camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border and the Assad regime's about-face concerning cross-border aid after a Russian veto in the U.N. Security Council.

In this episode of Contours, Senior Analyst and Program Head Caroline Rose sits down with Non-Resident Fellow and a co-author of a recent New Lines report, "A Crisis of Conscience: Aid Diversion in Syria and the Impact on the International Aid System," Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, to unpack a recent crisis in the U.N. Security Council over the status and future of a cross-border aid delivery mandate in northwestern Syria.

This week Grant and Zoe were joined by Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff. Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff is is the Executive Director of People Demand Change Inc. They discuss the current state of the war in Syria; how Turkey, Iran, and Russia are engaged in the conflict; and Biden recent trip to the Middle East. In the final segment, Zoe talks about Myanmar's killing of democratic activists, Sasha talks about the new trailer for the Black Panther Sequel, and Grant highlights the end of the Arab Spring. If you are under 40 and interested in being featured on the podcast, be sure to fill out this form: https://airtable.com/shr5IpK32opINN5e9 Note: All participants are speaking in their personal capacity.

In this episode of “Roamings and Reflections,” humanitarian assistance and international development expert Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff joins host Nicholas Heras to recount the massive effort to evacuate Afghans as the Taliban seized Kabul. Ghosh-Siminoff provides an account of one of the most unique civil society efforts in U.S. history as America's “forever war” in Afghanistan came to a chaotic end.

Ahval editor David Lepeska spoke with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director of the Syria-focused aid outfit People Demand Change, about the developing humanitarian disaster in Idlib, demographic engineering by Turkey and the Assad regime, and Europe's failure to stem the refugee crisis.

Kamran Bokhari sits down with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director of People Demand Change about developments in Syria, particularly the Idlib Province. Bokhari describes Idlib as a “multi-player battlespace,” where numerous different forces such as jihadists, Syrian rebels, Russians, and Syrian regime forces are at work. Ghosh-Siminoff notes that it is important for people to grasp the complexities of Idlib, which has been under opposition control for about eight and a half years. Not only are numerous forces present in the area, but the opposition-controlled space known as Idlib actually contains bits and pieces of other provinces, and the space has expanded and retracted repeatedly. Ghosh-Siminoff points out that 3 million people are living in “Greater Idlib,” and between 60 and 80 percent of them are women and children. After the regime regained some territory, the area where these 3 million internally displaced persons are living is half what it once was. Idlib has become something of a depository for defeated rebel fighters and others who remain unreconciled with the Syrian regime. The only choice they were given, Ghosh-Siminoff says, was to go to Idlib – an area that has been bombed repeatedly by Syrian and Russian forces. The years of bombing campaigns have wrecked the infrastructure in Idlib so that there is no healthcare system or educational system to speak of. Moreover, the makeup of the population of Idlib – mostly women and children – shows that the rationale for the continued bombings – that they are targeting terrorists – is spurious, Ghosh-Siminoff says: “This is about emptying a piece of geographic space of people who oppose the Assad regime.” Turkey is in a difficult position; it has already taken in 3 million Syrian refugees, and economic and political factors make taking in another 3 million untenable. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in such a position that he cannot appear weak and cannot let these refugees into his country. Russia’s long game in Syria likely involves using the ongoing conflict as a wedge to separate Turkey and the United States – if not to pry Turkey away from NATO entirely. The United States’ inaction, despite Turkey’s requests for guidance and a proactive solution to the Syria crisis, is a sore point for the Turkish government, as is Europe’s displeasure with taking in 800,000 refugees when Turkey has taken in millions, Ghosh-Siminoff says. He also says that U.S. government officials argue that if the Assad regime falls without an organized opposition to take over or a plan for Syria’s future, the situation in Syria will be worse than it is now. However, Ghosh-Siminoff says, the inaction in Syria has created a crisis that has affected the entire Middle East and created unintended consequences for Europe’s political situation. Moreover, a lack of a solution in Syria has left an opening for Salafist-jihadist ideology to take over. As Syrians assess their situation and wonder why no one has helped them, why they were “trapped in this death camp that Syria has become,” Ghosh-Siminoff says, that ideology offers answers. He concludes by saying that leaving millions of young people at the mercy of that ideology will create a long-term security crisis.

We speak to Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff about the current conditions for people trapped in Idlib between HTS jihadists, Turkish military, and the Assad regime. www.patreon.com/popularfront www.popularfront.co www.twitter.com/jake_hanrahan www.instagram.com/popular.front

Although Syria’s civil war has largely wound down, fighting in the city of Idlib in the northwest has heated up in the last two months. Charles Lister, MEI senior fellow and Director of the Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program, and Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director and co-founder of People Demand Change, join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the ongoing conflict and what impact it might have on Syria’s future.

Nicholas A. Heras asks three notable experts on Salafist-jihadist organizations and the Syrian conflict — Jennifer Cafarella, Hassan Hassan, and Sasha Ghosh Siminoff — about how Syria became the largest recruiting ground for Salafist-jihadist groups in modern history and how the United States should approach its counter-terrorism policy in Syria to meet this challenge.

The region of Idlib in northwestern Syria has been a fiefdom for jihadist forces for some time, most notably the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who rule about 60% of the region. Russia and the Assad regime are likely to launch an offensive on Idlib very soon, but with three million people living there and many unhappy civilians, it's not as simple as wiping out extremists. Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff tell us why the battle for Idlib will be a huge humanitarian catastrophe.  - patreon.com/popularfront - popularfront.co - @jake_hanrahan