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The Final Voyage of the Infamous ‘Salt’ Ship

The RAPTOR as it sails to Istanbul. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The RAPTOR as it sails to Istanbul. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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The Final Voyage of the Infamous ‘Salt’ Ship

The RAPTOR as it sails to Istanbul. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The RAPTOR as it sails to Istanbul. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

On October 15, 2023, a rundown ship docked at Abu Qir Port in Alexandria, Egypt. The ship had sailed in from Romania and sent for repairs. At that moment also, Ahmed Issam Barakat, 27, Mohammed Daadour, 33, and eight others arrived from Ezbat Al Borg city in northern Egypt to work on the ship.

Barakat had worked as an oiler in Ezbat Al Borg where the majority of the population works in fishing and aboard ships. He chose to work at sea, obtained a seafarer passport in August and took up a job as an assistant mechanic on the newly docked ship. That was his first job at sea.

Daadour was not enticed by the sea like Barakat. He had graduated with a degree in media from Mansoura University. After becoming a father and the head of a family, he decided to turn to work at sea to earn a better living.

In the summer of 2023, Barakat and Daadour applied for work at a marine shipping company in Damietta city and they were hired to work for the RAPTOR in October. The men didn’t know at the time that the ship had just returned from a suspicious voyage in the Black Sea. It never occurred to them that they would become new victims of rundown ships that operate the black market.

At the repair yard, the crew worked day and night for 35 days to cover and paint over the flaws of the ship, such as holes and rust. Photos sent to relatives of the crew showed just how rundown the ship was.

Daadour telephoned his wife, telling her about the “big holes” in the ship, she told Asharq Al-Awsat. One crew member even tried to quit because he was afraid that the ship would sink once it sails.

On the day the ship was to be loaded with its cargo and salt, Daadour and his colleagues were surprised to learn that they were getting the day off and that new workers were being brought in to do this specific job.

At 1 am on November 22, the ship set sail from Alexandria to Istanbul, but under a new name: ROVANA.

Egyptian maritime lawyer Ahmed Kamel suspected that the name change was because the owners were aware that the RAPTOR had a poor reputation, had previously been blacklisted and subject to inspections dozens of times at various ports. The owners believed that the name change would make international sailing easy and “legal”.

Conflicting information has emerged over the weight of the cargo. Official declared figures showed it was carrying around 4,000 tons of cargo and 294 tons of salt. Other documents showed that it was in fact carrying 6,400 tons with the additional 2,000 never having been declared. It was also carrying liquid salt that was improperly stored.

Moreover, the crew was told that the ROVANA was headed to Istanbul, when in fact, it was sailing to Ukraine via Libya.

Daarour, Barakat and seven others, who made up the 14-member crew, had never worked on a shipping vessel before. The captain was Egyptian Rashad Hafez, who had over 20 years of experience working on shipping vessels. The rest of the crew consisted of a marine engineer from India and two sailors from Syria.

Captain Waled Jomaa, a friend of Hafez, said hiring nine crew members with no sea experience was a bad omen that the already rundown ship was going to be in trouble if it encountered any problems at sea.

Barakat said the flaws in the ship became more apparent after the salt was loaded onto it. Water started to seep in from the right side and it began to slant in that direction. He revealed that the crew had to dump the water out of the ship throughout the journey. That was only the beginning of their troubles.

The business of rundown ships

The 39-year-old RAPTOR sailed under the Comoros flag. Responsibility for a ship lies on the country whose flag it is flying, not the port from which it sailed. So, some rundown ships suffering from technical problems or embarking on a suspicious journey often resort to raising the Comoros flag because the country is lax in applying marine safety regulations.

Ownership of the RAPTOR was transferred from a Turkish to a Lebanese shipping company in 2019.

The continuous synopsis record (CSR) showed that the Lebanese company became the commercial manager of the ship. Ownership was transferred to an Egyptian company Equasis. The Lebanese company told Asharq Al-Awsat that it was in no way tied to the ownership of the RAPTOR.

From 2018 and until its final voyage in 2023, the RAPTOR racked up 205 grave violations at several ports and was blacklisted by international marine authorities since 2022. It was held for 279 days at Bulgaria’s Burgas port in 2018 over 29 grave violations.

How could such a ship continue to be allowed to sail? Just two months before its final journey, it added 65 violations to its record in Romania.

The key here lies in the change of ownership. During the time it was held in Burgas, the ownership was changed from the Turkish to the Lebanese company in May 2019.

The market of rundown ships is very active in Türkiye and Syria. Owners of these ships get rid of them on the black market and sell them at very low prices. They are then bought by shipping companies that make light repairs and maintenance as the cost of full repairs would start at at least 100,000 dollars.

Daadour, Barakat and the other rookie seafarers were unaware of these details, all they wanted was to earn a living and improve the lives of their families. The owner company even refused to disclose the ownership details of the ship. Daadour managed to secretly photograph them and send the documents to his wife. They confirm that the RAPTOR was owned by the Egyptian company.

Inquiries by Asharq Al-Awsat to the company were unanswered. A captain who has very close ties to the company revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat documents that prove that it owned the RAPTOR. But the ship was named the ROVANA, meaning the operating contracts were tied to a ship that no longer exists.

When the then-RAPTOR was still in Romania, its Egyptian captain at the time was Ahmed al-Dally. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that he discovered major flaws in the vessel.

“I exerted major efforts for the ship to be released from Romania to Egypt. I quit my job as soon as I arrived. The ship that had just docked in Alexandria was rundown and had three big holes. It should have never sailed again,” he said. “The inspection in Romania revealed catastrophic flaws.”

The RAPTOR was guilty of another grave violation: manipulating fuel records. It is repeat offender, with such offenses going back to 2018. The discovery forced the International Association of Classification Societies to impound the ship because it was not seaworthy.

The manipulation of fuel records is a red flag in any shipping vessel, because it means the ship is consuming more fuel than the number of miles it is declaring, meaning it is making undeclared journeys with this extra fuel.

Veson Nautica, which works on developing, implementing, and supporting maritime commerce solutions, revealed that since the eruption of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, the RAPTOR had made repeated voyages from Libya to Ukraine. Between 2022 and November 2023, the ship didn’t make a single journey outside the Mediterranean, except to head to Ukraine.

During these journeys, the RAPTOR would turn off its radar as it entered a specific zone between Lebanon and Cyprus. It would turn it back on again after exiting that zone. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a short-range coastal tracking system used on ships. Ships are prohibited from ever turning it off while at sea.

Captain Jomaa said shutting off the AIS allows coastguards in any country the right to follow the ship and search it. These ships are often accused of smuggling.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity, a former officer in the Greek coastguard said regular shipping journeys are carried out between Libya and Ukraine, raising questions that they may be smuggling weapons and fuel.

Final journey

Back on the RAPTOR, the journey was going well for Daarour. He would update his wife about the trip whenever he had an internet connection.

The journey took a turn for the worse when the ship entered Greek waters on November 24, 2023. A storm was forecast for the next day and until the 26th. Despite the warning, the captain sailed on, and the ship started to take on more water.

Daarour said the ship lacked any equipment that would help the crew in case it sank. There even weren’t enough lifejackets. The crew worked on dumping the water out, but sinking was inevitable.

Daarour sent a message to his wife that the ship was flooding. The captain issued a distress call to the Greek coastguard and was awaiting a response. On deck, Barakat was working tirelessly to dump water off the ship to the extent that he became nauseous.

Daarour sent his wife a photo of a Greek island just off the ship. He reassured her that the crew would swim towards it.

Daarour’s messages to his wife revealed that the owner of the ship had contacted the captain that night to angrily rebuke him for contacting the coastguard. The owner said the ship mustn't reply to the coastguard, that it must turn off its radar and change course immediately towards Turkish waters.

The captain complied and started sailing away from Greek shores until the ship reached four nautical miles off Greece’s Lesbos island that is located near the border with Türkiye. The ship then turned off its radar as the crew continued its fight to survive.

Barakat recalled that by that point the ship was tilting sharply to the right. Greece that night announced that the area was witnessing strong winds and waves as high as five meters.

Aya, Daarour’s wife, said her husband was the only person on board who had a Greek phone number and internet. He concealed this information from the captain and ship owner who had strict instructions that there could be no contact with anyone outside the ship. This was obviously an attempt to conceal the ship’s course.

Aya said her husband revealed his phone when the ship started to sink that night. He gave it to the crew so that they could bid farewell to their families.

At 6:15 in the morning of November 26, the RAPTOR appeared on radar some 4.5 miles off Lesbos. Having lost hope, the captain reopened communications lines and sent a distress call to the Greek coastguard at 7:20 am.

Daadour was making his final calls on the phone before the sinking. He called his mother to tell her “I am drowning with everyone on board this ship.”

On the other side of the ship, Barakat was the only member of the crew left without a lifejacket as there weren’t enough. He flung himself in the sea and clung onto a wooden barrel.

Despite the short distance to shore, the coastguard wouldn’t locate them until around two hours after the distress call. A helicopter arrived to take Barakat to Mitilini Hospital in Greece. When he regained consciousness, he thought he was the last of the crew to arrive, believing that the lifejackets would have saved them.

Turns out he was the sole survivor.

The entire crew perished and the ship with its cargo was lost in the Aegean. Forty-eight hours after the sinking, Greece announced that there were no survivors except Barakat. The search was officially called off after three days.

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Features

Shadow Battles in Syria: Fighting ISIS, Rebuilding the State 

An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
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Shadow Battles in Syria: Fighting ISIS, Rebuilding the State 

An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)

At the entrances to Damascus branching off the Mezzeh highway, just before Umayyad Square, young men with a quasi-military appearance line both sides of the road, selling flags and banners for “Liberation Day.”

In narrower streets and at intersections leading deeper into the city, they are met by women in long dresses, some with headscarves pulled halfway across their faces. The women drag one or two children behind them and carry loaves of bread for sale, stacking them openly and thrusting them toward passersby and car windows — unwrapped, exposed to diesel fumes and the dust rising from the rubble encircling the capital.

Selling bread in this manner has gradually become a “profession,” largely female, expanding as poverty deepens. Women queue at bakeries to purchase their ration, resell it for a small margin, then return to the lines, repeating the cycle late into the night.

This scene is not confined to Damascus; it recurs across Syrian cities and regions I visited, from Homs and Idlib to Aleppo. Over time, this female presence has become woven into the landscape of a prolonged crisis, a quiet pillar of daily survival.

Widespread destruction

If women’s exhausted faces and roughened hands are the clearest witnesses to a catastrophe now nearing its fifteenth year, the unrelenting destruction bears equally stark testimony. Entire neighborhoods and suburbs, flattened to the ground, ring Damascus, choking it in dust and debris.

The same gray desolation dominates major cities and their surrounding countryside, stretching across vast expanses of the country. Driving more than 350 kilometers without encountering a single intact tree, neighborhood, or home offers a visceral sense of what over a decade of killing, destruction, and vengeance has left behind.

The scale of devastation reflects not only military confrontations or the superiority of one side, but a deliberate effort to annihilate people and livelihoods, to extinguish even the faintest hope of return. What bombs spared was often burned, looted, or rendered uninhabitable. And yet, returns are taking place slowly, haltingly, through sheer individual persistence.

Only a few enclaves have endured in Damascus and its markets, or beyond in certain towns and districts, some even prospering, driven by sectarian calculations or political and commercial interests, most notably those tied to the production and trafficking of captagon.

A view of Damascus, Syria. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Damascus: The polished façade

Damascus was preparing for exceptional celebrations marking the first anniversary of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. Preparations were extensive: stages erected, loudspeakers installed, traffic rerouted, and banners raised proclaiming national unity, “One people... one nation”, and announcing that “the dark era has ended.”

Programs circulated via text messages urging citizens to participate and “celebrate freedom and hope... and complete the story.” But which story? The question reverberates through streets where bread is sold on bare asphalt while victory celebrations unfold.

Here, narratives multiply and diverge, sometimes to the point of contradiction, like neighboring bubbles that coexist without touching. A sharp vertical divide in perspectives remains, recalling 2011, when Syrians split to the brink between supporters and opponents, even as official discourse insists on projecting a seamless image of a new phase.

Silent security battle

Behind the celebratory façade, another battle is underway, which is quieter and more complex. “ISIS, especially the muhajireen [foreign fighters], poses our most serious challenge,” a senior Syrian security source who requested anonymity told Asharq Al-Awsat, noting that arrests and “neutralizations” are carried out regularly.

Another source explained that “security operations are conducted with precision and professionalism. Lists of those affiliated with extremist organizations under the broad ISIS umbrella are already in the hands of the security services.”

He added: “We know them individually. We monitor them closely. The former regime left behind an extremely detailed surveillance system that we continue to rely on.”

I met both sources days before the recent Palmyra incident. When it occurred, it appeared unsurprising; officials and those in sensitive positions had anticipated such scenarios as among several looming security risks, especially after Syria formally joined the counterterrorism coalition.

One source summarized these risks as three simultaneous confrontations: “First, the fight against ISIS and its offshoots, handled with extreme caution because it poses a personal threat to President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Second, the confrontation with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which threatens the emerging state and its identity over the long term. Third, a colder, less intense standoff with Israel linked to developments in Sweida.”

In a semi-official assessment, the security source did not rule out that those released from al-Hol camp could become “time bombs,” exploited to destabilize internal security and serve the agendas of extremists rejecting the current transition of power.

Such incidents could also signal abroad that stripping the SDF of its “counterterrorism” duties would be futile, potentially “opening the door to packs of lone wolves.”

Destruction from fighting between the regime forces and opposition is seen in the Yarmuk camp on the outskirts of Damascus. (EPA)

Is a security approach enough?

The challenge confronting the state is not purely a security one, and a strictly securitized approach lacks consensus even within governing circles.

Contrary to those who view ISIS and extremism as a “technical problem” solvable through force alone, a figure close to the political leadership argues that “the core issue lies in absorbing a massive human bloc that spent years outside any normal social framework, without education, stable families, or organized structures of life.”

“The real challenge,” he added, “is integrating them into the idea of the state and rehabilitating them accordingly. Just as these adolescents were once pulled toward a specific form of extremism, today we must work to move them toward a middle ground.”

“If the president says we are leaving a factional phase and entering a state-based one, how does that happen at the grassroots level? Is it merely individual and security-driven, or is it societal as well?” he wondered.

In this light, one observer interpreted al-Sharaa’s statement — “Obey me so long as I obey God among you” — delivered from the Umayyad Mosque on the night of the grand celebration and widely criticized by civil and secular circles, as a message aimed at a different audience: a segment the state seeks to reassure through a religious call to obedience and rejection of rebellion.

If words come easily, lived reality does not.

Security is tightly enforced in major cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo, through heavy deployments and modern technologies, including drones, especially during sensitive periods like mass anniversary celebrations.

Beyond the cities, however, vast rural areas remain largely neglected, marked by immense destruction, extreme poverty, and rampant unemployment. Checkpoints line major inter-provincial roads, but side towns and village alleys are often left to fend for themselves.

Idlib, once cited as an exception for its services and administrative capacity, has lost much of that distinction since liberation. Opening to the rest of Syria exposed the city and its devastated countryside to the demands of ordinary life, revealing governance that had amounted largely to crisis management. That legacy persists even in everyday language: soldiers addressing civilians as “sheikh,” or telling them to “seek God’s help” as shorthand for “move along.”

Between Idlib’s countryside and Aleppo, villages and small towns are known for particular loyalties and affiliations — some far removed from the moderation celebrated on Damascus stages. Their reputations lead drivers to take longer routes considered “safer.”

In this belt, young men, especially the youngest, have long served as fuel for armed factions. In recent years, only Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained dominance on the ground.

After the fall of the regime, thousands joined the general security forces or the army, often for lack of alternatives. Many cannot afford to rebuild destroyed homes or recover looted livelihoods; barracks, offering food and shelter, remain preferable to civilian life.

A fabric of clashing identities

These identities crystallized during years of militarization, particularly after 2013, though their social roots run deeper. Today, anyone associated with the new authority is often labeled “Idlibi,” after Idlib — the stronghold of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham for nine years — a term frequently tinged with condescension in Damascus and Aleppo. Understanding the social and economic distinctions among these rural communities helps explain their divergent political and military choices.

Some towns, organized around extended families, land ownership, and later labor migration beginning in the mid-1980s, invested in education and professional paths while maintaining a socially rooted religiosity. These communities had previously experienced nationalist and Arabist currents before Baathist authoritarianism took hold.

Others, smaller towns built around sub-clans, relied on seasonal agriculture and service in the police and security apparatus of the former regime. They welcomed their sons’ joining the Nusra Front when it began recruiting, seeing in it both as an organized military path against Assad and a religious identity long suppressed.

Added to this are vast desert regions governed by tribal structures and shifting systems of mutual aid.

Though all are Arab Sunnis, their behaviors, loyalties, and alignments differed, shaping how radical factions penetrated some communities while failing in others, often setting one group against another.

Syrian security forces detain a suspect during an anti-ISIS operation in the Idlib countryside on December 1. (Syrian Interior Ministry)

Idlib and the keys to Damascus

When security officials say today they know extremists “one by one,” they rely partly on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s security apparatus and its accumulated knowledge of radical factions it fought in recent years, such as Jund al-Aqsa and the al-Qaeda-aligned Hurras al-Din, along with informant networks.

Idlib remains, to a significant extent, a secure stronghold holding key levers of power. Courts, administrative bodies, and civil registries still operate under the “Sharia courts” established in mid-2013, unlike other regions, especially Damascus, where transactions are centralized.

Sources identify three main recruitment pathways used by ISIS and its offshoots: ideological recruitment, the fastest and most effective, especially among youth who embraced extremism and have yet to absorb Syria’s rapid changes; recruitment driven by money and revenge amid pervasive poverty and lost status; and recruitment among foreign fighters, embittered by abandonment and with little left to lose.

The emerging state and the ‘Sahwa’ model

When President al-Sharaa returned from Washington, he carried a daunting mandate: to “confront and dismantle terrorist networks” linked to remnants of ISIS, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and Hamas, according to US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack.

While Israel has targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Syria must contend with their residual networks. Yet the greater challenge remains ISIS and its offshoots, fighters who, until recently, were close “brothers in arms” to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

As observers await the form this confrontation will take, particularly in the absence of a unified army with a clear doctrine, Washington’s earlier experiment in post-Saddam Iraq looms large: the Sunni-on-Sunni “Awakening” (Sahwa).

The Sahwa rested on what an informed Iraqi source described as a “coalition of the harmed” from al-Qaeda, centered in Anbar province with its Sunni Arab identity and traditional religiosity. A similar model could emerge in Syria through an alliance of communities damaged by ISIS in the north and northeast, led by the emerging state that wants to fight extremism.

The Iraqi source, who closely followed the Sahwa’s rise and subsequent decline under then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, noted that tribes around Ramadi, especially al-Bourisha, al-Buallwan, al-Bou Fahd, and to a lesser extent al-Dulaim, formed the backbone of the fight after al-Qaeda devastated their trade and social fabric.

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, greets people as he attends celebrations marking the first anniversary of the ousting of former President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP)

Though some were coerced into allegiance, clashes never fully ceased, culminating in atrocities such as the massacre of the al-Bu Nimr tribe, where nearly 2,000 men were executed. A Syrian parallel is the al-Shaitat tribe, which resisted ISIS and suffered one of the largest massacres, with around 1,800 young men killed.

Those who joined the Sahwa were required to publicly renounce al-Qaeda and integrate into security forces coordinated with US troops, in hopes of transforming that tribal bloc into a political actor.

From arms to politics

The Iraqi source highlighted a central lesson: despite the Sahwa’s security successes, it failed to transition into meaningful political participation. When its leaders entered elections, they achieved little representation and failed to build durable popular support.

That failure mirrors Syria’s core dilemma today: the collective transition from a factional, militarized reality confined to limited geography toward a state defined by broader political and administrative principles — and, militarily, by the monopoly of force within a single national army.

Between a woman selling bread on a street corner, a young man dancing in a public square, and institutions struggling to impose order and define the state, Syria appears as a country of overlapping bubbles: a glossy façade prepared for celebration, like a carefully designed postcard, and beneath it a fragile social and security depth whose battles remain unresolved.

Features

Iraq’s Dreams of Wheat Independence Dashed by Water Crisis 

A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
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Iraq’s Dreams of Wheat Independence Dashed by Water Crisis 

A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)

Iraqi wheat farmer Ma'an al-Fatlawi has long depended on the nearby Euphrates River to feed his fields near the city of Najaf. But this year, those waters, which made the Fertile Crescent a cradle of ancient civilization 10,000 years ago, are drying up, and he sees few options.

"Drilling wells is not successful in our land, because the water is saline," al-Fatlawi said, as he stood by an irrigation canal near his parched fields awaiting the release of his allotted water supply.

A push by Iraq - historically among the Middle East's biggest wheat importers - to guarantee food security by ensuring wheat production covers the country's needs has led to three successive annual surpluses of the staple grain.

But those hard-won advances are now under threat as the driest year in modern history and record-low water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have reduced planting and could slash the harvest by up to 50% this season.

"Iraq is facing one of the most severe droughts that has been observed in decades," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Iraq representative Salah El Hajj Hassan told Reuters.

VULNERABLE TO NATURE AND NEIGHBORS

The crisis is laying bare Iraq's vulnerability.

A largely desert nation, Iraq ranks fifth globally for climate risk, according to the UN's Global Environment Outlook. Average temperatures in Iraq have risen nearly half a degree Celsius per decade since 2000 and could climb by up to 5.6 C by the end of the century compared to the period before industrialization, according to the International Energy Agency. Rainfall is projected to decline.

But Iraq is also at the mercy of its neighbors for 70% of its water supply. And Türkiye and Iran have been using upstream dams to take a greater share of the region's shared resource.

The FAO says the diminishing amount of water that has trickled down to Iraq is the biggest factor behind the current crisis, which has forced Baghdad to introduce rationing.

Iraq's water reserves have plunged from 60 billion cubic meters in 2020 to less than 4 billion today, said El Hajj Hassan, who expects wheat production this season to drop by 30% to 50%.

"Rain-fed and irrigated agriculture are directly affected nationwide," he said.

EFFORTS TO END IMPORT DEPENDENCE UNDER THREAT

To wean the country off its dependence on imports, Iraq's government has in recent years paid for high-yield seeds and inputs, promoted modern irrigation and desert farming to expand cultivation, and subsidized grain purchases to offer farmers more than double global wheat prices.

It is a plan that, though expensive, has boosted strategic wheat reserves to over 6 million metric tons in some seasons, overwhelming Iraq's silo capacity. The government, which purchased around 5.1 million tons of the 2025 harvest, said in September that those reserves could meet up to a year of demand.

Others, however, including Harry Istepanian - a water expert and founder of Iraq Climate Change Center - now expect imports to rise again, putting the country at greater risk of higher food prices with knock-on effects for trade and government budgets.

"Iraq's water and food security crisis is no longer just an environmental problem; it has immediate economic and security spillovers," Istepanian told Reuters.

A preliminary FAO forecast anticipates wheat import needs for the 2025/26 marketing year to increase to about 2.4 million tons.

Global wheat markets are currently oversupplied, offering cheaper options, but Iraq could once again face price volatility.

A person walks along the edge of uncultivated farmland on the outskirts of Najaf, where dry soil stretches across fields left unplanted due to water shortages, in Najaf, Iraq, November 29, 2025. (Reuters)

Iraq's trade ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the likelihood of increased imports.

In response to the crisis, the ministry of agriculture capped river-irrigated wheat at 1 million dunams in the 2025/26 season - half last season's level - and mandated modern irrigation techniques including drip and sprinkler systems to replace flood irrigation through open canals, which loses water through evaporation and seepage.

A dunam is a measurement of area roughly equivalent to a quarter acre.

The ministry is allocating 3.5 million dunams in desert areas using groundwater. That too is contingent on the use of modern irrigation.

"The plan was implemented in two phases," said Mahdi Dhamad al-Qaisi, an advisor to the agriculture minister. "Both require modern irrigation."

Rice cultivation, meanwhile, which is far more water-intensive than wheat, was banned nationwide.

RURAL LIVELIHOODS AT RISK

One ton of wheat production in Iraq requires about 1,100 cubic meters of water, said Ammar Abdul-Khaliq, head of the Wells and Groundwater Authority in southern Iraq. Pivoting to more dependence on wells to replace river water is risky.

"If water extraction continues without scientific study, groundwater reserves will decline," he said.

Basra aquifers, he said, have already fallen by three to five meters.

Groundwater irrigation systems are also expensive due to the required infrastructure like sprinklers and concrete basins. That presents a further economic challenge to rural Iraqis, who make up around 30% of the population.

Some 170,000 people have already been displaced in rural areas due to water scarcity, the FAO's El Hajj Hassan said.

"This is not a matter of only food security," he said. "It's worse when we look at it from the perspective of livelihoods."

At his farm in Najaf, al-Fatlawi is now experiencing that first-hand, having cut his wheat acreage to a fifth of its normal level this season and laid off all but two of his 10 workers.

"We rely on river water," he said.

Features

Report: Assad Returns to Ophthalmology, His Family Lives in Russian Luxury  

Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
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Report: Assad Returns to Ophthalmology, His Family Lives in Russian Luxury  

Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)

A year after his regime was toppled in Syria, Bashar al-Assad's family is living an isolated, quiet life of luxury in Moscow.

A friend of the family, sources in Russia and Syria, as well as leaked data, helped give rare insight into the lives of the now reclusive family who once ruled over Syria with an iron fist.

Bashar now sits in the classroom, taking ophthalmology lessons, according to a well-placed source.

“He’s studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again,” a friend of the Assad family, who has kept in touch with them, told The Guardian.

“It’s a passion of his, he obviously doesn’t need the money. Even before the war in Syria began, he used to regularly practice his ophthalmology in Damascus,” they continued, suggesting the wealthy elite in Moscow could be his target clientele.

The family are likely to reside in the prestigious Rublyovka, a gated community of Moscow’s elite, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. There they would rub shoulders with the likes of the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kyiv in 2014 and is believed to live in the area, according to The Guardian.

The Assads are not wanting for money. After being cut off from much of the world’s financial system by western sanctions in 2011 after Assad’s bloody crackdown on protesters, the family put much of their wealth in Moscow, where western regulators could not touch it.

Despite their cushy abode, the family are cut off from the elite Syrian and Russian circles they once enjoyed. Bashar’s 11th-hour flight from Syria left his cronies feeling abandoned and his Russian handlers prevent him from contacting senior regime officials.

Assad fled with his sons out of Damascus in the early hours of December 8, 2024, as Syrian opposition fighters approached the capital from the north and the south. They were met by a Russian military escort and were taken to the Russian Hmeimim airbase, where they were flown out of the country.

Assad did not warn his extended family or close regime allies of the impending collapse, instead leaving them to fend for themselves.

A friend of Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s brother and a top military official, who knows many former members of the palace said: “Maher had been calling Bashar for days but he wouldn’t pick up.”

“He stayed in the palace until the last second, opposition fighters found his shisha coals still warm. It was Maher, not Bashar, who helped others escape. Bashar only cared about himself.”

“It’s a very quiet life,” said the family friend. “He has very little, if any, contact with the outside world. He’s only in touch with a couple of people who were in his palace, like Mansour Azzam [former Syrian minister of presidency affairs] and Yassar Ibrahim [Assad’s top economic crony].”

‘Irrelevant’ to Putin

A source close to the Kremlin said Assad was also largely “irrelevant” to Putin and Russia’s political elite. “Putin has little patience for leaders who lose their grip on power, and Assad is no longer seen as a figure of influence or even an interesting guest to invite to dinner,” the source said.

In the first months after the Assads’ escape, his former regime allies were not on Bashar’s mind. The family gathered in Moscow to support Asma, the British-born former first lady of Syria, who had had leukemia for years and whose condition had become critical. She had been receiving treatment in Moscow before the fall of the Assad regime.

According to a source familiar with the details of Asma’s health, the former first lady has recovered after experimental therapy under the supervision of Russia’s security services

With Asma’s health stabilized, the former dictator is keen to get his side of the story out. He has lined up interviews with RT and a popular rightwing American podcaster, but is waiting for approval from Russian authorities to make a media appearance.

Russia appears to have blocked Assad from any public appearance. In a rare November interview with Iraqi media about Assad’s life in Moscow, Russia’s ambassador to Iraq, Elbrus Kutrashev, confirmed that the toppled dictator was barred from any public activity.

“Assad may live here but cannot engage in political activities ... He has no right to engage in any media or political activity. Have you heard anything from him? You haven’t, because he is not allowed to – but he is safe and alive,” Kutrashev said.

Assad children dazed

Life for the Assad children in contrast seems to continue with relatively little disruption, as they adjust to a new life as Moscow elite.

The family friend, who met some of the children a few months ago, said: “They’re kind of dazed. I think they’re still in a bit of a shock. They’re just kind of getting used to life without being the first family.”

The only time the Assad family – without Bashar – have been seen together in public since the end of their regime was at his daughter Zein al-Assad’s graduation on June 30, where she received a degree in international relations from MGIMO, the elite Moscow university attended by much of Russia’s ruling class.

A photograph on MGIMO’s official website shows the 22-year-old Zein standing with other graduates. In a blurry separate video from the event, members of the Assad family, including Asma and her two sons Hafez, 24, and Karim, 21, can be seen in the audience.

Two of Zein’s classmates who attended the ceremony confirmed that parts of the Assad family were present, but said they kept a low profile. “The family did not stay long and did not take any pictures with Zein on stage like other families,” said one of the former classmates, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hafez, once groomed as Bashar’s potential successor, has largely withdrawn from public view since posting a Telegram video in February in which he offered his own account of the family’s flight from Damascus, denying they had abandoned their allies and claiming it was Moscow that ordered them to leave Syria.

Syrians quickly geolocated Hafez, who took the video while walking the streets of Moscow.

Hafez has closed most of his social media, instead registering accounts under a pseudonym taken from an American children’s series about a young detective with dyslexia, according to leaked data. The children and their mother spend much of their time shopping, filling their new Russian home with luxury goods, according to the source close to the family.