Asharq Al-Awsat from Ain Issa Syrian Refugee Camp: Displaced Wait Permits to Access other Regions

A displaced child from Raqqa poses for a photo at the Ain Issa camp, Syria. (AFP)
A displaced child from Raqqa poses for a photo at the Ain Issa camp, Syria. (AFP)
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Asharq Al-Awsat from Ain Issa Syrian Refugee Camp: Displaced Wait Permits to Access other Regions

A displaced child from Raqqa poses for a photo at the Ain Issa camp, Syria. (AFP)
A displaced child from Raqqa poses for a photo at the Ain Issa camp, Syria. (AFP)

Displaced Syrians, who fled battles between regime forces and ISIS militants in Deir al-Zour, have found themselves trapped in the Ain Issa camp in the Raqqa province, where they took refuge after its liberation from the terrorist group.

Asharq Al-Awsat found those Syrians living in very difficult conditions, while they wait to get “permits” to cross into other areas.

Hundreds of families pour daily from Deir al-Zour, eastern Syria, to the camp in Ain Issa. Each family carries a story of how it managed to escape the battles.

Two or more Syrian families live in one tent, sometimes in the absence of any services. But, for them, despite the dire conditions, the tent remains a dream come true.

Jassem, 28, from the city of al-Mayadeen, close to the Iraqi border, told Asharq Al-Awsat that he was forced to leave two months ago, when the shelling intensified and after regime forces captured his hometown.

Jassem, his wife and children were able to escape to Ain Issa. But, he said that he wanted to travel to southern Aleppo areas that are controlled by the armed opposition.

“I was forced to enter the camp. For the past ten days, I have been waiting to receive a permit that allows me to cross into other areas,” he added.

Mahmoud al-Khalil, another Syrian displaced in his fifties, said he was also forced to leave his house last October with his wife, three daughters and son, following intense fighting that erupted in the city of Albu Kamal between regime forces and ISIS militants.

Following a long trip that lasted around 15 days, Mahmoud reached Mabrouka camp in the countryside of al-Hasaka city. However, officials there refused to grant him entry due to the high number of displaced already living in the camp.

Khalil therefore continued his route to Ain Issa, located 50 kilometers northwest the city of Raqqa.

“My destination wasn’t the Ain Issa or Mabrouka camps. I told them from the beginning that I wanted to travel to Aazaz to join my relatives,” he said sadly.

Khalil is also waiting for a permit to cross into other Syrian areas. Despite his daily visits to the office that issues these passes, he lamented that he has not yet received one.



Iran Leader Khamenei Sees His Inner Circle Hollowed Out by Israel 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei looks on, in a televised message following the Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei looks on, in a televised message following the Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
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Iran Leader Khamenei Sees His Inner Circle Hollowed Out by Israel 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei looks on, in a televised message following the Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei looks on, in a televised message following the Israeli strikes in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters

Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cuts an increasingly lonely figure.

Khamenei has seen his main military and security advisers killed by Israeli air strikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

One of those sources, who regularly attends meetings with Khamenei, described the risk of miscalculation to Iran on issues of defense and internal stability as "extremely dangerous".

Several senior military commanders have been killed since Friday including Khamenei's main advisers from the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's elite military force: the Guards' overall commander Hossein Salami, its aerospace chief Amir Ali Hajizadeh who headed Iran's ballistic missile program and spymaster Mohammad Kazemi.

These men were part of the supreme leader's inner circle of roughly 15-20 advisers comprising Guards commanders, clerics, and politicians, according to the sources who including three people who attend or have attended meetings with the leader on major issues and two close to officials who regularly attend.

The loose group meets on an ad-hoc basis, when Khamenei's office reaches out to relevant advisers to gather at his compound in Tehran to discuss an important decision, all the people said. Members are characterized by unwavering loyalty to him and the ideology of the regime, they added.

Khamenei, who was imprisoned before the 1979 revolution and maimed by a bomb attack before becoming leader in 1989, is profoundly committed to maintaining Iran's system of government and deeply mistrustful of the West.

Under Iran's system of government, he has supreme command of the armed forces, the power to declare war, and can appoint or dismiss senior figures including military commanders and judges.

Khamenei makes the final decision on important matters, though he values advice, listens attentively to diverse viewpoints, and often seeks additional information from his counsellors, according to one source who attends meetings.

"Two things you can say about Khamenei: he is extremely stubborn but also extremely cautious. He is very cautious. That is why he has been in power for as long as he has," said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute think-tank in Washington.

"Khamenei is pretty well placed to do the basic cost-benefit analysis which really fundamentally gets to one issue more important than anything else: regime survival."

KHAMENEI'S SON AT THE FORE

The focus on survival has repeatedly been put to the test. Khamenei has deployed the Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia to quell national protests in 1999, 2009 and 2022.

However, while the security forces have always been able to outlast demonstrators and restore state rule, years of Western sanctions have caused widespread economic misery that analysts say could ultimately threaten internal unrest.

The stakes could barely be higher for Khamenei who faces an escalating war with Israel, which has targeted nuclear and military sites and personnel with air attacks, drawing retaliatory Iranian missile fire, insiders and analysts said.

The five people familiar with Khamenei's decision-making process stressed that other insiders who have not been targeted by Israel's strikes remain important and influential, including top advisers on political, economic and diplomatic issues.

Khamenei designates such advisers to handle issues as they arise, extending his reach directly into a wide array of institutions spanning military, security, cultural, political and economic domains, two of the sources said.

Operating this way, including in bodies nominally under the elected president, means Khamenei's office is often involved not only in the biggest questions of state but in executing even minor initiatives, the sources said.

His son Mojtaba has over the past 20 years grown ever more central to this process, the sources said, building a role that cuts between the personalities, factions and organizations involved to coordinate on specific issues, the sources said.

A mid-ranking cleric seen by some insiders as a potential successor to his ageing father, Mojtaba has built close ties with the Guards giving him added leverage within across Iran's political and security apparatus, the sources said.

Ali Asghar Hejazi, the deputy of political security affairs at Khamenei's office, has been involved in sensitive security decisions and is often described as the most powerful intelligence official in Iran, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the head of Khamenei's office, Mohammad Golpayegani, as well as former Iranian foreign ministers Ali Akbar Velayati and Kamal Kharazi, and ex-parliament speaker Ali Larijani, remain trusted confidants on diplomatic and domestic policies issues such as the nuclear dispute, the sources said.

The loss of the Revolutionary Guards commanders nonetheless decimates the top ranks of a military organization that he has put at the center of power since becoming supreme leader in 1989, relying on it for both internal security and Iran's regional strategy.

While the regular army chain of command runs through the defense ministry under the elected president, the Guards answer personally to Khamenei, securing the best military equipment for their land, air and sea branches and giving their commanders a major state role.

As he faces one of the most dangerous moments in the country’s history, Khamenei finds himself further isolated by the recent losses of other key advisers in the region as Iran's "Axis of Resistance" coalition has been hammered by Israel.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was personally close to the Iranian leader, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in September last year and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by opposition factions in December.