Mateo Nelson

Mateo Nelson was a 2014-2015 fellow at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad program (CASA I) in Amman, Jordan. Mateo holds a BA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, with a certificate in Arabic Language and Culture.

‘They’re gone, but who has them?’ Afrin’s Kurdish FSA commanders, under pressure from all sides, go missing

Jul. 26, 2018

A checkpoint in Afrin in May. Photo courtesy of Afrin Media Center. AMMAN: A car sits empty and abandoned on the Syrian side of the Bab a-Salama border point connecting northern ...

Rebel siege of two Shiite-majority Idlib towns ends with total evacuation of residents, militiamen

Jul. 19, 2018

Evacuees from al-Fuaa and Kufraya arrive in government-held south Aleppo on Thursday. Photo courtesy of SANA. AMMAN: All remaining residents of two Shiite-majority towns in ...

‘Deal underway’ for evacuation of two Shiite-majority Idlib towns: rebel source

Jul. 17, 2018

Al-Fuaa and Kufraya residents calling for an end to the siege in May 2018. Photo courtesy of Kufraya and al-Fuaa Media Office. AMMAN: Syrian rebels and Iranian negotiators broker...

Kurdish political body gains increased independence in opposition’s negotiating committee despite rankling over Afrin operation

Jul. 17, 2018

Members of the Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC) in Riyadh in June. Photo courtesy of HNC. In late June, the Syrian opposition’s main negotiating body, the High Nego...

Released from government detention, an art therapist finds new meaning in her work: ‘It all goes out onto the paper’

Mar. 7, 2018

Baraa Arar encourages her students to draw on the walls. Occasionally, she joins them. The 24-year-old art therapist runs three weekly sessions for children with autism at the Se...

Civilians and Islamic State fighters pay thousands of dollars to leave south Damascus for opposition territories, Turkey

Feb. 12, 2018

AMMAN: Smugglers are accepting enormous sums to bring civilians and fighters, including members of the Islamic State, out of the encircled south Damascus suburbs and into oppositi...

Revolutionaries, pawns, liberators, or mercenaries? Meet the Kurdish fighters participating in Turkey’s Afrin offensive

Feb. 5, 2018

AMMAN: As a Turkish-led assault on a northwestern Syrian Kurdish enclave begins its third week, Kurdish members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are among the belligerents bombing an...

The network: A virtual hunt for suspected Islamic State members in Syria

Jan. 24, 2018

AMMAN: Aghid al-Khodr wakes up early, before the sun rises. At his home in an undisclosed location in Germany, he begins his work. For the next 15 hours, al-Khodr sits glued to h...

Opposition fighters wage counter-offensive in Idlib to drive back Syrian army advances

Jan. 11, 2018

AMMAN: Syrian rebels said they recaptured several villages in southeastern Idlib province and Hama from government forces during a counter-attack launched early Thursday morning, ...

A power struggle over education emerges between rival opposition governments in Idlib province

Jan. 10, 2018

AMMAN: The students of Free Aleppo University satellite campuses in northeastern Idlib province sit on plastic chairs and piles of rocks in a field, scribbling notes in the bright...