Charles Lister

Charles Lister is the director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute in. Washington DC.

Who cares about Syria’s earthquake victims?

At 4 a.m. on Monday, when the earthquake hit, most of the 4.5 million people living in northwestern Syria were asleep. Thousands of buildings collapsed, burying their residents alive. The majority of those living in this small corner of Syria had already been displaced from their homes in other parts of the country by the

Isis and the ticking time bomb facing the West

You thought Isis was old news. The world celebrated its territorial defeat nearly four years ago. The group that once controlled an area the size of the UK had been battered by more than 30,000 airstrikes, and tens of thousands of its militants had been killed. It was over. Really, though, the war against Isis never