Loubna Mrie

Mrie comes from an Alawite family from a village near Latakia. Her father was a government hired enforcer and paid assassin in Syrian Air Force Intelligence. Despite her family ties, she is one of a few Alawites to join the fight against the Assad regime, which led to the abduction and killing of her mother by her father and his allies.^[2]

As rioting broke out in the initial stages of the Syrian civil war, Loubna attended Latakia University,^[3] but moved to Damascus in 2012 as Latakia was deemed to be unsafe for activists^[4] after Assad's troops opened fire on civilian protestors.^[5] She later joined the Free Syrian Army (FSA), where she helped with the transport of food and medical aid, then with the smuggling of ammunition.^[4] She promoted the aims of the revolution in the Alawitian community and spoke with the victims of government-affiliated troops.^[6] After her father attempted to use a phone message from her abducted mother to lure Loubna back to Syria, she fled in August 2012 to Turkey.^[7]

On August 11, 2012, her mother was abducted by her father and his allies.^[6] Loubna later received information from an unidentified caller about the death of her mother.^[6][2]

She later became a photojournalist with Reuters based in Aleppo, where she covered the conflict, then moved to New York, where she is a researcher and commentator on Syrian and Middle Eastern affairs. She has been published in The Washington Post, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung,^[8] The Atlantic^[9] and The New Republic, among other publications.^[10]