Meshaal moves Hamas's leadership out of Assad's Syria

As head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Meshaal relocated the movement's exiled leadership out of Damascus in early 2012 and sided with the largely Sunni uprising against Bashar al-Assad — breaking with a patron that, alongside Iran, had hosted and armed Hamas for years. The Sunni-Islamist solidarity won goodwill in the Gulf and Turkey but strained the Iran axis, a notable case of ideology overriding alliance.

Referenced entities

Parties

Hamas

Politicians

Khaled Meshaal party-leader

Sources

en.wikipedia.org

Permalink: https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pulse/b21de7c3-5d8b-42a8-aea1-29c109500b77

How to cite

Each record carries a retrieval date because the dataset is live — individual entries update as verification deepens. Use the per-record citation when referencing this specific profile; use the dataset citation below when referencing the project as a whole.

In-text: (Gara, 2026)

Per-record citation

APA 7Reference list · academic default

Gara, T. (2026). Meshaal moves Hamas's leadership out of Assad's Syria [Event record]. Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Retrieved July 27, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pulse/b21de7c3-5d8b-42a8-aea1-29c109500b77

Chicago author-dateCommon in political-science journals

Gara, Tarek. 2026. "Meshaal moves Hamas's leadership out of Assad's Syria." Event record, Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Accessed July 27, 2026. https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pulse/b21de7c3-5d8b-42a8-aea1-29c109500b77.

BibTeXFor LaTeX / Zotero / reference managers

@misc{tayyar-event-b21de7c3-5d8b-42a8-aea1-29c109500b77,
  title     = {{Meshaal moves Hamas's leadership out of Assad's Syria}},
  author    = {Gara, Tarek},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset},
  type      = {Event record},
  url       = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pulse/b21de7c3-5d8b-42a8-aea1-29c109500b77},
  urldate   = {2026-07-27},
  note      = {Event date: 2012-02-01. First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.}
}

Dataset / working-paper citation

If you're citing Tayyar as a project rather than this individual record.

APA 7Preprint

Gara, T. (2026). Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset [Preprint]. Retrieved July 27, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper

BibTeXPreprint

@unpublished{tayyar-preprint,
  title  = {{Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset}},
  author = {Gara, Tarek},
  year   = {2026},
  type   = {Preprint},
  url    = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper},
  urldate = {2026-07-27},
  note   = {Living document, regenerated from the live dataset on page load.}
}

Event date: 2012-02-01. First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.