Matt Williams
A journalist with seven years of experience working on humanitarian crises and conflicts around the world. I am currently a social editor and journalist at Financial Times.
I have written for The Economist and Byline Times on various human rights issues and humanitarian crises including the war in Ukraine, Gaza, Afghanistan, and the civil war in Myanmar. I am also a specialist on open-source investigations with a recent focus on Ukraine’s war and the conflict in Tigray. I was previously at The New Humanitarian, The Telegraph, Centre for Information Resilience and worked at Amnesty International in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
I was a social editor in The Economist’s award-winning audience team and have written about filtration camps and enforced disappearences in the Russo-Ukrainian War and Gaza. I also published a byline for The Sunday Times Magazine on a war veteran’s experiences in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. During my time at the University of Nottingham, I edited Impact Magazine’s sports section. Read more in my portfolio.
THE MIDDLE EAST
Mounting atrocities in Gaza will scar Israel and Palestine for decades.
The Middle East security scholar on why Israel will stuggle to eliminate Hamas.
Israel faces grim choices as Gaza bleeds to death
A conversation with Ahron Bregman
High-profile assassinations, radical breaks with policy and impulsive decisions have defined Trump’s agenda in the Middle East.
2020 has proven that Syria’s already desperate situation can get immeasurably worse.
The Covid-19 pandemic has done little to deter Israeli land grabs and violence in East Jerusalem.
Under Netanyahu’s government, a decade of anti-immigrant rhetoric and riots, an increase in mass deportations of African refugees and police brutality has seen a surge in activism against systemic racism in Israel’s Ethiopian community.
Turkey and the intra-jihadist conflict in northern Syria.
Idlib’s conflict has been frozen by Turkey and Russia. With the humanitarian crisis deepening, will it hold?
As the humanitarian catastrophe in northwest Syria deepens, Turkey, Russia and Syria’s rivalry has mutated into direct conflict.
President Trump’s assassination of Iran’s top commander has cemented his destruction of the Iranian nuclear deal, and pushed the Middle East closer to a major regional war.
Iraqi officials are being investigated for crimes against humanity, and the government’s violence could spark another Arab revolution.
With revolution and protests convulsing the Middle East again, the Assad regime will be vulnerable for years to come.
The leader of Islamic State is dead, however his poisonous legacy will take generations to defeat.
Turkey and the ‘National Army’ have altered the course of the Syrian War, and the demographics of north.
Islamic State’s atrocities and genocidal violence against minorities have reshaped Iraq and Syria.
After a forty years’ war, Iraqis face post-conflict irresolution, protests, repression and corruption.
Iraq’s intra-Shia conflict and its nationwide protests risk pushing the country from precarious peace to civil war.
Libya, decimated by violence, is a safe haven for drugs, human trafficking, smuggling and global crime.
Dr. Thaier Al-Hussain on revolution, Islamic State and conflict in war-time Raqqa.
The territory has been at the heart of war and peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Yesterday, Donald Trump and Netanyahu pushed the Middle East closer to regional war, and in-turn dismantled the final pieces of the Middle East peace process.
As the Syrian War marks another year of war, multiple political and humanitarian crises threaten to extend the conflict.
The Sochi Agreement is falling apart, the question is who will solve the Idlib Crisis?
Resignations, arrests and protests: what is happening in Mitrovica, Kosovo?
Gaza’s crisis in 2018 is pushing both Israel and Hamas towards war and political crisis.
In a post-ISIS landscape, the challenges of corruption and climate change in Iraq’s new politics.
Amidst drought, corruption and contractors, the Taliban insurgency continues in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
EUROPE
Chechen fighters are preparing for another showdown with Vladimir Putin’s regime
Press coverage of the war Ukraine is on the decline
Ukraine’s offensive near Kharkiv has dealt Russian forces a significant blow
THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
The Baku pogrom was a misunderstood event that drastically reshaped the Nagorno-Karabakh region and relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Is maximal pressure from the United States on Iran working?
As Turkey flexes its military muscle in North Africa and the Caucasus, is war inevitable in Idlib?
With heightened domestic pressures, and wider regional strife, is another conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis on the cards?
The rising threat of white supremacist terrorism and the evolution of Salafi jihadism should concern us all.
With little accountability or transparency, could British soldiers face war crimes investigations in another Middle Eastern conflict?
ISIS has lost its final territories around Baghuz. However, the organisation has lost none of its potency.
Syria's war continues, but when it ends, the conflict’s legacy will continue for the survivors for generations.
“I have Syria in my mind and my heart, in my blood.”
Counterinsurgency and state-building in the Sinai?
“Saddam Hussein’s family has become the scapegoat of the Iraqi government for their failure to create security and stability in Iraq”
Who was responsible for the fall of Mosul?
"We are looking to Syria with concern because of the growing Iranian presence in the country."
As Islamic State's territories crumble, the conflicts in the region enter a new phase.
Did an assassination attempt on George H.W Bush in the 1990s cause the Iraq War?
Yemen's suffering is increasing as U.S involvement in the country deepens.
Afghan human rights activist Dr. Nasimi discusses the Soviet-Afghan War, the Taleban and the refugee crisis.
Decades of persecution culminated in genocidal violence against the Yezidis.
From Tunis to Tel Aviv to Damascus, Mr. Orto discusses the Middle Eastern crisis.
Crackpots and opportunists in President Trump's government will continue the brutalisation of Western society and politics.
Following wars in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006, the latest confrontation between Israel and Lebanon could prove to be the bloodiest.
President Donald Trump and the identity crisis of Western politics
The hawkish visions of Syria are littered with ideas that are extremely difficult to defend.
A report by the Danish Immigration Service has downplayed the severity of the Eritrean refugee crisis and war crimes committed across their state.
Have Western audiences become hostage to the spectacle of "terrorism" as the events of 9/11 become history?
Robert Fisk's journey into Lebanon and the horrific dynamics of civil war in the Middle East needs reading.
ISIS's movement is founded on the manifesto of Abu Naji
ISIS's threat to Europe is rooted in uncomfortable truths about its Western supporters and fighters.
Is the rise of the ISIS the catalyst for the disintegration of Iraq as a nation state?
The age of “Fire and Sword” during the waning years of Tsarist Russia was instrumental in shaping the territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict explained to beginners.
To understand the situation in Idlib and how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has thrived it is important to look back to al-Suri’s writings
Winter fighting, and explosive violence has left civilians exposed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Was a Palestinian state in the Holy Land ever on the cards?
Relentless air raids have devastated eastern Syria’s environment with terrible costs on human health.
Siege tactics, explosive weapons and systematic targeting of civilian and medical infrastructure is pushing Syria to the brink of famine.
Salafi-jihadist expert, Orwa Ajjoub investigates the jihadist pledge.
Brexit is opening up old wounds, and the threat of conflict in Ireland.
With Assad victorious, will his circle be brought to justice for war crimes in the future?
From insurgency to mini-state: The evolution of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Zawahiri’s latest video critiquing ISIS and HTS demonstrates that the contest for leading global jihad is not over.
Crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide have reshaped Syria.
“The source of an Arab or Palestinian revolt will be a combination of growing nationalism, economic and social difficulties and growing resentment.”
Nino Orto speaks to ex-jihadist on UK’s internal security threats.
Hitler’s War of Annihilation
A generation gap is at the heart of an identity crisis in the Druze community in the occupied Golan, reports Nino Orto.
Returning from Bangladesh, journalist Emma Pomfret discusses the war on the Rohingya Muslims.
The intractable conflict in Afghanistan.
An interview with Fawwaz Traboulsi on Lebanon.
Famine is being used as a weapon of war in Yemen.
Israel want to fight Hizbullah – when the moment arrives – in Lebanon but not in Syria.
Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, Professor Uzi Rabi, in exclusive for Osservatorio Mashrek.
The Silk Roads present opportunities and nightmares for post-Brexit Britain.
Iraq's dirty war is fuelling corruption, smuggling, and trafficking.
The siege of Mosul is finished, the Gulf Wars are far from over.
The Asad regime and the war for Syria.
The perfect books to introduce newcomers to a turbulent and compelling region.
Dr. Ahron Bregman on Israeli-Hezbollah relations and the current tensions between the rivals in Lebanon and Syria.
REST OF THE WORLD
Sudan’s coup is stoking a new cycle of bloodshed in the region
As violence continues to plague the region, Sudan’s coup is making the situation more volatile
After nearly vanishing, turtle populations are rising again but threats remain
From slavery to colonial caricatures, the roots of the walking dead are fraught
A year on from Sudan’s revolution, massacre and displacement in Darfur continues unabated. The UK government must do more to curb human rights violations in the war-torn region.
Photography
I Kill You For Nothing (2021)
After a decade of political turmoil, war and widespread atrocities in the 1990s, the Balkans have slipped from the headlines and communities have been attempting to rebuild and cope with the legacy of conflict. Two decades after wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Serbia, I travelled the region in 2018 and 2019 photographing life in the post-conflict Balkans, European conflicts which remain relevant today as populism and nationalism grip the Western world. → See more
Fractured Levantine (2020)
In 2016 and 2017, I travelled to Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and occupied Syria where I documented life and conflict, ever-lurking beneath the surface, in a small part of the Middle East. → See more
Mexico’s conflict has rippled across continents.
Didion’s war-time El-Salvador is an eerie and chilling landscape.
A flawed, but intriguing looks at the dynamics of Camorra, one of Italy’s most brutal criminal organisations.
The British drug war, as seen through the eyes of an undercover policeman.
With Libya broken by war, and plagued by corruption and weak institutions, crime is flourishing.
Mexico’s unfinished wars in the 1980s have fused with the disastrous ‘War on Drugs’.
The Mexican Drug War and its wider conflict comes to London’s doorstep.
Dying for the Truth is an unfiltered, horrifying account of the fallacy of the Mexican Drug War and the conflict the international community ignored.
A sobering read about the conflict the world forgot.
To understand drug trafficking is to understand modern economics. The only way the cartels can function is, contrary to popular culture, not by being an outcast in the economic system, but by being a fundamental part of it.
Violence, massacre and refugees dominate a turbulent landscape in Central America.
The ‘Blood Avocados’ phenomenon illustrates a key point; The Mexican Drug War is about more than the narcotics trade.
A thorough analysis of Los Zetas and an in-depth look at the Mexican conflict and its causes while breaking down the structure of a savage enterprise tearing the country apart.
150,000–200,000 Mexican men, women and children have been killed or disappeared in drug-related violence
Gangster Warlords has immersive personal stories and characters and is the perfect introduction to Latin America’s violent crime wars.
As with Bosnia and Darfur, Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza will stain the country for generations