Syrian insurgents capture central city of Hama

Update Syrian insurgents capture central city of Hama
Militants led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham drive along a street in al-Rashideen, Aleppo province, Syria November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 05 December 2024
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Syrian insurgents capture central city of Hama

Syria's White Helmets civil defence service clearing vehicle carcasses and rubble from a street in Aleppo. (AFP)
  • Weeklong offensive appeared likely to continue, with insurgents setting sights on Homs
  • Hama one of few cities that remained mostly under government control in conflict that broke out 2011

BEIRUT: Syrian insurgents swept into the central city of Hama on Thursday and government forces withdrew, dealing another major blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad days after insurgents captured much of Aleppo, the country’s largest city.

The stunning weeklong offensive appeared likely to continue, with insurgents setting their sights on Homs, the country’s third-largest city. Homs, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama, is the gate to the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power and the coastal region that is a base of support for him.

The offensive is being led by the jihadi group HTS and an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Their sudden capture of Aleppo, an ancient business hub in the north, was a stunning prize for Assad’s opponents and reignited the Syrian civil war that had been largely a stalemate for the past few years.

Hama is one of the few cities that has remained mostly under government control in the conflict, which broke out in March 2011 following a popular uprising.

By sunset, dozens of jubilant fighters were seen shooting in the air in celebration in live footage from Hama’s Assi Square. The square was the scene of massive anti-government protests in the early days of the uprising in 2011, before security forces stormed it and got the city under control.

The Syrian army on Thursday said it redeployed from Hama and took positions outside the city to protect civilians.

Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the de facto leader of the Syrian insurgency, announced in a video message that fighters had reached Hama in a “conquering that is not vengeful, but one of mercy and compassion.”

Al-Golani is the leader of the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which previously served as Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria and is considered a terrorist group by the United Nations as well as countries including the US The group that was known as the Nusra Front in the early years of Syria’s conflict changed its name and said in recent years that it cut ties with Al-Qaeda.

Al-Golani publicly toured Aleppo on Wednesday and spoke about Hama on Thursday from an undisclosed location in what appeared to be a video filmed with a mobile phone.

“This is a massive win (for the insurgents) and a strategic blow for the (Syrian) regime,” Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and an expert on Syrian groups. She said the question is whether the opposition will be able to reach Homs and take over the area, which she said would be a game-changer.

“I think then we are going to have to pause and consider whether or not this (Assad government) can actually survive this war,” she added.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country supports the opposition fighters, reiterated during a telephone call with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that the Syrian government should urgently engage with its people “for a comprehensive political solution.”

Guterres said in a statement later that after 14 years of war in Syria, “it is high time” for all parties to engage seriously in talks to resolve the conflict in line with Security Council Resolution 2254.”

That resolution, which was adopted unanimously in December 2015, endorsed a road map to peace in Syria. The measure called for a Syrian-led political process, starting with the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights — an opposition war monitor — said after fierce battles inside Hama, opposition gunmen now control the police headquarters in the city as well as the sprawling air base and the central prison from where hundreds of detainees were set free.

“The process leading to the fall of the regime has started,” the Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, told The Associated Press.

Aleppo’s takeover marked the first opposition attack on the city since 2016, when a brutal Russian air campaign retook it for Assad after militant forces had initially seized it. Military intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah, and other militant groups has allowed Assad to remain in power.

The latest flare-up in Syria’s long civil war comes as Assad’s main regional and international backers, Russia and Iran, are preoccupied with their own wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine. This time, there appeared to be little to no help from his allies.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the renewed fighting, which began with the surprise opposition offensive Nov. 27.

Hama is a major intersection in Syria that links that country’s center with the north as well as the east and west. It is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital. Hama province also borders the coastal province of Latakia, a main base of popular support for Assad.

The city is known for the 1982 massacre of Hama, one of the most notorious in the modern Middle East, when security forces under Assad’s late father, Hafez Assad, killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising.


Rubio demands Syrian government forces intervene to prevent jihadist attacks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during an event in Washington, DC on June 27, 2025. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during an event in Washington, DC on June 27, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 sec ago
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Rubio demands Syrian government forces intervene to prevent jihadist attacks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during an event in Washington, DC on June 27, 2025. (AFP)
  • "If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria... they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Daesh

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday called on the Syrian government's security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and "carrying out massacres" in the conflict-stricken south of the country.

"If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria... they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Daesh and any other violent terrorists from entering the area and carrying out massacres," Rubio said in a statement posted to X.

 


Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News

Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News
Updated 32 min 31 sec ago
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Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News

Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News
  • As Pakistan assumes Security Council’s rotating presidency, its permanent representative decries international failure to put pressure on Israel
  • Views upcoming conference on Saudi-France-led two-state solution as “another golden opportunity … to reaffirm support for Palestinian cause”

NEW YORK CITY: A long-standing advocate of the Palestinian cause, Pakistan is using its presidency of the UN Security Council to help refocus global attention on the crisis in Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, outlined his country’s vision in a wide-ranging interview with Arab News as the South Asian country assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council

“It’s a tragic story. It is an unraveling of international law, international humanitarian law,” Ahmad said, decrying the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the international community’s failure to pressure Israel to put an end to it.

Reiterating his country’s position at the UN, he said: “We want clear movement in the direction of Palestinian statehood, on the basis of the right to self-determination, on the basis of international legitimacy and UN Security Council resolutions.”

He also highlighted the significance of the upcoming conference on implementing the two-state solution — to be co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France from July 28 to 30 — calling it “another golden opportunity for the international community to come together and to reaffirm that support for the Palestinian cause.”

Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations Asim Iftikhar Ahmad speaks during a UN Security Council meeting  at the UN headquarters in New York on June 20, 2025. (AFP)

Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister are expected to attend, offering the country’s full political and diplomatic backing.

In preparation, Ahmad said Pakistan has actively participated in eight preparatory roundtables addressing the political, security, humanitarian and legal dimensions of the two-state solution.

“We have described how we are going to support many of those actions,” he said.

Regarding coordination with Saudi Arabia and others involved in ceasefire negotiations, Ahmad noted that while Pakistan is “not directly involved,” it remains in close contact with key stakeholders.

“We hope that this ceasefire should be announced sooner rather than later,” he said.

Asked whether Pakistan would consider normalizing relations with Israel if a Palestinian state were recognized and the violence in Gaza ended, Ahmad was unequivocal.

“There are no indications, unfortunately, from the Israeli side on moving forward with recognition,” he said. “What we are looking at this point of time is Palestinian statehood in the context of the two-state solution.”

A general view shows the United Nations Security Council meeting on the conflict in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at the UN headquarters in New York City on July 16, 2025. (AFP)

Another unresolved conflict concerns the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan.

In May, India launched Operation Sindoor, firing missiles at what it claimed were militant targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in retaliation for a deadly April 22 attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed 26 civilians.

India, which has accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir, said that Pakistan-based insurgents were behind the attack — claims that Islamabad denies.

Pakistan responded to India’s attacks with missile, drone and artillery strikes along the Line of Control and on military installations, in what it called Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos, sparking intense cross-border exchanges until a ceasefire was brokered on May 10.

Ahmad linked these events to the broader unresolved status of the region.

“This recurring conflict was the result of Indian unprovoked aggression against Pakistan, which Pakistan had to respond to in accordance with the right to self-defense, in accordance with the UN Charter,” he said.

He welcomed international mediation efforts and reiterated Pakistan’s position. “We want to have this dialog with India. We want to address the issues between us, and in particular the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.”

He restated the legal basis for Pakistan’s claims. “This position derives itself from the resolutions of the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir,” which call for a plebiscite for the Kashmiri people.

However, “that plebiscite has not been held because India has refused to comply.”

Ahmad argued that lasting peace in South Asia is unlikely without resolving this “core issue.”

Turning to the credibility of the Security Council itself, Ahmad was blunt in his critique. “It’s very clear; resolutions are there. The problem is about implementation,” he said, citing both Kashmir and Palestine as long-neglected issues.

He referred to Article 25 of the UN Charter, which affirms that all Security Council resolutions are binding, whether under Chapter VI or Chapter VII.

“There should be a review, an assessment of how the Security Council has been able to implement many of its resolutions,” he said.

He proposed that special envoys or representatives of the secretary-general could help advance implementation. “More important than adopting those resolutions is to have them implemented,” he said.

Ahmad spoke at length about the leadership role Pakistan envisioned at the Security Council — including its commitment to multilateralism and its strategic engagement across UN agencies.

Beyond peace and security, Pakistan remains actively engaged in the UN’s development, humanitarian and environmental work.

“Pakistan, being a developing country, has development challenges. We are particularly impacted by climate change,” said Ahmad, recalling the devastating floods that have repeatedly afflicted the country in recent years.

In this photograph taken on August 4, 2024 people take shelter under a temporary settlement as it rains at an agricultural land in the aftermath of monsoon floods at Johi, Dadu district in Sindh province. (AFP)

He highlighted Pakistan’s leadership in climate diplomacy, emergency response and poverty reduction through collaboration with specialized UN agencies.

“We are among the lead countries who are leading this international discourse on development, on climate change,” he said.

According to Ahmad, Pakistan is active not only in New York, but also across other UN hubs — including Geneva, Rome and Nairobi — contributing to human rights, sustainable development and climate resilience.

On issues from Palestine and Kashmir to Security Council reform, he said, Pakistan is pushing for action grounded in the UN Charter and international law. As Ahmad sees it, the July presidency is an opportunity “to bring that focus back” to the principles on which the UN was founded.

At the heart of this approach is a renewed emphasis on multilateralism — a value Ahmad calls “the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.”

In an increasingly divided world, he stressed that “the attachment to the UN, the charter, international law, and this ability for the member states to work together through the UN” remains vital.

Pakistan, he said, aims to advance peace and security through constructive cooperation with all member states, both inside and outside the council.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, in an interview  with Arab News. (AN photo)

Reflecting that goal, Pakistan’s signature open debate next week will focus on “how we can better use multilateralism and peaceful settlement of disputes to promote international peace and security.”

The aim, he added, is to “bring that discussion back to the council” and reaffirm the tools provided in the UN Charter — particularly Chapter VI on peaceful dispute resolution, Chapter VIII on regional arrangements, and the secretary-general’s role in preventive diplomacy.

“We want to bring together and reaffirm the commitment of the Security Council to really utilize these tools,” Ahmad said.

Although some expected Pakistan’s signature event to spotlight national concerns, Ahmad clarified that the debate “is not specific to any situation.” Rather, it is intended to promote “a comprehensive approach to conflict prevention, preventive diplomacy,” and “peacefully address disputes.”

“Pakistan does not believe that we are in the Security Council only to promote our own issues or agendas. Our agenda is broad, based on international law,” he said.

Ahmad argued that such a holistic approach is essential to resolving many of the crises currently on the council’s agenda — including Gaza and Kashmir.

 

 


Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur

Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur
Updated 19 July 2025
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Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur

Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur
  • “The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan, Kadry Furany, said in a statement

CAIRO: Fighting in Sudan’s Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country’s conflict — have worsened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The UN said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan, Kadry Furany, said in a statement. “Communities are trapped along active and fast-changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. 

BACKGROUND

The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises.

In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family. 

Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El-Obeid City in North Kordofan.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, said that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

 


West Bank ‘plane chalet’ helps aviation dreams scale newer heights

A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
Updated 19 July 2025
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West Bank ‘plane chalet’ helps aviation dreams scale newer heights

A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
  • Red and white concrete ‘plane’ has become a local landmark
  • ‘So many kids want to come,’ said 27-year-old Harsha, who built the guest house in the hills of the northern West Bank. However, the price tag, between $300 and $600 per night, is out of reach for most Palestinians, particularly as unemployment soars due

QAFFIN, West Bank: A guest house in the shape of a plane would stand out anywhere in the world, but in the occupied West Bank, devoid of airports, Minwer Harsha’s creation helps aviation dreams take flight.

“So many kids want to come,” said 27-year-old Harsha, who built the guest house in the hills of the northern West Bank, within view of the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory.

“And that’s the goal: Since we don’t have planes or airports, people come here instead,” he said.

Harsha said he designed the concrete plane himself, with a master bedroom in the cockpit and a children’s bedroom in the tail.

The price tag, between 1,000 and 2,000 shekels (about $300-$600) per night, is out of reach for most Palestinians, particularly as unemployment soars due to the war in Gaza.

He has nonetheless been pleased with the reactions to his chalet, having initially faced skepticism.

“I wanted to bring something unique, something new to the area and to Palestine,” Harsha said of the unit, which opened a month ago.

Since its launch, his red and white concrete plane has become a local landmark, featuring in local media and on social networks.

Harsha said he originally wanted to place a Palestinian flag on his chalet and call it the “Palestinian Queen,” but avoided such signs out of caution.

The guest house is located in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.

“I just made it look like a plane. I avoided politics entirely because of the hardships our people are going through,” he said.

“We’re a people who are constantly losing things — our land, our rights, our lives.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and frequently demolishes homes it says are built without permission in the mostly rural Area C.

Though no airport currently services the Palestinian territories, both the West Bank and Gaza once had their own terminals, in East Jerusalem and the southern Gaza city of Rafah, respectively.

Both were closed during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and what remains of East Jerusalem’s airport is now isolated from the rest of the West Bank by Israel’s separation barrier.

Despite difficulties and threats of demolition, Harsha believes that Palestinians can find freedom and fulfilment in projects like his.

“I encourage everyone who has land to work on it and invest in it — with creativity and ambition,” he said, flanked by his two brothers who helped him build the unit.

Harsha himself has more plans for his land.

“After this airplane, we’ll build a ship next year,” he said.

“It will be something unique and beautiful,” he said, pointing out that while many West Bank Palestinians have seen planes flying overhead, a large number of people from the landlocked territory have never seen a real ship at all.

 


Sudan PM vows to rebuild Khartoum on first visit to war-torn capital

Sudan PM vows to rebuild Khartoum on first visit to war-torn capital
Updated 19 July 2025
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Sudan PM vows to rebuild Khartoum on first visit to war-torn capital

Sudan PM vows to rebuild Khartoum on first visit to war-torn capital
  • “Khartoum will return as a proud national capital,” Idris said
  • Idris on Saturday visited the army headquarters and the city’s airport, two national symbols

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris on Saturday pledged to rebuild Khartoum on his first visit to the capital, ravaged by more than two years of war, since assuming office in May.

Touring the city’s destroyed airport, bridges and water stations, the new premier outlined mass repair projects in anticipation of the return of at least some of the millions who have fled the violence.

“Khartoum will return as a proud national capital,” Idris said, according to Sudan’s state news agency.

The war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in the heart of the capital in April 2023, quickly tearing the city apart.

Tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed in the once-bustling capital which 3.5 million people have fled, according to the United Nations.

According to Khartoum state’s media office, Idris on Saturday visited the army headquarters and the city’s airport, two national symbols whose recapture along with the presidential palace earlier this year cemented the army’s victory in the capital.

But reconstruction is expected to be a herculean feat, with the government putting the cost at $700 billion nationwide, around half of which in Khartoum alone.

The army-aligned government, which moved to Port Sudan on the Red Sea early in the war and still operates from there, has begun to plan the return of ministries to Khartoum even as fighting rages on in other parts of the country.

Authorities have begun operations in the capital to properly bury corpses, clear thousands of unexploded ordnances and resume bureaucratic services.

On a visit to Sudan’s largest oil refinery, the Al-Jaili plant just north of Khartoum, Idris promised that “national institutions will come back even better than they were before.”

The refinery — now a blackened husk — was recaptured in January, but the facility which once processed 100,000 barrels a day will take years and at least $1.3 billion to rebuild, officials told AFP.

Idris is a career diplomat and former UN official who was appointed in May by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader, to form an administration dubbed a “government of hope.”

The war has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises, with nearly 25 million

people suffering dire food insecurity and over 10 million internally displaced across the country.

A further four million people have fled across borders.

In Sudan’s southern Kordofan and western Darfur regions, the fighting shows no signs of abating, with the paramilitaries accused of killing hundreds in recent days in attempts to capture territory.