BEIRUT: Suspected Jordanian air strikes on southern Syria killed 10 people including children early on Thursday, according to local Syrian media and monitors tracking the conflict.
There was no immediate comment from Jordanian authorities.
Jordan’s army has stepped up a campaign against drug dealers in recent weeks after clashes last month with dozens of people suspected of links to pro-Iranian militias carrying large hauls of narcotics over its border with Syria, along with weapons and explosives.
Local outlet Sham F.M. reported that Jordanian air strikes struck two homes in the town of Arman in the southern province of Suwayda, resulting in the fatalities.
Suwayda24, a Syrian newsportal that monitors developments in the province, said simultaneous air strikes overnight hit the residential quarter of Arman in the province’s southeast, near the border with Jordan.
It said the strikes killed 10 civilians — two children, five women and three men, but did not identify the strikes as Jordanian.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor that tracks Syria’s war, said at least nine people were killed in the Jordanian strikes on Suwayda, including two children.
Jordan and its Western allies have blamed the surge in smuggling on Lebanon-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian groups who control much of southern Syria.
Iran and Hezbollah have dismissed the allegations as a Western plot against their ally Syria, which has also denied being involved in drug production and smuggling.
The war-torn Middle Eastern country has become the region’s main site for a multi-billion-dollar drug trade, with Jordan being a key transit route to oil-rich Gulf states for a Syrian-made amphetamine known as captagon, the US and Western anti-narcotics officials have said.
Suspected Jordan strikes on southern Syria kill 10 — monitors, local media
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Suspected Jordan strikes on southern Syria kill 10 — monitors, local media
- Jordan’s army has stepped up a campaign against drug dealers in recent weeks after clashes last month with dozens of people suspected of links to pro-Iranian militias
Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa hold talks in Istanbul
The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, news channel CNN Turk and state media said, broadcasting video of the two leaders greeting each other.
The visit comes the day after US President Donald Trump’s administration issued orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria. Trump had pledged to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after its devastating civil war.
Video footage on Turkish television showed Erdogan shaking hands with Sharaa as he emerged from his car at the Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait in Turkiye’s largest city.
The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks, as well as Turkiye’s defense minister and the head of the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, according to Turkiye’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.
The Syrian delegation also included Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
MIT chief Ibrahim Kalin and Sharaa this week held talks in Syria on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militant group laying down its weapons and integrating into Syrian security forces, a Turkish security source said previously.
US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources
- “Five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan
- Washington once regarded the group as the militant network’s most dangerous branch
DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.
“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.
“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.
The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.
Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.
Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.
The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.
The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.
Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian
- Iraqi officials are working on a deal to release kidnapped Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed for murdering an American civilian
- Tsurkov was kidnapped in March 2023 allegedly by paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq
BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US civilian, security sources said Saturday.
The deal depends on US approval, the senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is considered sensitive.
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.
There was no claim of responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov.
The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was not involved.
Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an American citizen,” a senior security source said.
The three Iraqi sources said that Washington has not yet agreed to this.
“The Americans have not yet agreed to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held for killing an American citizen,” one official said.
Iraq is both a significant ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes.
The Iranian and another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
Security and diplomatic sources have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken to Iran.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov since her abduction.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.
British Airways cancels Israel flights until August
- UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
- Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week
LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.
BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.
A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”
A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.
Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday. Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.
African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes
- Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government
ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
