Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

0 seconds of 1 minute, 28 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
01:28
01:28
 
Short Url
Updated 30 January 2025
Follow

Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

DAMASCUS: In less than two months, Syria’s Ahmed Al-Sharaa has risen from rebel leader to interim president, after his Islamist group led a lightning offensive that toppled Bashar Assad.
Sharaa was appointed Wednesday to lead Syria for an unspecified transitional period, and has been tasked with forming an interim legislature after the dissolution of the Assad era parliament and the suspension of the 2012 constitution.
The former jihadist has abandoned his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, trimmed his beard and donned a suit and tie to receive foreign dignitaries since ousting Assad from power on December 8.
The tall, sharp-eyed Sharaa has held a succession of interviews with foreign journalists, presenting himself as a patriot who wants to rebuild and reunite Syria, devastated and divided after almost 14 years of civil war.
Syria’s new authorities also announced Wednesday the dissolution of armed factions, including Sharaa’s own Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016, Sharaa has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader, and HTS has toned down its rhetoric, vowing to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
But Sharaa has yet to calm misgivings among some analysts and Western governments that still class HTS as a terrorist organization.
“He is a pragmatic radical,” Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam, told AFP.
“In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism,” Pierret said, referring to the period of the war when he sought to compete with the jihadist Daesh group.
“Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric.”
Born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, Sharaa is from a well-to-do Syrian family and was raised in Mazzeh, an upscale district of Damascus.
In 2021, he told US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights. He said his grandfather was among those forced to flee the territory after its capture by Israel in 1967.
According to the Middle East Eye news website, it was after the September 11, 2001 attacks that he was first drawn to jihadist thinking.
“It was as a result of this admiration for the 9/11 attackers that the first signs of jihadism began to surface in Jolani’s life, as he began attending secretive sermons and panel discussions in marginalized suburbs of Damascus,” the website said.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he left Syria to take part in the fight.
He joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for five years, preventing him from rising through the ranks of the jihadist organization.
In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad’s rule erupted in Syria, he returned home and founded Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Daesh group, and instead pledged his loyalty to Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Sharaa said in May 2015 that he, unlike Daesh, had no intention of launching attacks against the West.
He also proclaimed that should Assad be defeated, there would be no revenge attacks against the Alawite minority that the president’s clan stems from.
He cut ties with Al-Qaeda, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organization.
According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path toward becoming a credible statesman.
In January 2017, Sharaa imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist groups in northwestern Syria, thereby taking control of swathes of Idlib province that had been cleared of government troops.
In areas under its grip, HTS developed a civil administration and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, while crushing its rebel rivals.
Throughout this process, HTS faced accusations from residents and human rights groups of brutal abuses against those who dared dissent, which the United Nations has classed as war crimes.


Israel says strikes Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah

Israel says strikes Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah
Updated 21 February 2025
Follow

Israel says strikes Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah

Israel says strikes Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah
  • War monitor SOHR says the strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs provincel “out of service”
  • The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria toward Lebanon,” added the SOHR, which has a network inside Syria

BEIRUT: Israel said Friday it struck crossings on the Lebanon-Syria border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons, with a Syria war monitor reporting an unspecified number of people wounded in the attack.
The Israeli military said its air forces “struck crossing points in the area of the Lebanon-Syria border” used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group “in attempts to smuggle weapons into Lebanese territory.”
“These activities constitute a blatant violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the statement added.
A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been in place since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war. Both sides have accused the other of violating the deal.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the overnight strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs province, “out of service” and wounded a number of people.
The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria toward Lebanon,” added the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman reported “heavy material damage to buildings and vehicles.”
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “enemy aircraft flying at low altitude over the city of Hermel” and villages in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s northeast near the Syrian border.
Under the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in south Lebanon alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel announced just before the latest deadline that it would temporarily keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike targeting a tunnel on the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.
In January, Israel carried out air strikes in Lebanon targeting areas in the east and south according to Lebanese state media, with the Israeli military saying it hit Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation.
Hezbollah lost a supply route when opposition forces in December ousted Bashar Assad in Syria, where Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes since war broke out in 2011.
Hezbollah holds sway in large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border region, and had fought alongside Assad’s troops during the war.
 


Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions

Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions
Updated 21 February 2025
Follow

Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions

Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions
  • No casualties were reported

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military to carry out an “intensive” operation in the West Bank after explosions on buses close to Tel Aviv on Thursday, in what Netanyahu’s office described as an attempted mass attack.
No casualties were reported.
The Israeli police earlier said there had been explosions on three buses in two Israeli suburbs outside Tel Aviv and that four explosive devices had been found. Local media reported the explosions had occurred on buses in depots and were empty.
The explosions were a stark reminder of the devastating bus bombings in Israel that were a hallmark of the Palestinian uprising of the 2000s, although such attacks are now rare.
The military said in a statement that it was assisting the police and Shin Bet intelligence agency in the investigation. The police said it was searching for suspects, advising the public to remain vigilant.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosions. Netanyahu met with the defense minister, head of the military and Shin Bet and the police commissioner following the explosions, his office said. A police spokesperson said that improvised explosive devices with timers had been identified and public transportation had been searched for any further devices.
A video published by local media showed what appeared to be a bus on fire at a depot and a photo of a burned out bus.
The military said it would intensify counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and that it had blocked entry points in certain areas, without specifying where. The military has been conducting a large scale military operation in the West Bank over the past month that it says is targeting militants.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes in West Bank refugee camps, while homes and infrastructure have been demolished.
The bus blasts come amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel after 16 months of war. Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four hostages.
The ceasefire has held since it was implemented on January 19 despite accusations traded by Israel and Hamas of violations.


UN calls for rapid economic recovery in Syria to reverse losses from 14 years of conflict

A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
Updated 21 February 2025
Follow

UN calls for rapid economic recovery in Syria to reverse losses from 14 years of conflict

A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
  • UN Development Program says that at current growth rates it will take until 2080 for the country’s economy to return to prewar levels
  • Regional Director Abdallah Al-Dardari tells Arab News Syria’s journey to recovery is arduous, urges countries to understand effects of sanctions and act accordingly

NEW YORK CITY: A newly published report from the UN Development Programme warned that at current growth rates, the Syrian economy will not recover to prewar levels until 2080, leaving the country stuck in a state of prolonged hardship and instability.

It also underscored the urgent need for a rapid economic recovery to help reverse the decades of progress that were lost as a result of the 14-year civil war. The conflict shattered nearly four decades of economic, social and human development, causing irreparable damage to the nation’s infrastructure, economy and social fabric.

The report, titled “The Impact of the Conflict in Syria: A Devastated Economy, Pervasive Poverty, and a Challenging Road Ahead to Social and Economic Recovery,” offers a detailed analysis of the socioeconomic state of the country, and outlines a road map for rebuilding its economy and infrastructure.

According to the UNDP’s preliminary socioeconomic impact assessment, gross domestic product in Syria has halved since the war began in 2011, representing a loss of $800 billion over the past 14 years.

Poverty has reached alarming levels, with the national poverty rate soaring from 33 percent before the war to 90 percent. Extreme poverty has also skyrocketed, with 66 percent of the population now affected, up from just 11 percent prior to the conflict. Three out of four people in the country rely on humanitarian aid and are in urgent need of support for critical aspects of life such as healthcare, education, employment, food security and housing. The country also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with one in four Syrians jobless.

Achim Steiner, the administrator of UNDP, said that the requirements for Syria’s recovery extend beyond the immediate need for humanitarian aid.

“Restoring productivity for jobs and poverty relief, revitalizing agriculture for food security, and rebuilding infrastructure for essential services such as healthcare, education and energy are key to a self-sustaining future, prosperity and peace,” he said.

The damage to Syria’s infrastructure, which has left many essential services nonfunctional, is among the primary obstacles to recovery. The report highlights a staggering array of damage: nearly 50 percent of schools are closed, one-in-three housing units have been destroyed, and nearly half of the nation’s water-treatment plants and sewage systems are no longer operational. Energy production has plummeted by 80 percent, with power plants and transmission lines heavily damaged. These failures in basic services exacerbate poverty levels and block any meaningful path toward recovery.

The UNDP report also highlighted the devastating loss of life during the war, and the decline in health infrastructure. Nearly 618,000 Syrians died during the conflict, and 113,000 were forcibly disappeared, their whereabouts still unknown. Meanwhile, the collapse of the healthcare system has exacerbated the crisis; a third of all medical facilities have been damaged and almost half of ambulance services are no longer operational.

The education sector was also hit hard, leaving 40-50 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 15 unable to attend school. The widespread destruction of housing has left 5.7 million people in need of shelter support.

Essential infrastructure, including water-treatment plants, sewer systems and power plants, has been severely damaged, leaving millions without access to clean water, sanitation or reliable energy supplies.

Syria’s position on the Human Development Index has plummeted to its lowest point since 1990, further illustrating the catastrophic effects of the war on the nation’s development.

The economic outlook remains grim but hope can be found in the potential for robust growth if the correct strategies are implemented, the UNDP said. Its report calls for an ambitious approach to development, as growth rates will need to increase sixfold if they are to recover within a decade.

At the current rate of annual growth, 1.3 percent, it would take more than 50 years to restore GDP to prewar levels. To recover within 15 years, Syria would need to achieve a growth rate of 5 percent, and a tenfold increase in growth would be required for the country to reach the level of development it could have attained in the absence of the war.

Abdallah Al-Dardari, UNDP’s assistant administrator and director of its regional bureau for Arab states, stressed the important need for comprehensive reforms, and said: “Syria’s future hinges on a robust development-recovery approach.

“This demands a comprehensive strategy addressing governance reform, economic stabilization, sector revitalization, infrastructure rebuilding, and strengthened social services.”

He told Arab News that this strategy for recovery will rely on investments and on good management of those investments, as he underscored the institutional requirements Syria will need to meet to attract private investment in infrastructure.

“If you want to invest $100million or $200 million in (a) highway, you need to first of all be sure that you can go to the court, and the court will treat you equally if you have a litigation with your counterpart, which is the government,” Al-Dardari said.

“You need to make sure that there are internationally recognized arbitration systems. You need to make sure that your money can come in and leave the country. You need to make sure that your banking system respects the highest standards of banking.

“I can give you a very long list of things that need to be done and are not there yet. So this is an arduous journey. This is not an easy journey.”

Al-Dardari also told Arab News about the effects of international sanctions, imposed on the Assad regime during the war, on the economy and the ways in which they are hampering recovery progress.

“I'll give you an example,” he said. “Who is going to bring those investments of $36 billion while they are not really sure that the banking sector is free to bring in money, to use the SWIFT (banking system) to transfer funds and to invest?

“How do you make sure that your shipments into Syria of raw materials or semi-manufactured products are protected? How do you make sure that your exports from Syria can arrive at their destinations, and money will be paid for those exports?

“So at every step of the way in recovery, sanctions will play a role. The chilling effect of sanctions, what we call the ‘overload lines,’ will accompany those sanctions. So our core message (to countries) here is: Please understand the impact of sanctions and act accordingly.”

 


Iraqi brick workers risk health, life to keep families afloat

Iraqi brick workers risk health, life to keep families afloat
Updated 20 February 2025
Follow

Iraqi brick workers risk health, life to keep families afloat

Iraqi brick workers risk health, life to keep families afloat
  • Economic hardship has pushed 5 percent of Iraq’s children into labor, often in harsh conditions

AL-KIFL, Iraq: As dawn broke over central Iraq, teenage sisters Dalia and Rukaya Ghali were loading heavy bricks, forced out of school and into a hazardous job to support their family.

Covered in dirt, the sisters toiled for hours at the oil-fired brickworks near Al-Kifl city south of Baghdad, earning just enough to keep their younger siblings at school.

“I’m very tired, but what else can we do?” said 17-year-old Dalia, left with little choice but to work since she was 10, like about one in every 20 Iraqi children according to UN figures.

Her face concealed up to just below her eyes to protect her from the dirt and smoke that hung heavily in the air, Dalia said that if she and her 16-year-old sister had not been working, “our family wouldn’t have been able to survive.”

Babil province, where the Ghali family live, is Iraq’s second poorest, according to the authorities. Nationwide, nearly 17 percent of the oil-rich country’s 45 million people live in poverty.

Economic hardship has pushed 5 percent of Iraq’s children into labor, a UN study found in 2018, often in harsh conditions and at a risk to their health.

Dalia uses the $80 a week she earns to cover tuition for two of her siblings, so they can escape a fate similar to hers even though the family needs the money.

Her uncle Atiya Ghali, 43, has been working at brick factories since he was 12.

Despite the hard labor and the low pay, he said he was willing to work his “entire life” at the factory, where he now supervises dozens of laborers, as he has no other source of income.

Brickworks run on heavy fuel oil, producing high level of sulfur, a pollutant that causes respiratory illness.

The factories produce dust that also harms workers’ lungs, with many suffering from rashes and constant coughing.

Authorities have asked brickworks to phase out their use of heavy oil, and closed 111 factories in the Baghdad area last year “due to emissions” that breach environmental standards.

Adding to the polluted air that they breathe, laborers face the ever-present threat of work-related injury.

Sabah Mahdi, 33, said he is anxious when he goes to work every morning.

“Some have been injured and others have died” at the factory, he said.

One co-worker was killed trapped in a brick-cutting machine, and another was burnt, said Mahdi.

Medical sources said that 28 brick workers died in central and southern Iraq in 2024, and another 80 were injured.


UN envoy says creating an inclusive Syrian govt could help lift sanctions

UN envoy says creating an inclusive Syrian govt could help lift sanctions
Updated 20 February 2025
Follow

UN envoy says creating an inclusive Syrian govt could help lift sanctions

UN envoy says creating an inclusive Syrian govt could help lift sanctions

DAMASCUS: Creating an inclusive government in the Syrian Arab Republic in the coming weeks will help determine whether Western sanctions are lifted as the country rebuilds after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad, the UN special envoy to Syria said on Thursday.

“What I’m hoping is that with a truly new inclusive government in place on the 1st of March, this will help us in lifting sanctions” imposed on Syria by Western countries during Assad’s rule, Geir Pedersen said in an interview during a visit to Damascus.

After Assad was toppled in a lightning rebel offensive in December, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, the group now in control of Syria, set up an interim administration comprising mainly members of its “salvation government” that had ruled in northwestern Syria.

At the time, the country’s de facto authorities said that a new government would be formed through an inclusive process by March. 

In January, former HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa was named Syria’s president after a meeting of most of the country’s former militant factions.

In recent weeks, a committee has been holding meetings in different parts of Syria in preparation for a national dialogue conference to chart the country’s political future, the date of which has not yet been announced.

Pedersen said that in his first meeting with Al-Sharaa in December, Al-Sharaa had insisted that the interim government would rule for only three months. 

However, Pedersen warned him the timeline was tight.

“I think the important thing is not whether it is three months or not, but it is whether they will deliver on what they have said all along, that this is going to be an inclusive process where all Syrians will be included,” Pedersen said.

The US and European countries have not lifted sanctions that were imposed on the Syrian government under Assad’s rule, which the new authorities have said is handicapping their ability to rebuild the country after nearly 14 years of civil war and restore essential services like state electricity. 

Officials from some Western countries have said they want to see if the interim rulers will follow through on their promises of inclusive governance and protecting minorities.

Organizers of the national dialogue have said the conference will include all segments of Syrian society except for Assad loyalists and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led force in the northeast that has so far refused to dissolve and be absorbed into the new national army. 

The SDF is currently negotiating with the central government, and Pedersen said he hopes to see a “political solution” to the impasse.

Pedersen said he is also concerned about a security vacuum following the country’s new rulers’ disbanding of the former national army and security services.

“It’s very important that the new structures of the state are coming in place quickly and that there is an offer to those who are no longer in service of the army or the security services, that there are other job opportunities, and that people do not feel that they are excluded from the future of Syria,” he said.

The UN envoy said he also remains concerned about Israel’s incursions into Syrian territory since the fall of Assad. The Israeli army has seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria and has also made forays beyond the buffer zone. 

The UN has said that Israel is violating the agreement.

Israeli officials have said they took the action to protect Israel’s security and that their presence would be temporary.

Pedersen said the security concerns are being addressed, and “there is really, in my opinion, no argument for why the Israelis should be staying.”

“The solution is very simple. The Israelis need to withdraw,” he said.