DAMASCUS: A few days after insurgents in Syria overthrew President Bashar Assad, his ruling Baath party announced it was freezing its activities, marking a stunning change in fortunes for the political group that had ruled for more than six decades.
Many members of the party’s leadership have gone into hiding and some have fled the country. In a symbolic move, Syria’s new rulers have turned the former party headquarters in Damascus into a center where former members of the army and security forces line up to register their names and hand over their weapons.
Calls are on the rise to officially dissolve the Arab Socialist Baath Party that had ruled Syria since 1963.
Many Syrians — including former party members — say its rule damaged relations with other Arab countries and aided in the spread of corruption that brought the war-torn nation to its knees.
“The party should not only be dissolved, it should go to hell,” said Mohammed Hussein Ali, 64, who worked for a state oil company and was a party member for decades until he quit at the start of Syria’s anti-government uprising in 2011 that turned into civil war. He never left the country and said he is happy the Baath rule is over.
An official with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, the group that led the insurgent offensive that overthrew Assad, said no official decision has been made on what to do with the Baath party.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, noted that HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa has said that officials who committed crimes against the Syrian people over the past decades will be brought to justice and hinted that they include party members.
The Baath party, whose aim was to unify Arab states in one nation, was founded by two Syrian Arab nationalists, Michel Aflaq and Salaheddine Bitar, in 1947 and at one point ruled two Arab countries, Iraq and Syria.
A rivalry developed between the Syrian branch under Assad and his late father, Hafez, and the one in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who was removed from power by a US-led invasion in 2003.
In Syria, the Baath party became inextricably associated with the Assad family, which took power in 1970. For decades, the family used the party and its pan-Arab ideology to control the country. Many senior military jobs were held by members of the family’s minority Alawite sect, and party membership was used as a cover to give it a nationalist rather than a sectarian nature.
A former soldier and decades-long Baath party member who came to party headquarters to cut his military ties, Abdul-Rahman Ali, said he had no idea it was founded by Aflaq and Bitar. He had always thought that Hafez Assad was the founder.
“I am happy. We have been liberated from fear,” said Ali, 43. “Even the walls had ears. We didn’t dare express opinions with anyone.” He was referring to the dreaded security and intelligence agencies that detained and tortured people who expressed criticism of Assad or government officials.
Many Syrians were required to join the Baath Vanguards, the party’s youth branch, while in elementary school, where Arab nationalist and socialist ideology was emphasized.
It was difficult for people who were not party members to get government jobs or join the army or the security and intelligence services.
In 2012, a year after Syria’s uprising began, a paragraph of the constitution stating that the Baath party was the leader of the nation and society was abolished, in a move aimed to appease the public’s demand for political reforms. In practice, however, the party remained in control, with members holding majority seats in parliament and government.
Another former soldier, who gave only his first name, Ghadir, out of fear of reprisals as a member of the Alawite sect, said he came from a poor family and joined the party so he could enter the military for a stable income.
“You could not take any job if you were not a Baathist,” he said.
While few are mourning the party’s fall in Syria, some are concerned that the Sunni majority that now controls the country could carry out a purge similar to the one in Iraq after Saddam’s fall.
A de-Baathification committee was formed in Iraq and its main job was purging Saddam loyalists from government and military institutions. The Sunni minority considered it a means of sectarian score-settling by Iraq’s Shiite majority. The Sunni resentment and disenfranchisement that followed helped to drive the rise of extremist groups in the country including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq.
In Syria, a Baath party statement issued three days after Assad’s fall called on all members to hand their weapons and public cars to the new authorities.
On Dec. 24, party member and former army colonel Mohammed Merhi was among hundreds who lined up at the former party headquarters and handed over weapons.
Merhi said the Baath party should be given another opportunity because its principles are good but were exploited over decades. But he said he might want to join another party if Syria becomes a multiparty democracy in the future.
He handed over his Soviet Makarov pistol and received a document saying he can now move freely in the country after reconciling with the new authorities.
“I want to become again a normal Syrian citizen and work to build a new Syria,” he said.
Now Syria’s long-ruling Baath party is collapsing, too
https://arab.news/nz9js
Now Syria’s long-ruling Baath party is collapsing, too
- Many members of the party’s leadership have gone into hiding and some have fled the country
- Calls are on the rise to officially dissolve the Arab Socialist Baath Party that had ruled Syria since 1963
Lebanon detains several people on suspicion of firing rockets at Israel
In a statement issued late Wednesday night, the army said it had detained several people, including a number of Palestinians, who were involved in firing rockets in two separate attacks toward Israel in late March that triggered intense Israeli airstrikes on parts of Lebanon. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group denied at the time it was behind the firing of rockets.
The army said that a vehicle and other equipment used in the rockets attacks were confiscated and the detainees were referred to judicial authorities. The army said it had carried out raids in different parts of Lebanon to detain the suspects without giving further details.
On Thursday, the state-run National News Agency reported that Gen. Rodolph Haikal briefed a weekly cabinet meeting about the security situation along the border and the ongoing implementation of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war.
Three security and one judicial officials told The Associated Press that four Palestinians linked to the Hamas group are being questioned.
A Hamas official told the AP that several members of the group were detained in Lebanon recently and released shortly afterward adding that they were not involved in firing rockets into Israel. He said in one case authorities detained a Hamas member who was carrying an unlicensed pistol.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Hezbollah started launching attacks on Israel a day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023 with the Palestinian militants’ attack on southern Israel. The war that left more than 4,000 people dead in Lebanon and caused wide destruction ended in late November with a US-brokered ceasefire.
Since the ceasefire went into effect in late November, Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes that left dozens of civilians and Hezbollah members dead.
On Tuesday, the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights said that at least 71 civilians, including 14 women and nine children, have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since a ceasefire took effect.
Amputee Palestinian boy image wins World Press Photo award
- The photographer is from Gaza and was herself evacuated in December 2023
- The jury praised the photo’s “strong composition and attention to light” and its thought-provoking subject-matter
Amsterdam: A haunting portrait of a nine-year-old Palestinian boy who lost both arms during an Israeli attack on Gaza City won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year Award Thursday.
The picture, by Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times, depicts Mahmoud Ajjour, evacuated to Doha after an explosion severed one arm and mutilated the other last year.
“One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was how when Mahmoud first came to the realization that his arms were amputated, the first sentence he said to her was, ‘How will I be able to hug you’?” said Elouf.
The photographer is also from Gaza and was herself evacuated in December 2023. She now portrays badly wounded Palestinians based in Doha.
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly. It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations,” said Joumana El Zein Khoury, World Press Photo Executive Director.
The jury praised the photo’s “strong composition and attention to light” and its thought-provoking subject-matter, especially questions raised over Mahmoud’s future.
The boy is now learning to play games on his phone, write, and open doors with his feet, the jury said.
“Mahmoud’s dream is simple: he wants to get prosthetics and live his life as any other child,” said the World Press Photo organizers in a statement.
The jury also selected two photos for the runner-up prize.
The first, entitled “Droughts in the Amazon” by Musuk Nolte for Panos Pictures and the Bertha Foundation, shows a man on a dried-up river bed in the Amazon carrying supplies to a village once accessible by boat.
The second, “Night Crossing” by John Moore shooting for Getty Images, depicts Chinese migrants huddling near a fire during a cold rainshower after crossing the US-Mexico border.
The jury sifted through 59,320 photographs from 3,778 photo journalists to select 42 prize-winning shots from around the world.
Photographers for Agence France-Presse were selected four times for a regional prize, more than any other organization.
Nairobi-based Luis Tato won in the “Stories” category for the Africa region for a selection of photos depicting Kenya’s youth uprising.
Jerome Brouillet won in the “Singles” category Asia-Pacific and Oceania for his iconic picture of surfer Gabriel Medina seemingly floating above the waves.
Clarens Siffroy won in the “Stories” category North and Central America for his coverage of the gang crisis in Haiti.
Finally, Anselmo Cunha won in the “Singles” category for South America for his photo of a Boeing 727-200 stranded at Salgado Filho International Airport in Brazil.
Lebanon’s former interior minister appears before Beirut port blast investigator
- Judge Bitar resumed his investigation earlier this year following prolonged legal and political obstacles
DUBAI: Former Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk appeared before Judge Tarek Bitar on Thursday as part of the ongoing investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Machnouk arrived at the judge’s office accompanied by his attorney, Naoum Farah, the National News Agency reported.
The interrogation session began shortly after their arrival, marking a significant step in the judicial probe into one of Lebanon’s most devastating tragedies, which killed over 200 people and injured thousands.
Judge Bitar resumed his investigation earlier this year following prolonged legal and political obstacles.
Gaza rescuers say 25 killed in Israeli strikes on displaced people
- Overnight strike targeted several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis, resulting in 16 deaths
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported on Thursday that a wave of Israeli air strikes hit multiple encampments for displaced Palestinians across the territory, killing at least 25 people.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said an overnight strike targeted several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis, resulting in 16 deaths.
“At least 16 martyrs, most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded following a direct strike by two Israeli missiles on several tents housing displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis,” Bassal said.
According to Bassal, two additional strikes on other encampments of displaced people killed eight and wounded several more.
Seven were killed in a strike on tents in the northern town of Beit Lahia, while another attack near the Al-Mawasi area killed a father and his child who were living in a tent, Bassal said.
Operation Assad: the air mission to smuggle the Syrian despot’s valuables
- Ousted Syrian ruler used private jet to move cash, valuables, and documents to Abu Dhabi, sources say
- Plane made four flights in last days of Assad’s regime, the last one from Russian base
DUBAI: As his enemies closed in on Damascus, Bashar Assad, who ruled over Syria with an iron fist for 24 years, used a private jet to spirit away cash, valuables and confidential documents mapping the corporate web behind his wealth.
Yasar Ibrahim, the president’s top economic adviser, arranged the leasing of the plane to transport Assad’s treasured assets, relatives, aides and presidential palace personnel to the United Arab Emirates aboard four flights, according to an account of the operation pieced together by Reuters from more than a dozen sources.
Ibrahim, who ran the economic and financial office of the presidency, was instrumental in creating a network of entities Assad used to control swathes of Syria’s economy, often acting as a front for the former ruler, according to US sanctions notices, as well as experts on Syria’s economy and one source inside Assad’s business network. Western nations imposed sanctions on Assad following his repression of 2011 pro-democracy protests and later on Ibrahim for assisting the regime.
The Embraer Legacy 600 jet made the four back-to-back trips to Syria in the 48 hours before the regime’s fall, according to a Reuters review of flight tracking records. The plane, which has the tail number C5-SKY, is registered in Gambia. The fourth flight departed on December 8 from the Russian-operated Hmeimim military air base, near Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, according to flight tracking records, a satellite image and a former Air Force Intelligence source with direct knowledge of the operation. Assad fled to Russia on the same day from the same base.
The operation to extract Assad’s assets from Syria has not been previously reported. Reuters spoke to 14 Syrian sources with knowledge of the scheme, including airport staff, former intelligence and Presidential Guard officers and a person within Assad’s business network.
The news agency also reviewed a WhatsApp conversation between Ibrahim’s associates, flight tracking data, satellite images, and corporate and aviation ownership registers on three continents to assemble its account of how Assad’s closest confidant orchestrated safe passage for the plane.
The jet carried unmarked black bags of cash holding at least $500,000 as well as documents, laptops and hard drives with key intelligence about “The Group,” the codename Assad and Ibrahim’s associates used for the intricate network of entities spanning telecoms, banking, real estate, energy and other activities, according to the individual inside Assad’s network, a former Air Force Intelligence officer and the WhatsApp conversation. Assad, whose whereabouts was kept secret from even close family members in the last frantic days of his regime, has been granted political asylum in Russia. Reuters was unable to reach him or Ibrahim for comment. The foreign ministries of Russia and the UAE didn’t respond to questions about the operation.
The government of new president Ahmed Al-Sharaa is determined to recover public funds taken abroad in the run up to Assad’s fall, a senior official told Reuters, to support Syria’s economy as it labors under sanctions and a currency shortage.
The official confirmed to Reuters that money was smuggled out of the country before the former ruler’s ouster, but did not elaborate how, adding that authorities were still determining where the money went.
Reuters could not independently determine whether Assad actively directed the escape operation. Several sources with direct knowledge of the mission said it could not have happened without the ruler’s blessing.
’YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS PLANE’
On December 6, as rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham marched toward the capital, the 13-seater Embraer jet approached Damascus International Airport.
More than a dozen staff in the camouflage uniforms of Syria’s Air Force Intelligence — a main instrument of political repression under Assad — mobilized to guard the Hall of Ceremonies, the airport’s VIP section, and its access route, according to six sources with knowledge of the operation. Four of these sources said they were at the scene.
A handful of civilian cars with tinted windows approached the area, three of the people on site said. The cars belonged to the elite Republican Guard, tasked to protect Assad and the Presidential Palace, said two of the people on site — the former intelligence officer and a senior airport official.
The involvement of the Republican Guard meant that “Bashar (Assad) gave the orders” relating to the operation, according to a former senior Republican Guard member. The guard answered only to its commander, Assad’s cousin General Talal Makhlouf, or Assad himself, this person added.
The head of airport security, Brig.-General Ghadeer Ali, told airport staff that Air Force Intelligence personnel would handle the aircraft, according to Mohammed Qairout, head of ground operations with Syrian Air.
“This plane is coming to land and we will deal with it,” Qairout recalled being told by Ali. “You have not seen this plane.”
Ali, a senior Air Force Intelligence officer, took orders directly from the Presidential Palace, three Syrian airport officials and the former intelligence officer said.
Reuters could not reach Ali for comment.
FINAL HOURS The C5-SKY plane flew each time to Abu Dhabi’s Al Bateen Executive Airport, used by dignitaries and known for its strict privacy, Flightradar24 data show. At first, the jet left Dubai on Dec. 6 and landed in Damascus around noon local time (0900 GMT). It then flew to Al Bateen airport and was back in Damascus just after 10 p.m.
Each time it landed, “cars rushed toward the plane, staying for a short time and then leaving just before the plane took off again,” said one of five sources working at the airport.
Ali told Air Force Intelligence staff that Presidential Palace personnel and relatives of Assad — including teenagers — were due to board the first two flights that left Damascus on December 6, which also carried cash, according to the former intelligence officer at the scene.
Reuters could not access a manifest for the four flights to confirm the plane’s passengers or cargo.
The second flight from Damascus also transported paintings and some small sculptures, said the same source.
On Dec. 7, the jet was back in Damascus around 4 p.m. and left for Al Bateen for a third time over an hour later, this time loaded with bags of cash as well as hard drives and electronic devices containing information about Assad’s corporate network, according to the intelligence officer and the source inside Assad’s business network.
The stored information included financial records, minutes of meetings, ownership of companies, real estate and partnerships, as well as details of cash transfers and offshore companies and accounts, this source said.
This time, vehicles belonging to the UAE embassy in Damascus approached the VIP airport area before the jet took off, said the former intelligence officer, which he said suggested the UAE was aware of the operation.
DETOUR TO RUSSIAN BASE
Early on December 8, rebel fighters reached Damascus, prompting Assad to flee for his coastal stronghold of Latakia, in coordination with Russian forces. Damascus airport stopped operating.
Shortly after midnight that day, the C5-SKY jet left Al Bateen one last time. After passing over the city of Homs, north of Damascus, at around 3 a.m. local time, the plane dropped off flight tracking coverage for about six hours before reappearing over Homs, headed back to Abu Dhabi, data from Flightradar24 show.
During that window, it landed at the Hmeimim base in the Latakia province, according to the former intelligence officer.
A satellite image taken at 9:11 a.m. by Planet Labs captured the plane on the runway at Hmeimim. Reuters was able to confirm the Embraer jet in the image was C5-SKY based on the size and shape and flight tracking data. The jet was the only private plane flying in and out of Syria between December 6 and December 8, flight tracking data show.
Aboard the flight from Hmeimim was Ahmed Khalil Khalil, a close associate of Ibrahim active inside Assad’s network, according to the Air Force Intelligence officer, the source inside Assad’s business empire and the WhatsApp conversation. Khalil is under Western sanctions for supporting the former regime by operating and controlling several businesses in Syria.
He had reached the Russian base in an Emirati embassy armored car and was carrying $500,000 in cash, according to the person inside Assad’s network and the WhatsApp messages.
Khalil had withdrawn the money two days earlier from an account with the Syria International Islamic Bank (SIIB), according to the same sources.
The person inside Assad’s circle said the account belongs to Damascus-based Al-Burj Investments. The company is 50 percent owned by Ibrahim, according to The Syria Report, an online platform that contains a corporate database compiled by Syria experts which cited 2018 official Syrian records.
Khalil did not respond to a request for comment sent via his Facebook account. SIIB and Al-Burj did not respond to emails seeking comment.
The individual inside Assad’s business circle and a former official at Syria’s Air Transport Authority said the Embraer jet was operating under a ‘dry lease’, in which the owner provides the aircraft, but no crew, pilot, maintenance, ground operations or insurance.
Reuters couldn’t determine who operated the flights.
Ibrahim reached Abu Dhabi on Dec. 11, this person added.
Asked about the plane in an interview with Reuters, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa declined to comment.
’THE LEBANESE PLANE’
Ibrahim leased the jet from Lebanese businessman Mohamad Wehbe, according to a member of Syria’s business elite and the source inside Assad’s network. In the WhatsApp conversation the jet was described by one of Ibrahim’s associates as “the Lebanese plane.”
In April 2024, Mohamad Wehbe posted pictures of C5-SKY on LinkedIn with the caption, “welcome.” In January, the businessman wrote in a separate LinkedIn post that the aircraft was for sale. The plane was registered in Gambia to a local company, Flying Airline Company, from April 2024. Flight tracking records show that, in the months preceding Assad’s fall, the aircraft had flown to Assad’s ally Russia, currently under Western aviation sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. Reuters was unable to reach the registered contact for Flying Airline Company in Gambia, Sheikh Tijan Jallow.
Flying Airline Co. is 30 percent-owned by another Lebanese national, Oussama Wehbe, and 70 percent-owned by Iraqi national Safa Ahmed Saleh, as per Gambian records.
Social media show Mohamad Wehbe has a son named Oussama who also works in the aviation industry. Reuters could not confirm if he is the same man on the Gambian registry.
Contacted by Reuters, Mohamad Wehbe denied any involvement with the C5-SKY flights in and out of Syria and told Reuters he does not own the plane but merely rents it “sometimes” from a broker, whose name he declined to provide. He did not respond to questions about whether his son was involved.
Oussama Wehbe did not reply to a request for comment. Reuters could not locate Safa Ahmed Saleh.
