Assad’s fall clears way for expanded US strikes on Daesh militants

Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand along a street, after rebels seized the capital and ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Hasakah, Syria December 11, 2024. (REUTERS)
Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand along a street, after rebels seized the capital and ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Hasakah, Syria December 11, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 18 December 2024
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Assad’s fall clears way for expanded US strikes on Daesh militants

Assad’s fall clears way for expanded US strikes on Daesh militants
  • “Terrorist groups like Daesh love a power vacuum, and so there is a risk that Daesh can exploit the chaos of a post-Assad Syria to resurface to an even greater extent,” said Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation

WASHINGTON: Bashar Assad’s overthrow has cleared the way for US strikes against the Daesh group in areas previously shielded by Syrian and Russian air defenses — but the terrorists may also try to exploit the vacuum left by his fall.

The militant group, often referred to as Daesh, rose out of the chaos of the Syrian civil war to seize swathes of territory there and in neighboring Iraq, prompting a US-led air campaign starting in 2014 in support of local ground forces who ultimately defeated the insurgents.

Washington — which has troops in both Iraq and Syria — has for years carried out periodic strikes and raids to help prevent a resurgence of the brutal militant group, but stepped up its military action since Assad’s fall earlier this month, hitting dozens of targets.

“Previously, you had Syrian regime and Russian air defenses which would preclude, in many cases, our ability to — or desirability to go into those areas,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists this week.

Now, “it’s a much more permissible environment in that regard,” Ryder said.

On December 8 — the day Syrian rebels took the capital Damascus — Washington announced strikes on more than 75 Daesh targets that the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said were aimed at ensuring the group “does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria.”

And on Monday, CENTCOM said US forces killed 12 Daesh militants with strikes it said were carried out “in former regime and Russian-controlled areas.”

While Assad’s overthrow has eased access for US strikes, the Syrian leader’s departure could also provide an opening for Daesh militants.

“Terrorist groups like Daesh love a power vacuum, and so there is a risk that Daesh can exploit the chaos of a post-Assad Syria to resurface to an even greater extent,” said Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

There is also a danger that Washington’s Kurdish allies — who have previously been targeted by Turkiye — may have to shift their focus to countering their neighbor to the north.

“That’s a particularly acute risk since they are functionally guarding Daesh detainees, so if they are released, that would obviously have negative effects on the counter-Daesh fight,” Cohen said.

The United States currently has some 900 troops in eastern Syria as part of its efforts to counter Daesh, but that could potentially change after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.

“Trump — during his first administration — signaled that he wanted to withdraw American forces from Syria. I can easily imagine a second Trump administration making a renewed push to do so, especially now that Assad is gone,” Cohen said.

Trump could also reduce US military commitments in the Middle East to let regional allies deal with challenges there, Cohen said, noting that “if that would happen, US counterterrorism strategy would look very different as a result.”

 


Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza

Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza
Updated 53 min 17 sec ago
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Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza

Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza
  • Mahmoud Abbas said Hamas must recognize that there should be ‘one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon’
  • Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians

LONDON: The Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed that Hamas will not take part in governing the coastal enclave of the post-war Gaza Strip during a meeting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in Amman.

Abbas said Hamas must surrender its weapons to the PA and participate in political actions aligned with the principles of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad is part of the PLO, and both groups have long rejected calls to join what Palestinians consider their sole political representative since the 1960s.

Abbas said that Hamas must recognize that in the Palestinian territories, there should be “one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon,” during his meeting on Sunday evening with Blair, who served as the special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East from 2007 to 2015.

Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians, according to an official tally. Since then, it has engaged in several conflicts with Israel, the most recent being the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, which resulted in the deaths and abduction of several hundred people and prompted an ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed over 58,000 Palestinians.

Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian aid.

He stressed the need for a two-state solution and the importance of the French-Saudi-sponsored conference, scheduled for the end of July in New York, to gain support for establishing a Palestinian state.


Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’

Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
Updated 12 sec ago
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Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’

Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
  • The US is backing a 60-day ceasefire with a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and talks to end the conflict

DOHA: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.

The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages.

In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Younis in the south.

One strike on a tent in Khan Younis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.

Belal Al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death.”

AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.

Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“Gaza, we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4.

A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.

In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors.

But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied media reports that any meeting between the two was on the agenda.

In Israel, Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire when a deal for a temporary truce is agreed and only when Hamas lays down its weapons.

But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and with public frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostages and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.

Politically, his fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but Netanyahu is seen as beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.

He also faces a backlash over the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house displaced Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described the proposed facility as a “concentration camp” and Israel’s own security establishment is reported to be unhappy at the plan.

Israeli media said the costs were discussed at a security cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office on Sunday night, just hours before his latest court appearance in a long-running corruption trial on Monday.

Hamas’s attacks on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of which 49 are still being held, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,026 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.


Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM

Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM
Updated 14 July 2025
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Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM

Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM
  • Ehud Olmert slams proposal by defense minister, saying it amounts to ethnic cleansing
  • He condemns settler crimes in West Bank, calling extremist Israeli ministers ‘enemies from within’

London: Plans to build a “humanitarian city” for displaced Palestinians in Gaza would amount to creating a concentration camp, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.

The plan, outlined by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz last week and backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proposes to relocate around 600,000 Palestinians — and eventually Gaza’s entire population of over 2 million — to the site in Rafah. Once there, they would only be allowed to leave if traveling abroad.

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert told The Guardian. “If they (Palestinians) will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city,’ then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing.”

He added: “When they build a camp where they (say they plan to) ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this (is that) it is not to save (Palestinians).

“It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”

Israeli legal experts and journalists wrote to Katz last week warning that “under certain conditions it could amount to the crime of genocide.”

Olmert also condemned the uptick in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, criticizing complicity by Israeli authorities and calling the deaths of two men recently, including a US citizen, war crimes.

“(It is) unforgivable. Unacceptable. There are continuous operations organised, orchestrated in the most brutal, criminal manner by a large group,” he said.

“There is no way that they can operate in such a consistent, massive and widespread manner without a framework of support and protection which is provided by the (Israeli) authorities in the (Occupied) Territories.”

Discussing extreme right-wing Israeli Cabinet ministers pushing the violence in the West Bank and using language such as “cleanse” in relation to Gaza, Olmert called them “the enemy from within,” warning that their rhetoric and actions would fuel anti-Israel sentiment.

“In the US there is more and more and more expanding expressions of hatred to Israel,” he said. “We make a discount to ourselves saying: ‘They are antisemites.’ I don’t think that they are only antisemites, I think many of them are anti-Israel because of what they watch on television, what they watch on social networks.

“This is a painful but normal reaction of people who say: ‘Hey, you guys have crossed every possible line.’”

Olmert said that although he backed the initial invasion of Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack, he is “ashamed and heartbroken” at how Israel’s government has prosecuted the war and abandoned peace negotiations.

“What can I do to change the attitude, except for number one, recognising these evils, and number two, to criticise them and to make sure the international public opinion knows there are (other) voices, many voices in Israel?” he asked.

Saying he believes the Israeli military’s actions have caused “the killing of a large number of non-involved people,” he added: “I cannot refrain from accusing this government of being responsible for war crimes committed.”

However, he voiced hope that peace and a two-state solution are still possible, telling The Guardian that he is working with former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa to lobby the international community to help make it happen.


Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias

Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
Updated 14 July 2025
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Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias

Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
  • Fighting between Druze militiamen and Bedouin tribal fighters was the first time that sectarian violence erupted inside the city of Sweida itself

DAMASCUS: Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias there.

Dozens of people have been killed in the fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province. Government security forces that were sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.

The Interior Ministry has said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured in that fighting.

Dozens of people have been killed in fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province, where government security forces sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.

The Interior Ministry said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor reported at least 50 dead, including two children and six members of the security forces.

Clashes initially broke out between armed groups from the Druze religious minority and Sunni Bedouin clans, the observatory said, with some members of the government security forces “actively participating” in support of the Bedouins.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Noureddine Al-Baba told the state-run state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV that government forces entered Sweida in the early morning to restore order.

“Some clashes occurred with outlawed armed groups, but our forces are doing their best to prevent any civilian casualties,” he said.

The observatory said the clashes started after a series of kidnappings between both groups, which began when members of a Bedouin tribe in the area set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a young Druze man.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the observatory, said the conflict started with the kidnapping and robbery of a Druze vegetable seller, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings.

Syria’s defense and interior ministries were deploying personnel to the area to attempt to restore order.

The Interior Ministry described the situation as a dangerous escalation that “comes in the absence of the relevant official institutions, which has led to an exacerbation of the state of chaos, the deterioration of the security situation, and the inability of the local community to contain the situation despite repeated calls for calm.”

Factions from the Druze minority have been suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus after former President Bashar Assad fled the country during a rebel offensive led by Sunni Islamist insurgent groups in December. Earlier this year, Druze groups in Sweida clashed with security forces from the new government.

The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.

The Druze developed their own militias during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. Since Assad’s fall, different Druze factions have been at odds over whether to integrate with the new government and armed forces.


Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations

Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations
Updated 14 July 2025
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Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations

Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations
  • Wizz said geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand
  • Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region

LONDON: Low-cost carrier Wizz Air said on Monday it was quitting its Abu Dhabi operation after six years to focus on its main European market, citing geopolitical instability and limited market access.

Wizz, which originally focused on central and eastern Europe but expanded into Britain, Italy and Austria, said in future it would concentrate on its much more profitable European business.

Wizz said the geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand, while the impact of the hot environment in the Middle East had hurt engine efficiency, making it hard to operate its low-cost model.

Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region as it had hoped, the airline said.

“They just couldn’t make money out of the Middle East,” Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said.

Wizz said it will stop local flights from Sept. 1, 2025 and would be contacting customers regarding refunds.

“Supply chain constraints, geopolitical instability, and limited market access have made it increasingly difficult to sustain our original ambitions,” Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi said in a statement.

“While this was a difficult decision, it is the right one given the circumstances,” he added.

Wizz Air is in talks with Airbus about scaling back its order for 47 A321XLR, a longer range aircraft, and converting some of them to regular A321 jet.

“We have 47 XLRs on order. We are going to scale that back,” Varadi said.

“We have conversion rights for the majority of that of that aircraft order. So we are talking to the manufacturer.”