Kurdish-led forces push back Turkish-backed Syrian rebels in a tense offensive

Fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) inspect damaged and abandoned military vehicles and equipment at the Qamishli international airport, formerly a joint Syrian-russian military base, in northeastern Syria's city of Qamishli on December 9, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 24 December 2024
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Kurdish-led forces push back Turkish-backed Syrian rebels in a tense offensive

  • The Britain-based opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says since the SNA’s offensive in northern Syria against the Kurds started earlier this month, dozens from both sides have been killed

QAMISHLI, Syria: The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Tuesday they have launched a counter-offensive against the Ankara-backed Syrian National Army to take back areas near Syria’s northern border with Turkiye.
The SDF is Washington’s critical ally in Syria, targeting sleeper cells of the extremist Daesh group scattered across the country’s east.
Since the fall of the totalitarian rule of Bashar Assad earlier this month, clashes have intensified between the US-backed group and the SNA, which captured the key city of Manbij and the areas surrounding it.
The intense weekslong clashes come at a time when Syria, battered by over a decade of war and economic misery, negotiates its political future following half a century under the Assad dynasty’s rule.
Ruken Jamal, spokesperson of the Women’s Protection Unit, or YPJ, under the SDF, told The Associated Press that their fighters are just over seven miles away from the center of Manbij in their ongoing counter-offensive.
She accused Ankara of trying to weaken the group’s influence in negotiations over Syria’s political future through the SNA,
“Syria is now in a new phase, and discussions are underway about the future of the country,” Jamal said. “Turkiye is trying, through its attacks, to distract us with battles and exclude us from the negotiations in Damascus.”
The Britain-based opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says since the SNA’s offensive in northern Syria against the Kurds started earlier this month, dozens from both sides have been killed.
Ankara sees the SDF as an affiliate of its sworn enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which it classifies as a terrorist organization. Turkish-backed armed groups alongside Turkish jets for years have attacked positions where the SDF are largely present across northern Syria, in a bid to create a buffer zone free from the group along the large shared border.
While the SNA was involved in the lightning insurgency — led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham — that toppled Assad, it has continued its push against the SDF, seen as Syria’s second key actor for its political future.
On Monday, the SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami said the group’s forces pushed back the Turkish-backed rebels from areas near the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates, a key source of hydroelectric power. He said the SDF also destroyed a tank belonging to the rebels southeast of Manbij.
The British-based war monitor said on Tuesday that the Kurdish-led group, following overnight fighting, has reclaimed four villages in the areas near the strategic dam.
Turkish jets also pounded the strategic border town of Kobani in recent days.
During Syria’s uprising-turned-conflict, the Kurds carved out an enclave of autonomous rule across northeastern Syria, never fully allying entirely with Assad in Damascus nor the rebels trying to overthrow him.
Even with the Assad family out of the picture, it appears that Ankara’s position won’t change, with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s landmark visit to Syria maintaining a strong position on the Kurdish-led group in his meeting with de facto leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa of HTS.
“It has turned the region into a cauldron of terror with PKK members and far-left groups who have come from Turkiye, Iraq, Iran and Europe,” Fidan said in a news conference after the meeting. “The international community is turning a blind eye to this lawlessness because of the wardenship it provides (against Daesh).”
With the ongoing fighting, SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi has expressed concern about a strong Daesh resurgence due to the power vacuum in Syria and the ongoing fighting, which has left the Kurdish-led group unable to carry out its attacks and raids on the extremist group’s scattered sleeper cells.
Tens of thousands of children, family members, and supporters of Daesh militants are still held in large detention centers in northeastern Syria, in areas under SDF control.

 


Israeli missiles strike Gaza hospital, patients evacuated

Updated 13 April 2025
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Israeli missiles strike Gaza hospital, patients evacuated

  • The Hamas-run government media office condemned the attack as a “heinous and filthy crime,” saying that Israel “deliberately destroyed and rendered out of service 34 hospitals

CAIRO: Two Israeli missiles hit a building inside a main Gaza hospital on Sunday, destroying the emergency and reception department and damaging other structures, medics said.
Health officials at the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital evacuated the patients from the building after one person said he received a call from someone who identified himself with the Israeli security shortly before the attack took place.
No casualties were reported, according to the civil emergency service.
Israel made no comment on the strike.
Images circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately authenticate, showed dozens of displaced families leaving the place. Some of them dragging sick relatives on hospital beds.
In its statement, the Hamas-run government media office condemned the attack as a “heinous and filthy crime,” saying that Israel “deliberately destroyed and rendered out of service 34 hospitals as part of a systematic plan to dismantle what remains of the health care sector in the Gaza Strip.”
In October 2023, an attack on the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital killed hundreds of people. Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast. Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

 


Algeria protests France’s detention of Algerian consular agent

Updated 13 April 2025
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Algeria protests France’s detention of Algerian consular agent

  • Ties between Paris and Algiers took a turn for the worse last year when French President Macron angered Algeria by siding with Morocco on the Western Sahara dispute

TUNIS: Algeria protested on Saturday against France’s detention of an Algerian consular agent over an alleged kidnapping of an Algerian citizen in France, the latest tension between the two countries.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry said that this unprecedented judicial turn, in the history of two countries’ relations, was aimed at disrupting the process of reviving bilateral relations.
French media reported that three people, including an Algerian consular official, were placed under investigation on Friday on suspicion of kidnapping Amir Boukhors, an opponent of the Algerian regime.
Algeria said that “the new, unacceptable, and unjustified development will severely damage Algerian-French relations and affirms its determination not to leave this case without consequences.”
The North Africa country described Boukhors as “a saboteur linked to terrorist groups.”
Ties between Paris and Algiers have been complicated for decades, but took a turn for the worse last July when French President Emmanuel Macron angered Algeria by recognizing a plan for the autonomy of the Western Sahara region under Moroccan sovereignty.
Last month, an Algerian court sentenced French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal to five years in jail for undermining national unity, prompting a call for his freedom from Macron.
But French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said last week that ties with Algeria were back to normal after he held talks with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune following months of bickering that have hurt Paris’ economic and security interests in its former colony.

 


Syrian forces deploy at key dam under deal with Kurds

Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the dam from Daesh in late 2015. (Reuters)
Updated 12 April 2025
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Syrian forces deploy at key dam under deal with Kurds

  • Syria’s state news agency SANA reported “the entry of Syrian Arab Army forces and security forces into the Tishrin Dam ... to impose security in the region, under the agreement reached with the SDF”

DAMASCUS: Security forces from the new government in Damascus deployed on Saturday around a strategic dam in northern Syria, under a deal with the autonomous Kurdish administration, state media reported.
Under the agreement, Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces will pull back from the dam, which they captured from Daesh in late 2015.
The Tishrin dam near Manbij in Aleppo province is one of several on the Euphrates and its tributaries in the Syrian Arab Republic.
It plays a key role in the nation’s economy by providing water for irrigation and hydro-electric power.
On Thursday, a Kurdish source said the Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria had reached an agreement with the central government on running the dam.
A separate Kurdish source said on Saturday that the deal, supervised by the US-led anti-terror coalition, stipulates that the dam remain under Kurdish civilian administration.
Syria’s state news agency SANA reported “the entry of Syrian Arab Army forces and security forces into the Tishrin Dam ... to impose security in the region, under the agreement reached with the SDF.”
The accord also calls for a joint military force to protect the dam and for the withdrawal of factions “that seek to disrupt this agreement,” SANA said.
It is part of a broader agreement reached in mid-March between Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, aiming to integrate the institutions of the Kurdish autonomous administration into the national government.
The dam was a key battleground in Syria’s civil war that broke out in 2011, falling to Daesh before being captured by the SDF.
Days after Al-Sharaa’s coalition overthrew Syrian leader Bashar Assad in December, Turkish drone strikes targeted the dam, killing dozens of civilians and Kurdish officials, as Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

 


Hamas releases video showing Israeli-American hostage alive

Updated 12 April 2025
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Hamas releases video showing Israeli-American hostage alive

  • Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified the hostage as Edan Alexander
  • Alexander, a soldier in the Israeli army, said on the video that he wants to return home to celebrate the holidays

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas’s armed wing released a video on Saturday showing an Israeli-American hostage alive, in which he criticizes the Israeli government for failing to secure his release.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified him as Edan Alexander, a soldier in an elite infantry unit on the Gaza border when he was abducted by Palestinian militants during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
AFP was unable to determine when the video was filmed.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, published the more than three-minute clip showing the hostage seated in a small, enclosed space.
In the video, he says he wants to return home to celebrate the holidays.
Israel is currently marking Passover, the holiday that commemorates the biblical liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Alexander, who turned 21 in captivity, was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in the US state of New Jersey, returning to Israel after high school to join the army.
“As we begin the holiday evening in the USA, our family in Israel is preparing to sit around the Seder table,” Alexander’s family said in a statement released by the forum.
“Our Edan, a lone soldier who immigrated to Israel and enlisted in the Golani Brigade to defend the country and its citizens, is still being held captive by Hamas.
“When you sit down to mark Passover, remember that this is not a holiday of freedom as long as Edan and the other hostages are not home,” the family added.
The family did not give a green light for the media to broadcast the footage.

Alexander appears to be speaking under duress in the video, making frequent hand gestures as he criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for failing to secure his release.
The video was released hours after Defense Minister Israel Katz announced military control of what it called the new “Morag axis” corridor of land between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Katz also outlined plans to expand Israel’s ongoing offensive across much of the territory.
In a separate statement earlier Saturday, Hamas said Israel’s Gaza operations endangered not only Palestinian civilians but also the remaining hostages.
The offensive not only “kills defenseless civilians but also makes the fate of the occupation’s prisoners (hostages) uncertain,” Hamas said.
During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants took 251 hostages.
Fifty-eight hostages remain in captivity, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
During a recent ceasefire that ended on March 18 when Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza, militants released 33 hostages, among them eight bodies.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Gaza’s health ministry said Saturday at least 1,563 Palestinians had been killed since March 18 when the ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,933.
 


UAE president meets with US Congressional delegation in Abu Dhabi to discuss ties and regional stability

Updated 12 April 2025
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UAE president meets with US Congressional delegation in Abu Dhabi to discuss ties and regional stability

  • American delegation included Senator Joni Ernst and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

ABU DHABI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan met with a delegation from the US Congress at Qasr Al-Shati in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, Emirates News Agency reported.

The American delegation included Senator Joni Ernst and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, both prominent members of the US legislative branch.

The meeting focused on enhancing the strategic partnership between the two nations across a range of sectors and reaffirmed their commitment to advancing mutual interests for the benefit of both peoples.

Discussions covered key regional and international issues, particularly efforts to bolster security and stability in the Middle East.

Both sides emphasized the importance of continued collaboration to promote peace, development, and prosperity across the region and beyond.

The meeting was also attended by senior UAE officials and Yousef Al-Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to the US.