Ahmad Abdullah Hammoud was lucky to have some food stored to feed his family after a US-funded organisation abruptly suspended its aid activities at the sprawling tent camp in northeastern Syria where they have been forced to stay for nearly six years. His family is among 37,000 people, mostly women and children, with alleged ties to the Islamic State group at the bleak, trash-strewn al-Hol camp, where the Trump administration's unprecedented freeze on foreign aid caused chaos and uncertainty and worsened the dire humanitarian conditions. When the freeze was announced shortly after Trump took office, US-funded aid programmes worldwide began shutting down operations, including the organisation that runs many operations at al-Hol, which works under the supervision of the US-led coalition formed to fight IS. The US-based Blumont briefly suspended operations, according to the camp's director. It had been providing essentials such as bread, water, kerosene and cooking gas. Blumont didn't
Syria's interim president made his first trip abroad Sunday, travelling to Saudi Arabia in a move likely trying to signal Damascus' shift away from Iran as its main regional ally. Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida, landed in Riyadh alongside his government's foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. The two men travelled on a Saudi jet, with a Saudi flag visible on the table behind them. Saudi state television trumpeted the fact that al-Sharaa, first known internationally by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, made Riyadh his first destination. Syria's new three-star, tricolour flag flew next to Saudi Arabia's own at the airport as al-Sharaa in a suit and tie walked off the plane. He later met with a smiling Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, at al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh. The state-run Saudi Press Agency described their discussions as examining ways to support the security and stability of sisterly Syria. Syria's state-run SA
President Donald Trump is declining to say whether he intends to maintain current US troop levels in Syria. We'll make a determination on that, Trump told reporters on Thursday when asked if he intends to withdraw US troops deployed to Syria to fight the Islamic State group. We're not involved in Syria. Syria's its own mess. They got enough messes over there. They don't need us involved with everything. The US had said for years that there were about 900 troops in Syria, but the Pentagon acknowledged in December that US troop levels had surged to about 2,000. There has long been friction between the US and Syria's neighbours - Turkiye and Iraq - about the ongoing presence of American forces in Syria and the need to keep them at a particular level. Israel meanwhile has urged the US to maintain a presence in the country. Trump said just before rebels ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad in December in that the US military should stay out of Syria. Trump is also not giving up on the ide
The leader of Syria's rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the country's interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents cancelled the existing constitution, saying a new charter would be drafted soon. The appointment of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel once aligned with al-Qaida, as Syria's president in the transitional phase, came after a meeting of the former insurgent factions in Damascus, the Syrian capital. The announcement was made by the spokesperson for Syria's new, de facto government's military operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said. Al-Sharaa had been expected to appear in a televised speech following the meeting, but did not immediately do so, and it remained unclear if he would. The exact mechanism under which the factions selected him as interim president was also not clear. Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist former insurgent group that
European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed to begin lifting sanctions on Syria, while insisting that the measures should be reimposed if they see any abuses by the country's new rulers. The EU started to impose asset freezes and travel bans on Syrian officials and organisations in 2011 in response to Bashar Assad's crackdown on protesters, which festered into a civil war. The 27-nation bloc targeted 316 people and 86 entities accused of backing Syria's former ruler. It is keen to lift those measures if Syria's new leaders set the country on the path to a peaceful political future involving all minority groups and in which extremism and former allies Russia and Iran have no place. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ministers had agreed on a roadmap for easing sanctions. Speaking after chairing the meeting, she said, the aim was to lift those measures that are most hindering the early buildup of the country and to move from there. She underlined that the ministers had on
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European Union foreign ministers will meet in late January to discuss easing sanctions imposed on Syria, the bloc's foreign policy chief said on Sunday. However, she said the move would depend on Syria's new rulers carrying out an inclusive political transition after last month's overthrow of president Bashar Assad. Kaja Kallas' comments came at a gathering of top European and Middle Eastern diplomats in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to discuss Syria's future. Saudi Arabia called for the lifting of sanctions, which threaten to undermine Syria's recovery from nearly 14 years of civil war that killed an estimated 5,00,000 people and displaced half the country's prewar population of 23 million. European countries and the US have been wary over the Islamist roots of the former insurgents who drove Assad out of power and who now lead an interim government. The former rebels have promised to hold a national dialogue summit that includes different groups across Syria to agree upon a new ...
China said it is greatly concerned over the new Syrian government appointing foreign terrorist fighters, especially from the banned Uygur militant group 'the East Turkestan Islamic Movement', to senior military ranks. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is active in China's volatile Xinjiang province. These remarks were made by Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council Briefing on Syria on Wednesday. China is greatly concerned about the reports that said the Syrian Army has recently granted senior military ranks to a number of foreign terrorist fighters, including the head of Council, a listed terrorist organisation, the Turkistan Islamic Party, also known as the ETIM, Cong said. He called on Syria to fulfil its counter-terrorism obligations and to prevent any terrorist forces from using Syrian territory to threaten the security of other countries, according to official media reports here. Reports from Syria say that the new Syrian regi
The US needs to keep troops deployed in Syria to prevent the Islamic State group from reconstituting as a major threat following the ouster of Bashar Assad's government, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press. American forces are still needed there, particularly to ensure the security of detention camps holding tens of thousands of former IS fighters and family members, Austin said Wednesday in one of his final interviews before he leaves office. According to estimates, there are as many as 8,000-10,000 IS fighters in the camps, and at least 2,000 of them are considered to be very dangerous. If Syria is left unprotected, I think ISIS fighters would enter back into the mainstream, Austin said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he travelled to discuss military aid for Ukraine with about 50 partner nations. He was using another acronym for the Islamic State group. I think that we still have some work to do in terms of keeping a foot on the throat of ISIS," he ...
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The US on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria's transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid after Islamist insurgents ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad last month. The US Treasury issued a general license, lasting six months, that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions. The move does not lift sanctions on the nation that has been battered by more than a decade of war, but indicates a limited show of US support for the new transitional government. The general license underscores America's commitment to ensuring its sanctions do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance, a Treasury Department statement reads. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said his agency "will continue to support humanitarian assistance and responsible governance in Syria. Since Assad's ouster, representatives from the nation's new
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Assad's forces near the industrial town of Adra
Syria's embassy in Lebanon suspended consular services on Saturday, a day after two relatives of deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad were arrested at the Beirut airport with allegedly forged passports. Also on Saturday, Lebanese authorities handed over dozens of Syrians including former officers in the Syrian army under Assad to the new Syrian authorities after they were caught illegally entering Lebanon, a war monitor and Lebanese officials said. The embassy announced on its Facebook page that consular work was suspended until further notice at the order of the Syrian foreign ministry. The announcement did not give a reason for the suspension. Two Lebanese security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said the suspension was ordered because the passports belonging to Assad's relatives the wife and daughter of one of his cousins were believed to have been forged at the embassy. Assad's uncle, Rifaat Assad who has
Several deadly incidents in recent days underscore the fragile security situation in Syria following the downfall of Assad's long-standing regime
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