All posts tagged: Syria

WHO worker and Iranian adviser among several killed in Syria air strikes | Syria’s War News

WHO worker and Iranian adviser among several killed in Syria air strikes | Syria’s War News

The Syrian Observatory said the villa targeted ‘served as a communications centre’ in the area. At least eight people have been killed in air strikes in eastern Syria, according to a war monitor and Syrian state media, including a World Health Organization worker and an Iranian military adviser. It was not immediately clear who was behind the air strikes on Tuesday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor affiliated with Syria’s opposition, said at least 15 people were killed, including an adviser with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), two of his bodyguards, nine Iraqi fighters from an Iran-backed group and two Syrians working with the Iranians. Syrian state media said at least seven soldiers, including a member of the IRGC, and one civilian were killed. At least 19 other soldiers and 13 civilians were wounded in the strikes that targeted residential areas and military sites in Deir ez-Zor province and caused significant damage to public and private properties, Syrian state media said. Emad Shehab, an engineer in the provincial capital, also …

US Sanctions Assad Supporters Over Drug Trafficking

US Sanctions Assad Supporters Over Drug Trafficking

Washington —  The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 11 people and companies on Tuesday it said were involved in illicit financial transfers and drug smuggling in support of the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Many of those sanctioned were involved in the trade of the highly addictive amphetamine captagon, which is illegally trafficked throughout the Middle East and Europe, the Treasury Department said in a statement. Syria has become the world’s leading producer of the powerful drug, and its trade has helped bolster the Assad’s government’s coffers during the country’s long-running civil war. “The revenue from the illicit Captagon trade has become a major source of income for the Assad regime, the Syrian armed forces, and Syrian paramilitary forces,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. Those sanctioned include a Syrian national called Taher al-Kayali, who allegedly operates a company that purchased vessels to smuggle captagon and hashish. Maya Exchange Company, another Syria-based firm, is alleged to have facilitated “millions” of dollars of illicit transactions to benefit the Syrian government. “The Assad regime continues to …

Moscow massacre sparks battle of blame – POLITICO

Moscow massacre sparks battle of blame – POLITICO

Indeed, the Moscow attack is reminiscent of the Islamic State attack in 2015 at the Bataclan theater in Paris, a killing spree that left 90 dead. Friday’s shooting rampage also bore similarities to the 2002 Nord Ost theater siege, when a group of Chechen gunmen and women occupied a packed theater in eastern Moscow and demanded an end to the Second Chechen War. A bungled rescue by Russian special forces, using a deadly sleeping gas, left more hostages dead than were killed by the Islamist gunmen.   Many members of the Islamist Chechen separatist group behind the theater attack would later move on and enlist with the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS, in Syria. Chechens began arriving in Syria starting in 2011. They made up the second-largest contingent of the Islamic State’s foreign fighters and their numbers were also disproportionately high in al Qaeda’s faction in Syria. Battle-hardened and experienced, several Chechens rose to become Islamic State commanders, including Umar Shishani and Salahuddin Shishani, according to a study by Neil Hauer for the Atlantic …

Ignoring Syrian Crisis Risks Destabilizing Region, Experts Say

Ignoring Syrian Crisis Risks Destabilizing Region, Experts Say

GENEVA —  More than 13 years after Syria erupted into civil war, the United Nations says the country has become a more dangerous place for civilians, noting that the oppressive government of President Bashir al-Assad that sparked the flames of conflict remains in power and continues to escalate hostilities on multiple fronts. “The Syria crisis remains one of the most deadly to civilians in the world. Hostilities continue to plague various parts of Syria and have recently seen a sharp spike, particularly in the north,” said Adam Abdelmoula, resident and humanitarian coordinator for Syria, at a news conference in Geneva Friday. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, says 454 civilians, including 88 women and 115 children, were killed in the first 10 months of 2023 because of the conflict. Those casualties are the latest manifestation of the toll taken by the war on Syria’s population. The U.N. estimates that since the start of the war on March 15, 2011, 300,000 people have been killed, more than 12 million have been …

Switzerland to try Syria’s Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes | Courts News

Switzerland to try Syria’s Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes | Courts News

Rifaat al-Assad is accused of ordering crimes as a commander in Hama in February 1982, Swiss attorney general says. Swiss federal prosecutors have referred Syria’s ex-Vice President Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of the country’s current president, for trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed more than four decades ago. The attorney general’s office said on Tuesday the 86-year-old was accused of the crimes in February 1982 while serving as commander of the defence brigades that carried out an attack in the Syrian city of Hama during a conflict between the military and the opposition. Security forces killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the central city that year. “The accused is charged with ordering homicides, acts of torture, cruel treatments and illegal detentions … in his capacity as commander of the defence brigades … and commander of operations in Hama,” the office said in a statement. It said the alleged “war crimes and crimes against humanity” he was being charged with had taken place “within the context of …

Syria avoids regional cold shoulder despite Captagon drug trade | Drugs News

Syria avoids regional cold shoulder despite Captagon drug trade | Drugs News

In Iraq’s western Anbar province, authorities made a new drug bust at the end of February, seizing 80kg (176lb) of the narcotic Captagon. It is just the latest seizure of the Middle East’s budget amphetamine of choice in Iraq, and in a region that lies just across the border from Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has increasingly come to rely on the manufacture and export of the drug as an illicit source of funding in an economy devastated by war. Rising to international prominence in the 2010s after it reportedly became the drug of choice for ISIL (ISIS) fighters, Captagon was originally developed in the 1960s and often called the “poor man’s cocaine”. By the 2000s, production had largely moved to the Middle East, where the drug’s quality varies almost as much as its customer base. In some of the more affluent regions of the region, Captagon is used by young people to add an illicit thrill to a weekend’s evening. But for a taxi driver facing the prospect of another double …

US Proxies Fear ‘Afghanistan-Style’ Withdrawal From Syria

US Proxies Fear ‘Afghanistan-Style’ Withdrawal From Syria

Via The Cradle The US military’s Kurdish proxies occupying northeast Syria fear an “Afghanistan-like pullout” of US forces that would leave them at the mercy of their long-time enemy Turkey, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported Friday.  Turkey has escalated its airstrikes on areas in northeast Syria occupied by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in recent months; at the same time, Washington is in talks with the Iraqi government to potentially withdraw forces from Iraq.  YPG/”Syrian Democratic Forces backed by the Pentagon, Getty Images The 900 US soldiers occupying northeast Syria with the SDF receive logistical support from US forces in Iraq. Any US withdrawal from Iraq may necessitate US withdrawal from Syria as well.  “The whole region is on fire and nobody will respond to Turkey’s aggression against us when everyone is busy with Gaza. We have asked the US to rein in Turkey, but they have brushed us off,” said Mahmoud Meslat, co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF. In recent months, Turkey has bombed power stations, the region’s electric grid, medical …

Priti Patel slams ‘wrong’ UN for interfering in Jihadi bride Shamima Begum case | Politics | News

Priti Patel slams ‘wrong’ UN for interfering in Jihadi bride Shamima Begum case | Politics | News

Dame Priti Patel has slammed the UN for claiming Jihadi bride Shamima Begum is a “possible victim of trafficking”. The Court of Appeal on Friday rejected an appeal by the ISIS fanatic to have her British citizenship restored. But UN special rapporteurs claimed that Begum was a “possible victim of trafficking” and remains “vulnerable” without her British citizenship. And Dame Priti, the former Home Secretary, said the UN is “wrong on this”, and slammed their intervention. She said: “It’s absolutely clear, the UN are wrong on this, basically. “The UN should not be getting involved in what is a very domestic case of the United Kingdom. “Every Home Secretary, my predecessors, and those I guess that have followed me since have been very clear on this. “That case is closed as far as we’re concerned, and the evidence against it is so substantial.” Ms Begum’s lawyers have relied on claims she had been groomed, trafficked and sexually exploited by ISIS terrorists to have her citizenship restored. The UN said in a statement: “There is a credible …

Five SAS soldiers under investigation for alleged war crimes in Syria | UK News

Five SAS soldiers under investigation for alleged war crimes in Syria | UK News

Five SAS soldiers are being investigated for potential war crimes over the death of a suspected militant in Syria two years ago. The soldiers, who have not yet been charged, remain on active duty while the Defence Serious Crimes Unit investigates the incident. The allegations, first reported by The Daily Mail and The Guardian, concern claims the elite soldiers used excessive force when dealing with the suspected militant while deployed inside Syria and should have arrested the man instead. The troops reportedly believed he had intended to carry out a suicide attack. The Daily Mail, citing anonymous SAS sources, said a primed suicide vest was found nearby but the suspect was not wearing it when he was killed. Following an investigation by the Defence Serious Crimes Unit, military chiefs reportedly sent files recommending murder charges against the five soldiers to the Service Prosecuting Authority. Asked about the allegations, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: “We hold our personnel to the highest standards and any allegations of wrongdoing are taken seriously. “Where appropriate, any …