Middle East latest: Syrians celebrate Assad's fall as US seeks a peaceful political transition
Thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus’ main square and a historic mosque for the first Muslim Friday prayers since former President Bashar Assad was overthrown, a major symbolic moment for the country’s dramatic change of power. The rebels are now working to establish security and start a political transition after seizing the capital on Sunday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Friday, pressing ahead with efforts to unify Middle East nations in support of a peaceful political transition in Syria. It’s part of Blinken’s 12th trip to the Mideast since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year in Gaza but his first after Assad was ousted.
The U.S. is also making a renewed push for an ceasefire in Gaza, where the war has plunged more than 2 million Palestinians into a severe humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s war against Hamas has killed over 44,800 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and around 250 others were taken hostage. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
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UNITED NATIONS – Syria’s interim government is calling on the U.N. Security Council to take action to compel Israel to immediately stop its attacks on Syrian territory and withdraw from areas it has penetrated in the north in violation of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
In identical letters to the council and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said he was acting “on instructions from my government” in making the demands. It appeared to be the first letter to the U.N. from Syria’s new interim government.
The letters are dated Dec. 9, days after rebels ousted president Bashar Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year authoritarian rule of Syria.
“At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to achieve their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has penetrated additional areas of Syrian territory in Mount Hermon and Quneitra Governorate,” ambassador Aldahhak wrote.
Israel still controls the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war. The Disengagement Agreement ending the 1973 war between Israel and Syria established a demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries, monitored by a U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNDOF.
In a letter to the Security Council circulated Friday which was also written on Dec. 9, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said his country had taken “limited and temporary measures,” deploying troops temporarily in the separation area “to prevent armed groups from threatening Israeli territory.”
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that eliminating a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia is his country’s “strategic goal,” and called on members of the group to leave Syria or lay down arms.
In an interview with Turkey’s NTV television, Fidan also suggested that Syria’s new rulers — the rebels who swept into Damascus and who are backed by Ankara — would not recognize the militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.
The group is allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State group but Turkey views it as a terrorist organization and a security threat.
“The non-Syrian YPG members must leave the country as soon as possible. The entire command level of the YPG must also leave the country,” Fidan said. “After that, those who remain must put down their weapons and continue with their lives.”
Fidan said that as the Syrian insurgents advanced toward Damascus and Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled, Turkey in talks that were underway in Qatar at the time asked Iran and Russia not to intervene militarily.
“At some point they (Russians and Iranians) made phone calls. That evening, Assad left,” Fidan said.
UNITED NATIONS —– The situation in Gaza is rapidly deteriorating with scores of reported fatalities from multiple Israeli airstrikes in recent days and insecurity hampering aid deliveries, the United Nations said Friday.
U.N. humanitarian coordinator Muhannad Hadi urged respect for the principles of “distinction, proportionality and precautions” and called on the parties to ensure the protection of civilians and safe and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid.
Hadi cited the looting of a 70-truck convoy that was traveling at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday and the looting of four out of five trucks leaving the Kissufim crossing that same day.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA reported that Israel denied more than 90% of the 137 missions the U.N. and its partners wanted to send to besieged northern Gaza since Oct. 6.
BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on Friday against sites in several cities in Syria, an opposition war monitor reported.
Associated Press journalists heard loud explosions throughout the Syrian capital Damascus. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The strikes hit the summit of Mount Qasioun in Damascus, Khalkhala Airport in the countryside of Sweida and the Defense and Research Laboratories in Masyaf, located in the western countryside of Hama, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Earlier on Friday, Israeli strikes targeted six military sites in the countryside of Damascus and Sweida, the observatory said.
Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes since the toppling of the Syrian regime, saying it seeks to neutralize potential threats following the ouster of Bashar Assad. The strikes have targeted weapons production sites, anti-aircraft batteries and airfields.
Israel has also moved troops to occupy a buffer zone in the Golan Heights on its border with Syria.
DAMASCUS, Syria — Russian forces and military vehicles were seen withdrawing from southern Syria on Friday toward their primary base in in the coastal city of Latakia.
The Russian troop movement comes amid questions about whether Moscow will still be able to project power in the Middle East after the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad. His rule was supported by Russia and he received asylum in Russia after being toppled Sunday.
There are also questions about what a Russian pullback in Syria could mean for the war in Ukraine.
Significant Russian military convoys were seen on the Damascus-Homs highway near Shinshar village heading north. The military vehicles, bearing Russian flags, included tanks and armored personnel carriers. The military equipment had been previously stationed in southern regions such as Daraa and Damascus.
On Thursday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Russian forces were leaving bases in Ain Issa and Tel Al-Samn in the Al-Raqqah countryside.
Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies on Friday show what appear to be cargo planes at a Russian military airfield in Syria with their nose cones opened to receive heavy equipment, along with helicopters being dismantled and prepared for transport.
Earlier this week, all Russian naval ships departed the Syrian port of Tartus, according to a U.S. official.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus will reopen on Saturday for the first time since 2012, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Friday.
In an interview with Turkey’s NTV television Fidan said a newly appointed interim charge d’affaires had left for Damascus on Friday together with his delegation.
“It will be operational as of tomorrow,” he said.
The embassy in Damascus had suspended operations in 2012 due to the escalating security conditions during the Syrian civil war. All embassy staff and their families were recalled to Turkey.
The Syrian insurgents who overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday did so with vital help from Turkey.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has transported out of Syria an American who disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, a U.S. official said Friday.
Travis Timmerman was flown out of Syria on a U.S. military helicopter, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.
Timmerman, 29, told The Associated Press he had gone to Syria on a Christian pilgrimage and was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.”
Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them.
He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.
— By Lolita C. Baldor
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch court on Friday rejected a bid from human rights groups to block weapons exports to Israel and trading with the occupied territories, after finding there were sufficient checks already in place to comply with international law.
The ten organizations told The Hague District Court last month that they thought the Netherlands was in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up following World War II, by continuing to sell weapons to Israel more than a year into the conflict in Gaza.
“The government uses my own tax money, that I pay, to kill my own family. I’ve lost 18 members of my own family,” Ahmed Abofoul, a legal adviser for the pro-Palestinian organization Al-Haq, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit, told the court during a hearing in November.
The court ruling said that “it is not up to the interim relief judge to order the state to reconsider government policy. That is primarily a political responsibility.”
Lawyers for the government argued it wasn’t up to a judge to decide foreign policy for the Netherlands.
The activist groups pointed to several emergency orders from another court, the International Court of Justice, as confirming the obligation to stop weapons sales. In January, the top U.N. court said it was plausible Palestinians were being deprived of some rights protected under the Genocide Convention.
The coalition said it will review the court’s ruling and is considering an appeal.
CAIRO — Israeli attacks in and around a hospital in northern Gaza wounded three medical staff overnight into Friday and caused damage to the isolated medical facility, according to its director.
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya said Israeli quadcopter drones carrying explosives deliberately targeted the emergency and reception area of Kamal Adwan Hospital, where one doctor was wounded for a third time.
Abu Safiya said “relentless” drone and artillery strikes throughout the night exploded “alarmingly close” to the hospital, heavily damaging nearby buildings and destroying most of the water tanks on the hospital’s roof and blowing out doors and windows.
Kamal Adwan Hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya has been hit multiple times over the past two months since Israel launched a fierce military operation against Hamas in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.
“We demand international protection for the hospital and its staff,” Abu Safiya said in a statement released via the U.K.-based aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians, “as well as the entry of delegations with surgical expertise, medical supplies, and essential medications to ensure we can adequately serve the people we are treating.”
Abu Safiya said there were 72 wounded patients at the hospital, one of the few medical facilities left in northern Gaza. He said he expected Israeli forces would allow a World Health Organization aid convoy to bring supplies to the hospital on Friday or Saturday, as well as a team of doctors from Indonesia.
Israel has allowed almost no humanitarian or medical aid to enter the three besieged communities in northern Gaza — Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp — and ordered tens of thousands to flee to nearby Gaza City.
Israeli officials have said the three communities are mostly deserted, but the United Nations humanitarian office said Tuesday it believes around 65,000 to 75,000 people are still there, with little access to food, water, electricity or health care. Experts have warned that the north may be experiencing famine.
BAGHDAD — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced stop in Iraq on Friday on his latest visit to the Middle East aimed at stabilizing the situation in Syria to prevent further regional turmoil.
Blinken met in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani as part of the hastily arranged trip, his 12th to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year but his first since the weekend ouster of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad.
Blinken has already been to Jordan and Turkey on his current tour and will return to the Jordanian city of Aqaba for meetings on Saturday with Arab foreign ministers, Turkey’s foreign minister and the United Nations special envoy for Syria, the U.N. said.
Blinken will try to unify support for an inclusive post-Assad transition that does not allow the Islamic State group to take advantage of the political vacuum in Syria and secures suspected chemical weapons stocks. In Baghdad, Blinken underscored “U.S. commitment to the U.S.-Iraq strategic partnership and to Iraq’s security, stability, and sovereignty,” the State Department said.
“He will also discuss regional security opportunities and challenges, as well as enduring U.S. support for engagement with all communities in Syria to establish an inclusive transition,” it said in a statement.
His trip comes as the Biden administration winds down with just over a month left before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has been highly critical of Biden’s approach to the Middle East and skeptical of the U.S. military presence in both Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. and Iraq agreed in September to wrap up U.S.-led military operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq next year, although Assad’s ouster and the potential for the group taking advantage of a political vacuum in Syria could complicate the timing of the withdrawal, according to American officials.
DAMASCUS — The kingdom of Bahrain sent a message Friday to Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the insurgency that toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It said Bahrain is “fully prepared to consult with you continuously and to provide support in regional and international organizations to achieve what is in the interest of the brotherly Syrian people.”
It added, “We look forward to Syria regaining its authentic role in the Arab League.” Bahrain is the current head of the Arab summit.
Syria was readmitted to the Arab League last year after 12 years of ostracization. It is still unclear how the international community will deal officially with the new interim government in Syria.
JERUSALEM - Israel’s defense minister told troops to prepare to remain through the winter months on the peak of Mount Hermon, Syria’s highest point, located in a swath of southern Syria that Israeli troops moved into after the fall of Damascus to insurgents.
The comments by Defense Minister Israel Katz signaled that the military will extend its occupation of the zone along the border, which Israel says it seized to create a buffer zone.
In a statement Friday, Katz said that holding the peak was of major importance for Israel’s security and that it would be necessary to build facilities there to sustain troops through the winter.
The summit of Mount Hermon, the highest peak on the eastern Mediterranean coast at 2,814 meters (9,232 feet), gives a commanding view over the plains of southern Syria. It also positions Israeli troops about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the center of Damascus. The mount is divided between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Lebanon and Syria. Only the United States recognizes Israel’s control of the Golan Heights.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israeli troops would remain in the zone until another force across the border in Syria could guarantee security. Israeli troops moved into the zone -– set as a demilitarized area inside Syrian territory under truce deals that ended the 1973 Mideast war -- after the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell last weekend.
ANKARA, Turkey -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday there was “broad agreement” between Turkey and the United States on what they would like to see in Syria following the ouster of President Bashar Assad.
“There’s broad agreement on what we would like to see going forward, starting with the interim government in Syria, one that is inclusive and non-sectarian and one that protects the rights of minorities and women” and does not “pose any kind of threat to any of Syria’s neighbors,” Blinken said in joint statements with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The insurgent groups that toppled Assad in Syria have not made clear their policy or stance on Israel, whose military in recent days has bombed sites all over the country, saying it is trying to prevent weapons from falling into extremist hands.
Blinken also said it was crucial to keep the Islamic State group under control.
“We also discussed the imperative of continuing the efforts to keep ISIS down. Our countries worked very hard and gave a lot over many years to ensure the elimination of the territorial caliphate of ISIS to ensure that that threat doesn’t rear its head again,” Blinken said.
The Turkish foreign minister said the two discussed ways of establishing prosperity in Syria and ending terrorism in the country.
“Our priority is establishing stability in Syria as soon as possible, preventing terrorism from gaining ground, and ensuring that IS and the PKK aren’t dominant,” Fidan said, in a reference to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party.
Blinken said: “We’re very focused on Syria, very focused on the opportunity that now is before us and before the Syrian people to move from out from under the shackles of Bashar al-Assad to a different and better future for the Syrian people, one that the Syrian people decide for themselves.”
Blinken and Fidan said they had also discussed a ceasefire for Gaza.
“We’ve seen in the last couple of weeks more encouraging signs that (a ceasefire) is possible,” Blinken said.
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