The Pentagon on Wednesday dismissed claims by a US politician that Iran might be launching drones over New Jersey from a “mothership” off the East Coast, Reuters reports.
Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew claimed he had uncovered what appeared to be an Iranian plot, telling Fox News and posting on social media that “drones flying in from the direction of the ocean, possibly linked to a missing Iranian mothership'”.
“There is no truth to that,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh. “There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States and there’s no so-called ‘mothership’ launching drones towards the United States.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration said it began receiving reports of drone activity near Morris County, New Jersey, on Monday. The FAA has barred drone flights over Picatinny Arsenal Military Base and Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
Last week, the FBI and New Jersey state police asked the public to report any information related to the recent sightings of possible drones flying in several areas along the Raritan River.
“Witnesses have spotted the cluster of what look to be drones and a possible fixed-wing aircraft. We have reports from the public and law enforcement dating back several weeks,” the FBI said.
The Pentagon said an initial assessment had shown the drones were not from another country and that the U.S. military had not shot them down because they did not pose a threat to any military installations.
“We have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity or the work of an adversary,” Singh said. “We’re going to continue to monitor what is happening. But, you know, at no point were our installations threatened when this activity was occurring.”
Still, the latest drone sightings are a reminder of the growing concern about a proliferation of drone technology and the potential security considerations, given that drones can carry surveillance technology or even explosives.
At a press conference, House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries was asked about the lack of information about the drones.
“We need a greater degree of transparency from law enforcement authorities and we will make sure that happens in the days and weeks to come,” Jeffries said.
Syrian Kurdish military leader warns over Isis threat
On Wednesday night, the leader of the Syrian Kurdish military, Mazlum Abdi, said that they were halting “joint operations against Isis” because the US-led anti Isis coalition was preoccupied after the fall of Assad.
“Isis is now stronger in the Syrian desert,” he warned and said that plans for breaking out from the camps and prisons are “always on their agenda”.
Updated
Syria’s Baath party has suspended its work indefinitely following the ousting of Bashaar al-Assad, a prominent Baathist.
On Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported that the Baath party’s central leadership has decided to “o “suspend party work and activity in all its forms... until further notice,” according to a statement from the website of the party’s newspaper.
The statement added that the party’s properties and funds will be handed over to Syria’s interior and finance ministries.
As an artist and audio investigator, Lawrence Abu Hamdan has mapped out Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison with testimonies from its survivors.
Abu Hamdan reports for the Guardian:
In 2016, I worked with Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International to lead the acoustic part of the investigation into Sednaya, the Assad regime’s most notorious prison. Since the uprising against the regime began in 2011 until the early hours of Sunday, the prison had been inaccessible to journalists and independent observers. The memories of the few people who have been released were the only resources available to learn about and then document the mass-murder, torture and violation that took place there.
In Sednaya, prisoners’ capacity to see anything was highly restricted. From the time detainees were taken from their homes or pulled out of protests and thrown into cells, they were blindfolded. In the cells they were kept in darkness, made to cover their eyes and face the wall in the presence of the guards. Over time, they developed an acute sensitivity to sound. My task, as an artist and audio investigator, was to develop “earwitness” interviews with six survivors of Sednaya, using their sonic memories to help reveal the crimes that took place inside.
For the full story, click here:
Summary of the day
It is approaching 9pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, 10pm in Damascus, and 10.30pm in Tehran.
Here are some of the headlines so far today:
The tomb of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez was torched in his home town of Qardaha, accoding to AFP footage taken on Wednesday. AFP said it showed rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP the rebels had set fire to the mausoleum, located in the Latakia heartland of Assad’s Alawite community. AFP footage showed parts of the mausoleum ablaze and damaged.
Syria’s new prime minister said the alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will “guarantee” the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home. Leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, also pledged justice for the victims of Assad’s iron-fisted rule, vowing on Wednesday that officials involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned.
Syria’s transitional authorities must strive for a more inclusive process, bringing in different parties and communities to avoid new civil strife, the UN envoy for Syria said on Wednesday. “My biggest concern is that the transition will create new contradictions in the manner that could lead to new civil strife and potentially a new civil war,” Geir Pedersen told AFP in a brief interview in Geneva.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed five people in the south on Wednesday. “An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Ainata killed one person and wounded another,” the health ministry said. It added that an Israeli strike on the town of Bint Jbeil killed three people, while a third on Beit Lif killed one person.
Israeli strikes in the northern and central Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed at least 31 Palestinians, most of them in Beit Lahia in the north, reported local medics. Health officials said an Israeli airstrike on a house in Beit Lahiya killed at least 22 people, including women and children. Earlier on Wednesday, at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat camp. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Wednesday that at least 22 people were killed overnight in the Gaza Strip by Israeli strikes.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will head to Jordan and Turkey on Wednesday for talks on Syria, the Department of State said. Blinken, who will visit Aqaba, Jordan and Ankara, Turkey through Friday, will also discuss regional developments including in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, the department said in a statement. National security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is also traveling to Israel on Wednesday, the White House said.
The UN general assembly will vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, a symbolic gesture after the US vetoed a similar action in the UN security council. The draft resolution, which would be non-binding if approved, calls for both “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”. The resolution also demands “immediate access” to widespread humanitarian aid for the citizens of Gaza, especially in the north.
Israel must withdraw forces from the buffer zone separating the annexed Golan Heights from Syrian territory, France’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday. “Any military deployment in the separation zone between Israel and Syria is a violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Humanitarian aid to northern Gaza has largely been blocked for the past 66 days, the UN has said. That has left between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care, according to the world body.
Damascus airport, closed since rebel forces overran the Syrian capital at the weekend, is to reopen “in the next few days”, its director Anis Fallouh told AFP on Wednesday. “God willing, the airport will reopen as quickly as possible because we are going to work flat out,” Fallouh said. Pushed to give a timeframe for the reopening, he said it ought to happen “in the next few days”.
There is a chance now for a deal to release all the hostages held in Gaza, including US citizens, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call on Wednesday, Katz’s office said in a statement.
Katz, rebuffed on Wednesday Iranian accusation of a US-Israeli “plot” to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, saying Tehran has itself to blame for the fall of its ally. Katz, on a tour of the Jordanian border with military commanders, accused Iran of trying to establish an “eastern front” against Israel in the neighbouring kingdom, and vowed to prevent it.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Assad’s ousting this week by Islamist-led rebels “is the product of a joint US-Israeli plot”, also blaming another unnamed “neighbouring state of Syria”.
Germany’s foreign minister on Wednesday urged Israel and Turkey not to jeopardise a peaceful transition in Syria. “We must not allow the internal Syrian dialogue process to be torpedoed from the outside,” Annalena Baerbock told a Berlin press conference. “We must now seek to promote positive developments in Syria and prevent negative influences,” she said.
The Kremlin on Wednesday played down the damage to Russian influence in the Middle East from the fall of Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, saying that its focus was on Ukraine and that Moscow was in contact with Syria’s new rulers. “You know, of course, that we are in contact with those who are currently in control of the situation in Syria,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Wednesday during a visit to South Africa that there were some signs of hope from the end of the Syrian dictatorship. He was quoted as saying: “I fully trust Syrian people to be able to choose their own destiny.”
Qatar will soon reopen its embassy in Damascus, Syria. Foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said in a statement: “[Qatar] will soon reopen its embassy in the sisterly Syrian Arab Republic after completing the necessary arrangements.”
Russia told its citizens in Syria to take maximum precautions and avoid crowded places. In a press briefing on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova issued the warning, and said her country’s embassy was operating in Syria “under conditions of extremely high security threats”.
Greece on Wednesday suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the government announced. “We are temporarily freezing … all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data,” migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told Real FM radio. The announcement came as Save the Children and the Greek Council for Refugees urged the government to take immediate steps to improve living conditions in remote migrant reception camps.
Pope Francis on Wednesday called on Syria’s new leadership to stabilise the country, and govern in a way that promotes national unity. In his first public remarks about Syria since the ending of Assad’s rule, the pope called on the country’s diverse religious groups to “walk together in friendship and mutual respect for the good of the nation”.
In her House of Commons statement on immigration today, Yvette Cooper, the UK home secretary, said the government would be monitoring the situation in Syria before deciding whether or not to lift the pause on asylum applications from Syrians. She said the government needed to “monitor the evolving situation”, later adding: “There’s a lot we simply do not know about how events are going to play out in Syria.”
Ireland has added itself to the list of European countries to suspend the processing of asylum applications by refugees from Syria. The Irish minister for justice told Reuters on Wednesday that the international protection office would temporarily pause the issuing of final determinations while the situation in Syria was kept under review.
Paraguay’s president Santiago Peña visited Jerusalem on Wednesday where he met his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog. Peña was inaugurating a new embassy situated in Jerusalem.
Updated
'Inclusive' Syria transition vital to avert 'new civil war', says UN envoy
Syria’s transitional authorities must strive for a more inclusive process, bringing in different parties and communities to avoid new civil strife, the UN envoy for Syria said on Wednesday.
“My biggest concern is that the transition will create new contradictions in the manner that could lead to new civil strife and potentially a new civil war,” Geir Pedersen told AFP in a brief interview in Geneva.
Longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fled Syria on Sunday after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group and its allies.
Mohammad al-Bashir, whom the rebels appointed as the transitional head of government, has sought to allay fears over how Syria would be ruled and how minorities would be treated. “Precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria,” he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Pedersen told AFP that Bashir’s appointment had “created some negative reactions among Syrians, because they were afraid that this was a way for one group to monopolise power”.
“I think it’s extremely important that the new authorities in Damascus make clear what they want to achieve during these three months,” he said.
The initial signals, Pedersen said, indicated the transitional authorities “understood that they need to prepare for a more inclusive process”, bringing onboard different parties, sectors of society and armed factions, as well as women.
He said he hoped the need for inclusiveness was understood. “If not, it will not only create nervousness inside of Syria, with the potential for new civil strife, even civil war, but it will also create negative reactions from neighbouring countries,” Pedersen warned.
He told AFP:
There is so much at stake that it is extremely important that messages coming out from the armed group in Damascus … (are) reassuring to all communities in Syria and also to the international community.”
Pedersen also stressed that it was “important that no international actor is doing anything that could derail the very complicated transitional process”.
Since Assad’s ouster, Israel, which borders Syria, has sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, in a move the UN has said violates the 1974 armistice.
“This is obviously a violation of the agreement from the 1974 and it’s also a violation, it goes without saying, of Syria sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity,” Pedersen said.
The Israeli military has also said it has conducted hundreds of strikes against Syrian military assets in the past two days, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defences to keep them out of rebel hands.
Pedersen said he had spoken with Syrian ambassadors, whom the transitional authorities asked to remain in their posts, about Israel’s chemical weapons fears. “They are emphasising very strongly that they are respecting the agreements that were put in place and they are not going to play with this,” he said.
Updated
Lebanon says five people killed in Israeli strikes in south
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed five people in the south on Wednesday, amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after two months of all-out war, reports AFP.
The Lebanese army said it deployed troops around Khiam, a key town just 5km (three miles) from the border that saw heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Ainata killed one person and wounded another,” the health ministry said. An “Israeli strike on the town of Bint Jbeil killed three people,” while a third “on Beit Lif killed one person”, reports AFP.
A ceasefire came into effect on 27 November. Both sides have accused the other of repeated violations.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army is to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.
Hezbollah is required to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in the south.
The Lebanese army said “units deployed in five positions around the town of Khiam” in coordination with UN peacekeepers and “within the framework of the first phase of deployment in the area, at the same time as the Israeli enemy withdrawal”.
“The deployment will be completed in the next phase, while specialised units” will survey the town to “remove unexploded ordnance”, it added.
The UN general assembly will vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, a symbolic gesture after the US vetoed a similar action in the UN security council, reports AFP.
Late last month, Washington used its veto power on the council – as it has before – to protect its ally Israel, which has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant group’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
The US blocked the council’s attempt to call for a ceasefire, saying a link between a ceasefire and a release of all hostages had to be maintained.
This time in the assembly, the draft resolution, which would be non-binding if approved, calls for both “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, reports AFP. The resolution also demands “immediate access” to widespread humanitarian aid for the citizens of Gaza, especially in the besieged north of the territory.
During the debate before the vote, which is due to take place at about 3pm (8pm GMT), those who spoke largely backed the draft.
“Gaza doesn’t exist any more. It is destroyed,” Slovenia’s UN envoy, Samuel Žbogar, told the assembly. “History is the harshest critic of inaction.”
That criticism was echoed by Algeria’s deputy UN ambassador, Nacim Gaouaoui, who said:
The price of silence and failure in the face of the Palestinian tragedy is a very heavy price, and it will be heavier tomorrow.”
Damascus airport to reopen 'in next few days', says its director
Damascus airport, closed since rebel forces overran the Syrian capital at the weekend, is to reopen “in the next few days”, its director Anis Fallouh told AFP on Wednesday.
“God willing, the airport will reopen as quickly as possible because we are going to work flat out,” Fallouh said. Pushed to give a timeframe for the reopening, he said it ought to happen “in the next few days”.
“We can quickly let aircraft resume flights through Syrian airspace, which has been closed,” he added.
An AFP correspondent saw armed rebel fighters deployed around the airport.
Aircraft maintenance official, Samer Radi, said there were currently 12 aircraft on the ground, one of which had been stripped of its equipment by unknown looters during the rebel takeover.
There is a chance now for a deal to release all the hostages held in Gaza, including US citizens, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call on Wednesday, Katz’s office said in a statement.
“Minister Katz updated secretary of defence Austin on the negotiations for the release of the hostages, and said that there is now a chance for a new deal that will allow the return of all the hostages, including those with American citizenship,” Katz’s office said in a statement, reports Reuters.
This combination of pictures created today shows (on the right) rebel fighters standing next to the burning gravesite of Syria’s late president Hafez al-Assad at his mausoleum in the family’s ancestral village of Qardaha in the western Latakia province, after it was stormed by opposition factions.
The picture on the left, released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on 10 June 2001, shows a Palestinian delegation visiting the same tomb during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Hafez al-Assad’s death.
Greece on Wednesday suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the government announced, as NGOs criticised conditions in reception camps for migrants, reports AFP.
“We are temporarily freezing … all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data,” migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told Real FM radio.
Greece, the entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Europe, is the latest to suspend asylum decisions after Assad’s ouster.
The announcement came as Save the Children and the Greek Council for Refugees urged the government to take immediate steps to improve living conditions in remote migrant reception camps, according to AFP.
Migrant and refugee arrivals to Greece rose to a five-year high in 2024, with more than 57,300 people entering the country in the first 11 months of the year, the charities said, quoting UN refugee agency (UNHCR) data. Of those, more than 13,000 were children who arrived by sea – up about 50% on 2023, they added.
The NGOs said children and their families should be moved to reception centres in towns and cities from the moment they arrive and seek asylum because of conditions in the camps.
Children in the camps have reported “alarming” conditions, including poor-quality and out-of-date food. There has also been a lack of child-protection measures and access to schooling or mental health support, as well as violence, reports AFP.
One 13-year-old boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo said he found life in one camp about 70km (45 miles) from Athens “dangerous and isolating”. He also claimed frequent discrimination, according to AFP.
Save the Children Europe’s director and EU representative, Willy Bergogne, said:
The EU and Greek authorities have a moral and legal obligation to act urgently to improve the conditions in the camps and protect these children and ensure they have access to safety, adequate services, and dignity.”
The director of the Greek Council for Refugees, Lefteris Papagiannakis, said the situation at the reception camps was longstanding. He added:
But what is surprising is that, after almost 10 years of enhanced experience in managing the reception of asylum seekers in Greece, we’re witnessing an ongoing downgrading in essential service provision, including services for children.”
Syria’s new prime minister said the alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will “guarantee” the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home, reports AFP.
Assad fled Syria after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies.
With Assad’s overthrow plunging Syria into the unknown, its new rulers have sought to assure members of the country’s religious minorities that they will not repress them, reports AFP.
They have also pledged justice for the victims of Assad’s iron-fisted rule, with HTS leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, vowing on Wednesday that officials involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned.
In her House of Commons statement on immigration today, Yvette Cooper, the UK home secretary, said the government would be monitoring the situation in Syria before deciding whether or not to lift the pause on asylum applications from Syrians.
She told MPs:
Let’s be clear, most of the claims, many of the claims that have been made, have been made against the Assad regime for asylum, which is clearly not in place.
It would therefore not be appropriate to be granting asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances.
We do need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and so that we can take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and the immigration systems back in control.”
And in a later answer she said:
There’s a lot we simply do not know about how events are going to play out in Syria.
Those who have taken over and who are involved in the initial overthrow of the Assad regime have said, initially, that they would pursue an approach which supported minorities, for example, within Syria, but of course we have seen further developments in recent days that raise questions about that and we’ve also just seen the huge instability with different organisations and groups operating across the country.
That is why we need to monitor this closely, I think everybody wants to see greater stability. We’ve also seen the initial signs of people wanting to return from Turkey to Syria, for example, in the first few days. But this is very unstable at the moment and that is why we need to approach this with care and monitoring the detail of what is happening.”
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, rebuffed on Wednesday Iranian accusation of a US-Israeli “plot” to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, saying Tehran has itself to blame for the fall of its ally.
Katz, on a tour of the Jordanian border with military commanders, accused Iran of trying to establish an “eastern front” against Israel in the neighbouring kingdom, and vowed to prevent it, reports AFP.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Assad’s ousting this week by Islamist-led rebels “is the product of a joint US-Israeli plot”, also blaming another unnamed “neighbouring state of Syria”.
Katz, according to a statement from his office, said that Khamenei “should blame himself” and stop financing armed groups “in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza to build the octopus arms he leads in an attempt to defeat the State of Israel”.
“I came here today to ensure that Iran will not succeed in building the octopus arm that it is planning and working to establish here, in order to create an eastern front against the State of Israel”, he said.
According to AFP, Katz suggested Iran was behind “attempts to smuggle weapons” into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which borders Jordan, as well as to “fund terrorism and promote” it.
The defence minister said he had instructed the army “to increase offensive operations against any terrorist activity” in the West Bank, and to “accelerate the construction of the fence on the Israel-Jordan border”.
France urges Israel to withdraw forces from Syria buffer zone
Israel must withdraw forces from the buffer zone separating the annexed Golan Heights from Syrian territory, France’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, according to AFP.
“Any military deployment in the separation zone between Israel and Syria is a violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarised zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.
“France calls on Israel to withdraw from the zone and to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said, reports AFP.
The area is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force known as UNDOF, with the global body warning Israel on Monday that it is in breach of the 50-year-old deal that ended a 1973 war with Syria.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UN official in New York told AFP that Israeli forces had occupied seven positions in the buffer zone.
France’s intervention follows condemnations from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Turkey, as well as a US call for the Israeli incursion to be “temporary”.
Reuters is now carrying fuller quotes from UN secretary-general António Guterres, who commented on the situation in Syria while on a visit to South Africe. He said:
As we speak, we are witnessing the reshaping of the Middle East. We also see some signs of hope, and signs of hope namely coming from the end of the Syrian dictatorship.
It’s our duty to do everything to support different Syrian leaders in order to make sure that they come together, they are able to guarantee a smooth transition, an inclusive transition in which all Syrians can feel that they belong. The alternative doesn’t make any sense.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from the region.
The National News Agency in Lebanon reports that one person has been killed by a “raid carried out by an Israeli enemy drone targeting a van with a guided missile on the road between the towns of Beit Lif and Sarbin” in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon.
Ireland has added itself to the list of European countries to suspend the processing of asylum applications by refugees from Syria.
The Irish minister for justice told Reuters on Wednesday that the international protection office would temporarily pause the issuing of final determinations while the situation in Syria was kept under review.
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK have all announced similar moves.
UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Wednesday during a visit to South Africa that there were some signs of hope from the end of the Syrian dictatorship, Reuters reports.
It quotes him saying “I fully trust Syrian people to be able to choose their own destiny.”
Germany’s foreign minister on Wednesday urged Israel and Turkey not to jeopardise a peaceful transition in Syria after the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.
“We must not allow the internal Syrian dialogue process to be torpedoed from the outside,” Annalena Baerbock told a Berlin press conference, reports AFP.
Baerbock said:
Neighbours such as the Turkish and Israeli governments, which are asserting their security interests, must not jeopardise the process.”
Since Assad’s downfall, Israel has launched strikes on military sites in Syria ranging from weapons depots to naval vessels, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. Israel has also sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
Turkey meanwhile is worried Kurdish separatists could take advantage of Assad’s ouster to extend their influence in Syria, where they have dominated a large north-eastern area since 2012.
Ankara sees the Kurdish forces, notably the militant group YPG, as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has fought a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s.
Since Assad fled, Turkish-backed groups have launched offensives in northern Syria.
According to AFP, the Kurdish-led force in the north-east of the country said on Wednesday it had reached a US-brokered ceasefire with the Turkish-backed fighters in Manbij, an Arab-majority city that has seen fierce clashes.
Baerbock said Syria’s “new chapter” was still being written, adding that “the outcome of the revolution is not certain, nor have the people won the transition to a free and peaceful Syria”.
“We must now seek to promote positive developments in Syria and prevent negative influences,” she said. “In very specific terms, this means that a Syrian-led dialogue process is needed, which we as Europeans and as Germans will support.”
“Syria must not be allowed to become a pawn in the hands of foreign powers or forces again,” she added.
Updated
Syria’s rebel leader says all involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned
Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known Abu Mohammed al-Golani, said on Wednesday that all who were involved in torturing and killing detainees in Syrian prisons would not be pardoned, reports Reuters.
“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” Golani said in a statement published on the Syrian state TV’s Telegram channel.
Blinken heads to Jordan and Turkey for Syria talks
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will head to Jordan and Turkey on Wednesday for talks on Syria, the Department of State said, reports Reuters.
Blinken, who will visit Aqaba, Jordan and Ankara, Turkey through Friday, will also discuss regional developments including in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, the department said in a statement.
National security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is also traveling to Israel on Wednesday, the White House said.
AFP have a little more detail on the story of the tomb of Bashar al-Assad’s father being set on fire in Syria (see 12.45pm GMT).
AFP reports that its footage showed the tomb of Hafez torched and destroyed.
The vast elevated structure atop a hill has an intricate architectural design with several arches, its exterior embellished with ornamentation etched in stone. It also houses the tombs of other Assad family members, including Bashar’s brother Bassel, who was killed in a road accident in 1994.
European foreign ministers will discuss developments in Syria when they meet in Berlin on Thursday, as well as support for Ukraine, according to a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry, reports Reuters.
“Given the dramatic events in Syria over the last few days, it will come as no surprise to you that there is also a second important topic, namely the current developments in Syria and their impact on the region and Europe,” the spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday.
German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, will host her counterparts from France, Poland, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ukraine for talks at a villa in the German capital on Thursday.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has blamed Israel and the US for the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, after rebels overran the capital, Damascus, and the ousted leader fled into exile.
Khamenei added that the pressure being placed on the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance” would make it stronger and would eventually “encompass the entire region more than ever before”.
Here is a video of Khamenei’s comments:
Developments in Syria demonstrate that countries with a strategic partnership with Russia can rely on Moscow only as long as they are of use to president Vladimir Putin, German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said on Wednesday.
During a short visit to Jordan, Pistorius made a stop-over at the al-Azraq airbase on his way to Baghdad where he will discuss ways to help stabilise the region in the light of the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The minister did not specify what the developments will mean for Germany’s involvement in the region but said that its military missions in the Middle East, which include 600 troops, would rather be ramped up than reduced, reports Reuters.
As part of a US-led coalition of 70 countries, Germany has had troops in Iraq since 2015 to assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State which in 2014 seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria but was later pushed back.
The Jordanian base al-Azraq is used as logistics hub for the mission, and the German air force is launching air-to-air refueling missions from there.
Tomb of Assad’s father set on fire in Syria hometown: AFP
The tomb of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez was torched in his home town of Qardaha, accoding to AFP footage taken on Wednesday. AFP said it showed rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP the rebels had set fire to the mausoleum, located in the Latakia heartland of Assad’s Alawite community. AFP footage showed parts of the mausoleum ablaze and damaged.
Greece suspends examination of Syrian asylum requests, says migration minister
Greece on Wednesday suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the migration minister announced.
Greece, the entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Europe, is the latest European country to take the action, reports AFP.
“We are temporarily freezing … all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data,” migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told Real FM radio.
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Tomb of Bashar al-Assad's father set on fire - reports
The tomb of Bashar al-Assad’s father has been set on fire in Syria, according to a breaking news line from AFP.
More details soon …
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The Kremlin on Wednesday played down the damage to Russian influence in the Middle East from the fall of Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, saying that its focus was on Ukraine and that Moscow was in contact with Syria’s new rulers, reports AFP.
“You know, of course, that we are in contact with those who are currently in control of the situation in Syria,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Asked how much the fall of Assad had weakened Russia’s influence in the Middle East, Peskov said that Moscow maintained contacts with all countries in the region and would continue to do so. Moscow’s priority, Peskov said, was the war in Ukraine.
On the topic of Syria, the Kremlin said its focus now was to ensure the security of its military bases in the country and of its diplomatic missions.
Russia, the Kremlin said, had helped Assad during the civil war but the situation had then deteriorated. “Russia helped the Syrian Arab Republic at one time to cope with the terrorists and to stabilise the situation after this situation threatened the entire region, and spent a lot of effort for this,” Peskov said.
He added:
Russia fulfilled its mission, and then the Assad leadership worked in their country, engaged in the development of their country. But unfortunately, the development has led to the situation that is now. And now we need to proceed from the realities that exist on the ground.”
Agence France-Presse (AFP) have some more detail on the news that Qatar will soon reopen its embassy in Damascus, Syria.
Qatar “will soon reopen its embassy in the sisterly Syrian Arab Republic after completing the necessary arrangements”, foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said in a statement, reports AFP.
The move aimed to “strengthen the close historical fraternal ties between the two countries”, said the statement. It also sought to “enhance coordination with relevant authorities to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid currently provided by Qatar to the Syrian people” via an air bridge, it added.
Doha closed its diplomatic mission in Damascus and recalled its ambassador in July 2011 after an uprising against the Assad government turned into a civil war.
Syria’s transitional prime minister: priorities are security, stability and the return of refugees
Italy’s Corriere della Sera is carrying an interview with Mohammed al-Bashir, Syria’s transitional prime minister.
In it he says the top three priorities of the government are “to restore security and stability in all Syrian cities”, “to bring back the millions of Syrian refugees who are scattered around the world” and “strategic planning” to end the “precariousness of essential services like electricity, food, and water.”
He tells reporter Andrea Nicastro that “People are exhausted by injustice and tyranny. The authority of the state must be reestablished to allow people to return to work and resume their normal lives.”
He also warns that the financial situation of the state is dire, saying “In the vaults, there are only Syrian pounds, which are worth next to nothing. Financially, we are in a very bad state.”
Asked about his militant group’s jihadist past, Bashir told the newspaper:
The wrongful actions of certain Islamist groups have led many people, especially in the west, to associate Muslims with terrorism and Islam with extremism. There were mistakes and misunderstandings that distorted the true meaning of Islam, which is ‘the religion of justice.’ Precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all communities in Syria.
He said the transitional government was open to dialogue with any foreign state “that has distanced itself from Assad’s bloodthirsty regime.”
There is a full English translation of the interview on the Corriere Della Sera website here.
Russia warns citizens in Syria to take precautions amid security threats
Russia has told its citizens in Syria to take maximum precautions and avoid crowded places.
In a press briefing, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova issued the warning, and said her country’s embassy was operating in Syria “under conditions of extremely high security threats.”
Tass reports she called on the international community to refrain from what she described as provocative rhetoric that can negatively affect the situation in Syria, and said “We call on all parties involved to take a responsible approach and contribute to the speedy restoration of security and stability in the country.”
Reuters reports, citing the RIA news agency, that deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Wednesday that there was a risk that Islamic State could become resurgent in Syria.
Earlier today the Kremlin criticised Israeli actions in the region, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying Israel’s actions in the occupied Golan Heights and the buffer zone are unlikely to contribute to the stabilisation of the situation in Syria.
During his regular press briefing he told journalists that Russia had achieved its aims when it intervened in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the deposed Assad regime.
Russia helped the Syrian Arab Republic to deal with terrorists at one time and helped to stabilise the situation after this situation threatened the entire region. And it spent a lot of effort for this. Then Russia fulfilled its mission.
And then the leadership of Assad worked in their country, was engaged in development in their country, but, unfortunately, [it] led to the situation that exists now.
Now we need to proceed from the realities that currently exist on the ground.
Paraguay’s president Santiago Peña is visiting Jerusalem today. He met with his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog, who said:
It means a lot to the people of Israel, the fact that you’re coming here after a year when the Israeli public, the Israeli people, the Israeli nation has gone through a most challenging time, painful, agonising.
While he is in Israel, Peña is inaugurating a new embassy, situated in Jerusalem. Herzog said:
We are very excited that you will inaugurate the Paraguayan embassy in Jerusalem, our holy city, united city, the eternal capital of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from the region.
Qatar’s foreign ministry has said it will shortly reopen its embassy in Syria.
Russia has said the security of its bases in Syria is of paramount importance, and criticised Israeli actions in the region.
Tass reports Dmitry Peskov, during his regular daily media briefing, said “We, of course, are closely monitoring everything that is happening in Syria, and we maintain contacts with those who are currently controlling the situation. This is necessary because our bases are there, our diplomatic missions are there.”
Peskov declined to say how many Russian troops were in Syria, insisting that was a matter for Russia’s ministry of defence. He also declined to say how relations with the rebel leadership in Syria were developing, telling journalists “too little time has passed so far … therefore, I cannot say anything in more detail.”
Russia has a major air base in Latakia province and a naval facility at Tartous, which Reuters reports is Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub.
The Kremlin spokesperson said Israel’s actions in the occupied Golan Heights and the buffer zone are unlikely to contribute to the stabilisation of the situation in Syria.
Israel has launched a ground invasion into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, territory that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981.
Pope Francis on Wednesday called on Syria’s new leadership to stabilise the country, and govern in a way that promotes national unity.
In his first public remarks about Syria since the ending of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, Reuters reports the pope called on the country’s diverse religious groups to “walk together in friendship and mutual respect for the good of the nation”.
He said:
I hope they find political solutions that, without other conflicts or divisions, responsibly promote the stability and unity of the country
“Relentless” Israeli airstrikes on Syria are hampering attempts to carry out a smooth transition of power from the collapsed Bashar al-Assad regime, Al Jazeera reports.
Writing from Damascus, Resul Serdar Atas says:
Israel is destroying strategic military infrastructure of Syria. By doing so, they are making sure Syria’s new administration does not have the capability of defending itself.
Israel is reducing Syria into Lebanon, into Gaza. That is a huge challenge to the new administration which is trying to preserve the state apparatus … making sure that there is a smooth political transition.
The relentless Israeli air strikes across the country and, in particular, in the capital, Damascus, are definitely disrupting this process.
At least 31 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
Israeli strikes in the northern and central Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed at least 31 Palestinians, most of them in Beit Lahia in the north, Reuters reports, citing local medics.
Health officials said an Israeli airstrike on a house in Beit Lahiya killed at least 22 people, including women and children.
Palestinian news agency WAFA said at least 30 people were living in the multi-storey building before it was struck, adding that several members of the family remained missing as rescue operations continued.
Earlier on Wednesday, at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat camp
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have detained three men in Qalqilya in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel’s military has reported that four rockets were fired towards Israel from inside the Gaza Strip in the early hours of the morning. In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the IDF said the rockets were intercepted and there were no reports of casualties.
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The IRNA news agency is carrying further quotes from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei talking about Syria and conflict in the region. It quotes him saying:
You must understand that the more pressure you put on the resistance front [to Israel], the stronger it becomes. The more crimes you commit, the more motivated it becomes. The more you fight it, the more it will expand. By the grace of God, the resistance will expand more than before to cover the entire region.
Iran's supreme leader blames US, Israel and Turkey for fall of Assad regime in Syria
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that the US and Israel were behind the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and also appeared to point a finger of blame in the direction of Turkey.
In comments reported by Iran’s Tasnim news agency, Khamenei is quoted as saying:
There should be no doubt that what happened in Syria is the product of a joint American and Zionist plan.
Yes, a neighboring government of Syria plays, has played, and is playing an obvious role in this regard - everyone sees this - but the main conspirator, mastermind, and command centre are in America and the Zionist regime.
We have evidence. This evidence leaves no room for doubt.
Outgoing US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to visit Ankara to meet Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan on Friday, a Turkish official said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports the two are expected to discuss the situation in Syria.
Florida’s Sen Marco Rubio is expected to take up the role of US secretary of state when the second Donald Trump administration takes power in the US in January.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is giving a speech this morning. It is the first time Iran’s supreme leader will have addressed in public the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, of which it was a staunch ally.
He has started by claiming that what happened in Syria was a result of US and Israeli plans, and that a neighbouring country was involved in the fall of Assad. We will bring you any key lines that emerge.
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) has laid out some of the healthcare challenges in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli military action in its latest update. It wrote:
Ongoing hostilities and attacks in North Gaza, particularly those that have directly affected Kamal Adwan hospital, have seriously jeopardidsed the access of trauma patients to health services.
A lack of non-communicable disease (NCD) medications and laboratory reagents threatens to further disrupt healthcare provision for patients with NCDs.
There is a critical shortage of spare parts and generator oil needed for the maintenance of generators at all health facilities across the Gaza Strip.
The limited number of functional crossing points and access impediments to collect supplies from them continue to cause shortages in medicines and medical supplies across the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that at least 22 people have been killed overnight in the Gaza Strip by Israeli strikes.
The Associated Press has filed a report on Suheil Hamwi, who spent 32 years in a Syrian prison, and how, after the lightning offensive by insurgents that toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad, he has finally returned to his home in Lebanon.
In 1992, Hamwi worked as a merchant, selling various goods in the town of Chekka in northern Lebanon. On the night of Eid il-Burbara, or Saint Barbara’s Day – a holiday similar to Halloween – a man came to his door to buy some whiskey. Hamwi said he handed his 10-month-old son, George, to his wife and went to his car to fetch the whiskey and make the sale.
As Hamwi approached his vehicle, a car filled with men pulled up, he said, forcing him inside and taking him away.
It would be years before his family heard from him again.
Hamwi was one of hundreds of Lebanese citizens detained during Syria’s occupation of Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 and believed to be held in Syrian prisons for decades. On Sunday, freedom came to him and others unexpectedly – prisoners who’d heard rumors about Syria’s opposition forces and their sweeping campaign found that guards had abandoned their posts. Hamwi and other prisoners left, he said, and he would soon be among the first from Lebanon to reenter the country.
“I’m still scared this might not be real,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday from his home – the same one he left more than three decades ago.
This new reality feels fragile, but, he said, “I found my freedom.”
Syrians in Germany weigh up returning after fall of Assad regime
Kate Connolly reports from Berlin
Reem Alali is still reeling from the news that the brutal regime she fled eight years ago has collapsed, leaving her and her family with feelings bordering excitement and trepidation. Moreover, there is a sense that important decisions have to be made – but perhaps not just yet, and only with great caution.
“We didn’t sleep for two nights,” she said on Monday, a day after Bashar al-Assad, the former dictator, fled Syria following rebels’ lightning-speed advance into the capital, Damascus. “We have been glued to our phones, speaking to Syrian friends and relatives, crying and drinking glühwein with our German friends.”
Alali and her husband, Amin, have been “constantly talking to each other about the one big question: do we go back or not?”, she said.
The 38-year-old from Suwayda, south-western Syria, lost her father, uncle and two cousins in the war and then sought refuge in Germany in 2016. After the astonishing events of the past few days, she has come to a conclusion: “I will not take my children to Syria until I really know the situation is a lot better.”
That caution was echoed by the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, who told reporters on Tuesday that while many Syrians were eager to return, prudence was essential: “There are livelihood challenges still. The humanitarian situation is disastrous. The economy has collapsed.”
Amin, 40, a journalist in Syria who now works as a company technician, arrived in Germany in 2015, one of the large number of Syrians who were given sanctuary under Angela Merkel’s decision to keep the country’s borders open to them. His perilous journey was by car via Turkey, boat to Greece, and a month-long trek by foot from Greece to Germany.
He and Alali are among the estimated 975,000 Syrian nationals living in Germany, according to the country’s central register of foreigners. In the first 11 months of this year, more than 72,000 people from Syria applied for asylum. Many of the refugees who came in 2015 now have German citizenship, while hundreds of thousands have a temporary residence permit.
Humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, where Israel launched a ground offensive on 6 October, has largely been blocked for the past 66 days, the UN has said. That has left between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care, according to the world body.
In the north, Israel has continued its siege on Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya with Palestinians living there largely denied aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as Ocha, said. Recently, it said, about 5,500 people were forcibly displaced from three schools in Beit Lahiya to Gaza City, the Associated Press reports.
Adding to the food crisis, only four UN-supported bakeries are now operating throughout the Gaza Strip, all of them in Gaza City, Ocha said.
Sigrid Kaag, the senior UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters after briefing the UN security council behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon that civilians trying to survive in Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation.”
Kaag said she and other UN officials keep repeatedly asking Israel for access for convoys to north Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south, and to approve dual-use items.
Israel’s UN mission said it had no comment on Kaag’s remarks.
Jason Burke reports from Deir Istiya
The olive trees cover the dry, rocky slopes around Deir Istiya, spreading deep into the valley to its west, lining the main roads, filling the gardens, and shading its graveyards.
But many farmers in the historical Palestinian town, deep in the occupied West Bank, say that this year they have been unable to harvest much of the vital olive crop, blaming an intensifying campaign of intimidation and violence by people from the half-dozen Israeli settlements and outposts nearby.
Ibrahim Abu Hijleh, 30, a farmer whose small olive grove is 200 metres from Revava, a settlement built in the 1990s, said he was able to reach his olive grove only for a few hours in November when accompanied by Israeli activists and a Palestinian Israeli member of parliament.
“I got about 10% of the harvest and now we need to trim and tend the trees,” he said. “I keep trying to go back but people come from the settlement and tell us to leave and threaten us.”
Last month the UN said Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank that resulted in casualties or property damage had at least tripled during the 2024 olive harvest season compared with each of the preceding three years.
Between 1 October and 25 November, the UN documented 250 settler-related incidents across 88 West Bank communities, with 57 Palestinians injured by settlers and 11 by Israeli forces. More than 2,800 trees –mostly slow-growing olive trees – were burned, sawed-off, or vandalised, and there was significant theft of crops and harvesting tools, it said.
In October, in the most high-profile attack, a 59-year-old woman was killed while harvesting olives in Faqqua, near Jenin, by a soldier who fired about 10 shots at her. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they are investigating.
Olives are the largest single agricultural product in the West Bank, and up to a third of the Palestinian population of the West Bank is estimated to work with the trees or their produce, such as oil and soap.
Rebel-backed Syrian interim prime minister urges ‘stability and calm’
Syria’s new interim leader said it was time for “stability and calm” in the country as he announced he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.
In a brief address on state television on Tuesday, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little-known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the north-west controlled by rebels before the lightning offensive that swept into Damascus, said he would lead the interim authority until 1 March.
“Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime,” he said.
Behind him were two flags – the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.
In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad’s overthrow, Reuters reported. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.
“Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” Bashir told Al Jazeera.
In other developments:
Israel says it has carried out more than 480 airstrikes targeting weapons stockpiles and strategic infrastructure in Syria over the past 48 hours. The IDF said the air force conducted the crewed aircraft missile strikes on Syrian military targets including weapons production sites in the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra. It said 130 strikes were “during ground operations” and aimed at weapons depots, military structures, launchers and firing positions.
The world “has nothing to fear” from the new Syrian regime, the leader of rebel group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) has told Sky News in what the network says are his first comments to a western media outlet since his organization toppled Bashar al-Assad on Sunday. Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, attempted to reassure foreign nations in his remarks and promised Syria “will be rebuilt”.
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow is “providing sanctuary” for deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, having transported him to Moscow on Sunday “in the most secure way possible”. “He is secured, and it shows that Russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation,” he told NBC News.
The insurgent group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria claims to have wrested control of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour after intense battles with the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), AP reported. A member of the Islamic group Hayat al-Tahrir Sham (HTS) said in a recorded video that the group would sweep neighbourhoods to secure the city. The nearby city of Boukamal had also fallen to HTS, the person said, adding that Raqqa and Hasakah were subsequent targets.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 218 people were killed in three days of fighting between Turkish-backed forces and the SDF in Manbij, north-east of Damascus. Early on Wednesday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said the SDF and the Turkey-backed rebels had reached a ceasefire agreement in Manbij through US mediation.
Outgoing US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for an “inclusive” political process in Syria, saying the US would eventually recognise a new government if it renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women. “The Syrian people will decide the future of Syria. All nations should pledge to support an inclusive and transparent process and refrain from external interference,” Blinken said in a statement.
The UN would consider taking the Syrian rebel group that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad off its designated terrorist list if it passes the key test of forming a truly inclusive transitional government, according to a senior official at the world body. Geir Pedersen, UN special envoy for Syria, held out the prospect of removing Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the organisation’s list of proscribed terrorist groups. But he said the group could not seek to govern Syria in the way that it had governed Idlib, the northern province where it was based and from where it led the military breakout that resulted in the sudden collapse of the Assad regime.
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