The U.S. said that it has eased some restrictions on Syria’s government to allow for humanitarian aid. The U.S. Treasury had issued a sanctions exemption for six months to “support the Syrian people as they build a more hopeful, secure, and peaceful future,’’ it said in a statement. In December, Syria’s new de facto leader,…
Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, who commanded an Islamist-led rebel alliance that toppled long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad, said drafting a new constitution for the war-shattered country could take around three years. Al Arabiya television reported on Sunday that the rebel leader al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, added in…
Syria’s transitional government has vowed to dissolve and restructure all security agencies of the toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime accused of mass killings and abuses. Al-Assad, who ruled Syria for more than two decades, fled the country earlier this month as Islamist-led rebels advanced on the capital Damascus during a lighting sweep. The interim government,…
The U.S. military has said that it killed two fighters from the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria and wounded another. “The terrorists were moving a truckload of weapons which were destroyed during the strike,” the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release on Monday. “This strike occurred in an area formerly controlled…
The Iranian embassy in Damascus will remain closed for the time being following the political upheaval in Syria, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Tehran on Tuesday. “A reopening of the Iranian embassy in Syria is not imminent, as this initially requires political and security-related preparations,” Esmail Baghaei said, according to the news agency ISNA….
European Union foreign ministers plan to meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss recent developments in Syria and Georgia also wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as the political situation in Belarus. Ministers are set to adopt the 15th round of new sanctions on Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in…
The UN Security Council is to convene for an emergency session on Monday after Syrian rebels declared President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster and seized control of Damascus on Sunday. The meeting, requested by Russia, will take place behind closed doors, diplomatic sources told dpa. Syrians were facing a new political reality on Sunday after rebels took…
A photographer working for dpa, Anas Alkharboutli, has been killed during the latest fighting in Syria. The 32-year-old photojournalist was killed in an airstrike while working near the Syrian city of Hama, other reporters who witnessed the incident confirmed. Alkharboutli had been reporting on the advance of the rebel alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Alkharboutli…
The U.S. Department of Defense announced that the U.S. military attacked positions of Iranian-allied militias in Yemen and Syria. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that Airstrikes were carried out on several Houthi rebel weapons caches in Yemen over the weekend. ‘‘These facilities housed a variety of advanced conventional weapons used by the Iran-backed…
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi has visited the Jdeidet Yabous crossing on the border between Syria and Lebanon, Syria’s local media reported. “I was at the Syrian/Lebanese border, where a quarter of a million people have crossed since Sep. 23, when Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon escalated,” Grandi said on the social media…
