Officials say Qatar has decided to suspend its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel

Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Officials say Qatar has decided to suspend its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel.

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  • Assad’s family ‘flees’ to Russia – but Kremlin won’t come to Syrian leader’s rescue

    Bashar al-Assad’s family fled to Russia in the days after rebel forces launched a shock offensive that captured swathes of territory across northern Syria, it has been revealed.

  • Syria’s Assad is Under Siege and Is Making Overtures to US

    (Bloomberg) -- With Syrian rebels edging ever-closer to the capital, President Bashar Al-Assad is making a last-ditch attempt to remain in power, including indirect diplomatic overtures to the US and President-elect Donald Trump, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.Most Read from BloombergA Chicago Skyscraper Cements the Legacy of a Visionary Postmodern ArchitectNYC’s Run-Down Bus Terminal Gets Approval for $10 Billion RevampKansas City Looks Back on its Long, Costly Ride

  • If Assad falls, it will utterly change the power dynamics of this troubled, volatile region

    Not when it comes to events currently under way in Syria, a country straddling the fault lines of the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, if it comes, will be the most significant event yet in the upheaval that's followed the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel last year. It would be the end of a brutal reign of terror that has lasted since the Assad family under patriarch Hafez Assad seized power in the early 1970s.

  • Russia's Lavrov says advance by Syrian 'terrorists' is inadmissible

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday it was inadmissible to allow what he called a terrorist group to take control of Syrian lands. He was speaking in the Qatari capital Doha after meeting the Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers following a rapid advance by Syrian rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group that threatens President Bashar al-Assad's rule. "It's inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of the lands in violation of agreements," said Lavrov during a political forum in Doha.

  • In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?

    Across northern and central Syria this week, families who've been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been holding joyous reunions."I didn't believe it, it was very emotional," said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the Syrian NGO the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister."I couldn't believe I was seeing her again," he told CBC News from northern Syria. "I lost my brother, my mother and father ov

  • Hamas armed wing releases video of Gaza hostage

    The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday of an Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack of October 2023.In the undated, three-and-half-minute video that AFP has not been able to verify, Matan Zangauker says in Hebrew that he has been in captivity for more than 420 days and calls for public pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of all captives held in Gaza.

  • A ‘weakened’ Assad is better than jihadists on Israel’s border

    As Syria’s fragmented opposition groups continue their offensive against Bashar al-Assad’s forces, Israel is closely monitoring the situation across its border.

  • Israel army says assisting UN force in 'repelling attack' in Syria

    The Israeli army said Saturday its troops were assisting UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights in repelling an attack "by armed individuals", while the foreign minister said "armed forces" had entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone. Late on Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar posted on X: "During the last day, armed forces entered the buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border with Israel.

  • ‘He has come out an old man’: joy and grief as loved ones released from Assad prisons

    Family members describe renewed hopes after decades-long searches for political detainees in ‘Kingdom of Silence’

  • Syrian insurgents seize Damascus suburbs while state media deny Assad has fled

    Syrian insurgents have reached Damascus suburbs, their first advance near the capital since 2018, while Syrian state media deny rumours of Assad fleeing.View on euronews

  • Islamist rebels seek to assure Christians in Syria's Aleppo

    At a church in Syria's Aleppo, Christian worshippers attended mass days after their city came under the control of Islamist-led rebel forces who have sought to allay residents' concerns over their nascent rule.Rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured Aleppo last week in a lightning offensive against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, raising fears in Syria's second-largest city.

  • Which foreign armies are in Syria and why are they there?

    STORY: The resurgence of fighting in Syria has brought into focus the role of foreign powers in the country. With many having deployed troops since 2011, who are the foreign armies involved in Syria?:: Turkey:: October 11, 2017Turkey has deployed troops across northwestern Syria in support of the 2011 rebel uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.Turkey wants to weaken Syrian Kurdish armed groups which carved out autonomous enclaves along the Turkish border during the civil war.:: February 27, 2020Ankara views the groups as an extension of the Kurdish Workers' Party, which it deems a terrorist group and has been waging an insurgency in Turkey since 1984.:: September 10, 2013It also wants a return home for some three million Syrians who have fled to Turkey during the war.Turkey has mounted multiple operations in Syria involving thousands of troops since 2016.:: Iran and allies:: October 17, 2015Iran deployed its Revolutionary Guards to Syria as early as 2012 to help Assad. Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, played a big part.::February 25, 2019For Iran, Assad is a crucial ally, part of its "Axis of Resistance" to Israel and U.S. influence in the Middle East.Other Tehran-backed Shi'ite Islamist groups, from Afghanistan and Iraq, have also played a vital combat role. :: Israeli army handout:: Released December 13, 2023Iran's presence in Syria has been a big point of concern for Israel, prompting it to carry out frequent airstrikes.:: Russia:: October, 2015Russian forces have had a presence militarily in Syria since the Cold War, but intervened on Assad's side in 2015.Coordinating with Iran they operated from an airbase in Latakia province with Russian air power decisively tilting the conflict Assad's way.:: Released October 5, 2023On the ground, Russian troops are involved in government-held areas, with military police deployed during attempts to de-escalate fighting.:: United States:: March 11, 2019U.S. military intervention in Syria began in 2014 against the Islamic State jihadist group that had declared its rule over a third of Syria and Iraq.:: July 29, 2016Working with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) they fought to drive Islamic State from areas it had captured in Syria's north and east.Declaring the battle with Islamic State almost won, President Donald Trump announced in 2018 he wanted to pull out U.S. troops.But the plan was softened after facing criticism for leaving a void that Iran and Russia would fill.Around 9,000 U.S. troops remain in Syria to support the SDF.Assad's government views the U.S. forces as occupiers.

  • Israeli military kills four doctors in raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, eyewitnesses say

    Four doctors were killed at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in areas surrounding the facility, eyewitnesses told CNN.

  • Ukraine says Syrian collapse shows Russia can't fight on two fronts

    The collapse of Russia's ally Syria in the face of an assault from rebel groups shows Moscow cannot fight on two fronts, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Thursday while reiterating denials that Kyiv was involved in the fighting there. "We can see that Russia cannot fight on two fronts -- this is clear from the events in Syria," ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters at a weekly news conference. After years locked behind frozen frontlines, Syrian rebels have burst forth to mount the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad descended into civil war 13 years ago.

  • Syria rebels vow no more 'sectarianism and tyranny'

    Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani sought to reassure religious minorities on Saturday after Islamist-led fighters snatched key cities and swathes of territory from government control.His comments online came a little over a week into a lightning offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, who was last seen in images released by his office from a Sunday meeting with Iran's foreign minister in Damascus.Abdel Ghani, a senior commander in the rebel alliance and its spokesman, recognised in a statement on Telegram that the rebel forces had seized areas where "different religious sects and minorities" live."We ask that all sects be reassured... for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever," he said.Key urban centres seized in recent days include second city Aleppo, which has a Christian community, and Hama, whose nearby towns are home to members of the Ismaili sect.Homs, where the rebel advance is meeting government resistance, is also home to a sizeable Alawite minority, who share Assad's faith. Minorities have often been persecuted over the course of Syria's long conflict, and HTS's precursor Al-Nusra Front, which was linked to Al-Qaeda, had carried out deadly attacks on Alawites in Homs early in the war.On the ground, Syria's army said Saturday it was redeploying in the south, where according to a war monitor the government had lost control of the key city of Daraa, the cradle of the country's 2011 uprising.An AFP correspondent there saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions on Saturday morning.In the central Homs area, a key passage to the seat of power in Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said government forces had brought "large reinforcements" and stopped the rebels' advance.An army statement carried by Syrian state media said that government forces were "redeploying and repositioning" in two southern provinces, including Daraa.But both the Observatory and rebels said Saturday that government forces no longer controlled any of the province.While Aleppo and Hama were seized by Islamist-led rebels, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the Britain-based monitor.Early Saturday, Syria's army said it was "beginning to regain control in Homs and Hama provinces".- Evacuation calls -Daraa province borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where Israel said it was boosting its troop presence, and Jordan, which late Friday urged its citizens to leave Syria "as soon as possible".Russia, an important military backer of Assad, and the United States, which has troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, have also advised their nationals to leave.Syria's civil war, which began with Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.The HTS-led alliance has made rapid gains in the west since launching its offensive on November 27. By Friday, the government was also pulling its troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in to take control of the territory.The leader of HTS, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said in an interview published Friday that the aim of the offensive was to oust Assad."The goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," Jolani told CNN.HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years.Jolani, who visited Aleppo's landmark citadel on Wednesday, urged his fighters to "calm the concerns of our people, from all communities", in a statement on Telegram."Aleppo has always been a meeting point for civilisations and cultures, and it will remain so," he said.The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States and control territory in the east, expressed readiness for dialogue with rival rebels and Turkey, saying the offensive heralded a "new" political reality for Syria.- 'Syria is ours' -US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a "political solution to the conflict" and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.Fidan was in Qatar on Saturday for discussions on Syria with his Iranian and Russian counterparts.Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, said the world had been "surprised" by the speed of the rebels' advance, calling for "a political framework" to prevent violence from spiralling.He also said Assad had failed to "start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people" during a period of calm in the country's war.At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory's figures, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall."The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us -- something we had been waiting for since 2011," said resident Maymouna Jawad, expressing her hope that anti-government forces would "liberate" the whole country.Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad's father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in the city in the 1980s.bur-ami/smw

  • Statue of former Syrian president toppled in Hama

    The image is particularly symbolic: A statue of former President Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria's current ruler Bashar, was toppled in Hama after Islamist-led rebels overran the country's fourth-largest city, video authenticated by AFP showed.Young men celebrated the rebels' sweep of Hama as part of a lightning offensive, yelling "freedom for eternity" from Assad, referring to the current president who before Hama had also lost control of Aleppo, Syria's second city, for the first time sinc

  • Chinese embassy in Syria urges citizens to evacuate immediately as civil war reignites

    The Chinese embassy in Syria urged its citizens to leave the Middle Eastern nation "as soon as possible", with the revival of its decade-long civil war and the capture of more cities by anti-government militants. "At present, the war in northwestern Syria is growing tense, and the security situation in Syria is further deteriorating," the embassy said on Thursday. "The embassy in Syria suggests that Chinese citizens in Syria take advantage of the fact that commercial flights are still in operati

  • Thousands flee Homs as insurgents led by HTS advance on Syria's third-largest city

    The move is the latest in a lightning advance spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group over the past week which has seen them seize Aleppo and Hama in the face of little resistance by government forces.View on euronews

  • Thousands of pro-EU protesters march on Georgia parliament

    Thousands of protesters marched in the Georgian capital Tbilisi Saturday for the 10th day of rallies sparked by a disputed election and the government's decision to shelve EU accession talks.- 'Last chance' - Blowing horns and whistles, pro-European protesters marched Saturday from Tbilisi State University towards parliament, blocking one of the city's main traffic arteries, an AFP reporter saw.

  • Is Assad's Rule In Syria At Risk Of Collapse?

    Alone and broke against a renewed insurgency, Bashar Assad's hold on power faces its stiffest test in a decade.