BEIRUT: At least 15 people were killed in an airstrike in eastern Syria on Wednesday, activists said, in the second attack in three days reported to kill civilians in the Daesh-held Euphrates River valley.
Two Syrian monitoring groups, Deir Ezzor 24 and Justice For Life, said the weapons were dropped on the village of Doblan by an unidentified jet. Russian, Syrian, and US-led coalition aircraft are all known to operate in the area.
Cluster bombs are designed to spread small bomblets across a wide area, but many fail to explode, endangering civilians long after the fighting has ended.
Omar Abou Layla, the head of Deir Ezzor 24, said 15 bodies, including those of women and children, were recovered in the village. He said residents expect to find many more killed.
Ali Rahbe, of Justice For Life, said local informants counted at least 35 dead in the village, which is between the Daesh strongholds of Al-Mayadeen and Boukamal.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the initial toll at 30 dead.
At least 57 people were killed in an airstrike on an Daesh-run jail in the Euphrates River Valley on Monday. Activists said that airstrike was carried out by the US-led coalition. The coalition said it was looking into the reports.
Most of the victims were prisoners held on charges of religious infractions, such as failing to observe the Ramadan fast, said Rahbe. The Observatory said 42 civilians were killed.
Though the Daesh group is on the retreat, it still holds approximately 250 kilometers (155 miles) of territory along the Euphrates River in Syria, which has come under immense pressure as rival US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces and Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces race for control of the resource-rich region.
Monitoring groups warn that civilians are under attack. A UN commission of inquiry called the civilian death toll of the US-backed campaign for Raqqa “staggering.” The Observatory says 231 civilians have been killed in coalition airstrikes on Daesh territory in eastern Syria in the last three months.
The top US envoy for the international coalition against the Daesh group met with members of a local council expected to administer Raqqa after Daesh forces are driven from the city.
A member of the Raqqa Civil Council, Abdullah el-Erian, told the Kurdish-run ANHA news agency, that Brett McGurk’s visit Wednesday is an “important message” as the U.S- backed fight to seize Raqqa continues. The two-hour meeting took place in Ayn Issa, a town about 30 miles north of Raqqa city, where the council is based.
A US State Department official said McGurk visits Iraq and Syria often to discuss humanitarian and stabilization assistance, and to “coordinate between our military and civilian initiatives, as well as post-liberation governance for areas liberated” from Daesh.
“As the Coalition’s campaign to liberate Raqqa accelerates, we are in regular contact with coalition partners from across the globe and on the ground in Syria,” the official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Another council member, Omar Alloush, said the publicized visit was to reaffirm the coalition’s support for the stability of the liberated areas in Raqqa, including clearing land mines, and rehabilitating schools and power plants. Alloush said the council, now in charge of large swathes of liberated parts of the province, is also seeking international financial support as it prepares to replace Daesh.
“The people of Raqqa have paid dearly because of Daesh,” Alloush, who is also a member of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the Kurdish-led forces.
The fight for Raqqa began in earnest in early June, as Kurdish-led forces, backed by airstrikes from the international coalition, slowly advanced on several neighborhoods of the city considered the de-facto capital of the militant group.
The local council was formed in April, including Arab and Kurdish local leaders, and has been assuming its duties to administer liberated areas in the province.
Also Wednesday, Syrian government forces pushed on with their assault against rebels holed up in the northeast corner of capital and its suburbs, with a barrage of air and artillery strikes on the already devastated neighborhoods of Jobar and Ein Terma. Years of air strikes and heavy weapons fire have largely reduced the neighborhoods to rubble, according to new footage from the government’s military media.
Turkey’s military meanwhile said it returned fire after an attack by Syrian Kurdish forces.
A statement Wednesday said the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, fired on Turkish territory overnight with anti-aircraft weapons from Syria’s Afrin region. Turkish artillery units returned fire, destroying the “detected targets.”
The YPG is the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed militia that is battling the Daesh group in the extremists’ de facto capital, Raqqa. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency raging in its southeast.
Turkey was angered by a US decision last month to arm the Syrian Kurds, fearing the weapons will end up in the hands of Kurdish rebels in Turkey.
Airstrike kill at least 15 in eastern Syria
Airstrike kill at least 15 in eastern Syria
US lawmakers urge Biden to extend TikTok Jan. 19 ban deadline
- Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he certifies ByteDance is making substantial progress toward a divestiture but it is unlikely ByteDance could meet that standard
WASHINGTON: Two Democratic lawmakers on Monday urged Congress and President Joe Biden to extend a Jan. 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the US assets of TikTok or face a US ban.
The Supreme Court held arguments Friday on Tiktok and ByteDance’s challenge to the law. A lawyer for the companies, Noel Francisco, said it would be impossible to complete a sale by next week’s deadline.
He said if banned, the short video app used by 170 million Americans would quickly go dark and “essentially the platform shuts down.”
Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he certifies ByteDance is making substantial progress toward a divestiture but it is unlikely ByteDance could meet that standard.
Senator Edward Markey said he planned to introduce legislation to delay the deadline by which ByteDance must sell TikTok or face a ban by an additional 270 days.
“A ban would dismantle a one-of-a-kind informational and cultural ecosystem, silencing millions in the process,” Markey said Monday.
“A TikTok ban would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood. We cannot allow that to happen.”
President-elect Donald Trump has asked the court to delay implementation of the law, arguing he should have time after taking office on Jan. 20 to pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.
Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, on Monday urged Biden and Trump “to put a pause on this ban so 170 million Americans don’t lose their free speech. Millions of Americans’ livelihood will be ended if this ban takes place.”
If the court does not block the law by Sunday, new downloads of TikTok on Apple or Google app stores would be banned but existing users could continue to access the app for some period. Services would degrade and eventually stop working as companies will be barred from providing support.
The White House did not immediately comment.
China mulls potential sale of TikTok US to Musk, Bloomberg News reports
Chinese officials are mulling a potential option that involves the sale of TikTok’s US operations to billionaire Elon Musk if the company fails to fend off a potential ban, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese officials prefer that TikTok remain under the control of parent Bytedance, the report said, adding that the company is contesting the ban with an appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Under one scenario, Musk’s social media platform X would take control of TikTok US and run the business together, the report said, adding that the Chinese officials have yet to reach any firm consensus about how to proceed and their deliberations are still preliminary.
TikTok declined to comment, while Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. X could not immediately be reached for a comment.
The Cyberspace Administration of China and China’s Ministry of Commerce, government agencies that could be involved in decisions about TikTok’s future, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold a law that would force a sale or ban of the popular short-video app TikTok in the United States by Jan. 19, with the justices focusing on the national security concerns about China that prompted the crackdown.
Trump says he will meet ‘very quickly’ with Putin
US President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he is going to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin “very quickly” after he takes office next week.
He did not provide a timeline for the meeting, which would be the first between the leaders of the two countries since Russia’s war with Ukraine started in February 2022.
When asked about his strategy to end the war, Trump told Newsmax: “Well, there’s only one strategy and it’s up to Putin and I can’t imagine he’s too thrilled about the way it’s gone because it hasn’t gone exactly well for him either.
“And I know he wants to meet and I’m going to meet very quickly. I would’ve done it sooner but...you have to get into the office. For some of the things, you do have to be there.”
US Congressman Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, said on Sunday he expected a call between Trump and Putin in “the coming days and weeks.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of people dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest rupture in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Biden says he’s leaving Trump with a ‘strong hand to play’ in world conflicts
- “My administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play,” Biden said
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said Monday that his stewardship of American foreign policy has left the US safer and economically more secure, arguing that President-elect Donald Trump will inherit a nation viewed as stronger and more reliable than it was four years ago.
Biden trumpeted his administration’s work on expanding NATO, rallying allies to provide Ukraine with military aid to fight Russia and bolstering American chip manufacturing to better compete with China during a wide-ranging speech to reflect on his foreign policy legacy a week before ceding the White House to Trump.
Biden’s case for his achievements will be shadowed and shaped, at least in the near term, by the messy counterfactual that American voters once again turned to Trump and his protectionist worldview. And he will leave office at a turbulent moment for the globe, with a series of conflicts raging.
“Thanks to our administration, the United States is winning the worldwide competition compared to four years ago,” Biden said in his address at the State Department. “America is stronger. Our alliances are stronger. Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
The one-term Democrat took office in the throes of the worst global pandemic in a century, and his plans to repair alliances strained by four years of Trump’s “America First” worldview were quickly stress-tested by international crises: the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Hamas’ brutal 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Middle East.
Biden argued that he provided a steady hand when the world needed it most. He was tested by war, calamity and miscalculation.
“My administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play,” Biden said. “America is once again leading.”
Chaotic US exit from Afghanistan was an early setback for Biden
With the US completing its 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden fulfilled a campaign promise to wind down America’s longest war.
But the 20-year conflict ended in disquieting fashion: The US-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 US troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final US aircraft departed over the Hindu Kush.
The Afghanistan debacle was a major setback just eight months into Biden’s presidency that he struggled to recover from.
“Ending the war was the right thing to do, and I believe history will reflect that,” Biden said. “Critics said if we ended the war, it would damage our alliances and create threats to our homeland from foreign-directed terrorism out of a safe haven in Afghanistan — neither has occurred.”
Biden’s Republican detractors, including Trump, cast it as a signal moment in a failed presidency.
“I’ll tell you what happened, he was so bad with Afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country,” Trump said in his lone 2024 presidential debate with Biden, just weeks before the Democrat announced he was ending his reelection campaign.
Biden’s legacy in Ukraine may hinge on Trump’s approach going forward
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden rallied allies in Europe and beyond to provide Ukraine with billions in military and economic assistance — including more than $100 billion from the US alone. That allowed Kyiv to stay in the fight with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vastly bigger and better-equipped military.
Biden’s team also coordinated with allies to hit Russia with a steady stream of sanctions aimed at isolating the Kremlin and making Moscow pay an economic price for prosecuting its war.
Biden on Monday marveled that at the start of the war Putin thought Russian forces would easily defeat Ukraine in a matter of days. It was an assessment US and European intelligence officials shared.
Instead, Biden said his administration and its allies have “laid the foundation” for the Trump administration to help Ukraine eventually arrive at a moment where it can negotiate a just end to the nearly three-year old conflict.
“Today, Ukraine is still a free and independent country with the potential for a bright future,” Biden said.
Trump has criticized the cost of the war to US taxpayers and has vowed to bring the conflict to a quick end.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan made the case that Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, should consider the backing of Ukraine through the prism of a dealmaker.
“Donald Trump has built his identity around making deals, and the way you make a good deal is with leverage,” Sullivan said in an interview. “Our case publicly and privately to the incoming team is build the leverage, show the staying power, back Ukraine, and it is down that path that lies a good deal.”
Biden’s Mideast diplomacy shadowed by devastation of Gaza
In the Middle East, Biden has stood by Israel as it has worked to root out Hamas from Gaza. That war spawned another in Lebanon, where Israel has mauled Iran’s most powerful ally, Hezbollah, even as Israel has launched successful airstrikes openly inside of Iran for the first time.
The degradation of Hezbollah in turn played a role when Islamist-led rebels last month ousted longtime Syrian leader Bashar Assad, a brutal fixture of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”
“Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” Biden said.
Biden’s relationship with Israel’s conservative leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been strained by the enormous Palestinian death toll in the fighting — now standing at more than 46,000 dead — and Israel’s blockade of the territory, which has left much of Gaza a hellscape where access to food and basic health care is severely limited.
Pro-Palestinian activists have demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. The State Department in recent days informed Congress of a planned $8 billion weapons sale to Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator, said the approach has put Iran on its heels, but Biden will pay a reputational cost for the devastation of Gaza.
“The administration was either unable or unwilling to create any sort of restraint that normal humans would regard as significant pressure,” Miller said. “It was beyond Joe Biden’s emotional and political bandwidth to impose the kinds of sustained or significant pressures that might have led to a change in Israeli tactics.”
More than 15 months after the Hamas-led attack that prompted the war, around 98 hostages remain in Gaza. More than a third of those are presumed dead by Israeli authorities.
Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk is in the Middle East, looking to complete an elusive hostage and ceasefire deal as time runs out in the presidency.
“We are on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” Biden said.
Trump, for his part, is warning that “all hell” will be unleashed on Hamas if the hostages aren’t freed by Inauguration Day.
Sullivan declined to comment on Trump’s threats to Hamas, but offered that the two sides are in agreement about the most important thing: getting a deal done.
“Having alignment of the outgoing and incoming administration that a hostage deal at the earliest possible opportunity is in the American national interest,” he said. “Having unity of message on that is a good thing, and we have closely coordinated with the incoming team to this effect.”
Some Israeli soldiers refuse to keep fighting in Gaza
- Seven soldiers who’ve refused to continue fighting in Gaza spoke with AP, describing how Palestinians were indiscriminately killed and houses destroyed
- Ishai Menuchin, spokesperson for Yesh Gvul, a movement for soldiers refusing to serve, said he works with more than 80 soldiers who have refused to fight and that there are hundreds more who feel similarly but remain silent
JERUSALEM: Yotam Vilk says the image of Israeli soldiers killing an unarmed Palestinian teenager in the Gaza Strip is seared in his mind.
An officer in the armored corps, Vilk said the instructions were to shoot any unauthorized person who entered an Israeli-controlled buffer zone in Gaza. He saw at least 12 people killed, he said, but it is the shooting of the teen that he can’t shake.
“He died as part of a bigger story. As part of the policy of staying there and not seeing Palestinians as people,” Vilk, 28, told The Associated Press.
Vilk is among a growing number of Israeli soldiers speaking out against the 15-month conflict and refusing to serve anymore, saying they saw or did things that crossed ethical lines. While the movement is small — some 200 soldiers signed a letter saying they’d stop fighting if the government didn’t secure a ceasefire — soldiers say it’s the tip of the iceberg and they want others to come forward.
Their refusal comes at a time of mounting pressure on Israel and Hamas to wind down the fighting. Ceasefire talks are underway, and both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have called for a deal by the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Seven soldiers who’ve refused to continue fighting in Gaza spoke with AP, describing how Palestinians were indiscriminately killed and houses destroyed. Several said they were ordered to burn or demolish homes that posed no threat, and they saw soldiers loot and vandalize residences.
Soldiers are required to steer clear of politics, and they rarely speak out against the army. After Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel quickly united behind the war launched against the militant group. Divisions here have grown as the war progresses, but most criticism has focused on the mounting number of soldiers killed and the failure to bring home hostages, not actions in Gaza.
International rights groups have accused Israel of war crimes and genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice is investigating genocide allegations filed by South Africa. The International Criminal Court is seeking the arrests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel adamantly rejects genocide allegations and says it takes extraordinary measures to minimize civilian harm in Gaza. The army says it never intentionally targets civilians, and investigates and punishes cases of suspected wrongdoing. But rights groups have long said the army does a poor job of investigating itself.
The army told AP it condemns the refusal to serve and takes any call for refusal seriously, with each case examined individually. Soldiers can go to jail for refusing to serve, but none who signed the letter has been detained, according to those who organized the signatures.
Soldiers’ reactions in Gaza.
When Vilk entered Gaza in November 2023, he said, he thought the initial use of force might bring both sides to the table. But as the war dragged on, he said he saw the value of human life disintegrate.
On the day the Palestinian teenager was killed last August, he said, Israeli troops shouted at him to stop and fired warning shots at his feet, but he kept moving. He said others were also killed walking into the buffer zone — the Netzarim Corridor, a road dividing northern and southern Gaza.
Vilk acknowledged it was hard to determine whether people were armed, but said he believes soldiers acted too quickly.
In the end, he said, Hamas is to blame for some deaths in the buffer zone — he described one Palestinian detained by his unit who said Hamas paid people $25 to walk into the corridor to gauge the army’s reaction.
Some soldiers told AP it took time to digest what they saw in Gaza. Others said they became so enraged they decided they’d stop serving almost immediately.
Yuval Green, a 27-year-old medic, described abandoning his post last January after spending nearly two months in Gaza, unable to live with what he’d seen.
He said soldiers desecrated homes, using black markers meant for medical emergencies to scribble graffiti, and looted homes, looking for prayer beads to collect as souvenirs.
The final straw, he said, was his commander ordering troops to burn down a house, saying he didn’t want Hamas to be able to use it. Green said he sat in a military vehicle, choking on fumes amid the smell of burning plastic. He found the fire vindictive — he said he saw no reason to take more from Palestinians than they’d already lost. He left his unit before their mission was complete.
Green said that as much as he loathed what he witnessed, “the cruelty was at least in part provoked by the havoc wreaked by Hamas on Oct. 7, which people can forget.”
He said he wants his actions in refusing to serve to help break the vicious cycle of violence on all sides.
The soldiers’ refusal as an act of protest
Soldiers for the Hostages — the group behind the letter troops signed — is trying to garner momentum, holding an event this month in Tel Aviv and gathering more signatures. A panel of soldiers spoke about what they’d seen in Gaza. Organizers distributed poster-size stickers with a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Max Kresch, an organizer, said soldiers can use their positions to create change. “We need to use our voice to speak up in the face of injustice, even if that is unpopular,” he said.
But some who fought and lost colleagues call the movement a slap in the face. More than 830 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the war, according to the army.
“They are harming our ability to defend ourselves,” said Gilad Segal, a 42-year-old paratrooper who spent two months in Gaza at the end of 2023. He said everything the army did was necessary, including the flattening of houses used as Hamas hideouts. It’s not a soldier’s place to agree or disagree with the government, he argued.
Ishai Menuchin, spokesperson for Yesh Gvul, a movement for soldiers refusing to serve, said he works with more than 80 soldiers who have refused to fight and that there are hundreds more who feel similarly but remain silent.
Effects on soldiers
Some of the soldiers who spoke to AP said they feel conflicted and regretful, and they’re talking to friends and relatives about what they saw to process it.
Many soldiers suffer from “moral injury,” said Tuly Flint, a trauma therapy specialist who’s counseled hundreds of them during the war. It’s a response when people see or do something that goes against their beliefs, he said, and it can result in a lack of sleep, flashbacks and feelings of unworthiness. Talking about it and trying to spark change can help, Flint said.
One former infantry soldier told AP about his feelings of guilt — he said he saw about 15 buildings burned down unnecessarily during a two-week stint in late 2023. He said that if he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t have fought.
“I didn’t light the match, but I stood guard outside the house. I participated in war crimes,” said the soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity over fears of retaliation. “I’m so sorry for what we’ve done.”
