LONDON: The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi militia in Yemen announced on Saturday that the Houthis had freed the G Muse ship that it had been holding captive for the last 62 days at the port of Hodeidah.
The coalition added that there are currently four ships docked in the port of Hodeidah waiting to unload their cargo, while four others are waiting to enter the port.
The coalition also said that a ship is anchored in Salif port, while another is waiting to enter it.
The port of Hodeidah is Yemen’s main lifeline for the import of humanitarian aid, but it is also a conduit for smuggling weapons to the Iranian-backed Houthis, including components of missiles launched from northern Yemen and aimed at cities in Saudi Arabia.
UN envoy Martin Griffiths has been conducting shuttle diplomacy in search of a political solution that would avert an all-out military assault on the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah by the coalition.
Griffiths is expected to hold a meeting with Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi on Monday.
Houthi militia free G Muse ship after holding it hostage for 62 days
Houthi militia free G Muse ship after holding it hostage for 62 days
Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned since Assad’s fall: UN
Those returns came before a lightning offensive by Islamist rebels late last year ousted Assad
GENEVA: Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since the fall of Bashar Assad in early December, the UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said Saturday ahead of a visit to the region.
Between December 8 and January 16, some 195,200 Syrians returned home, according to figures published by Grandi on X.
“Soon I will visit Syria — and its neighboring countries — as UNHCR steps up its support to returnees and receiving communities,” Grandi said.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians had returned home last year as they fled Lebanon to escape Israeli attacks during its conflict with the Hezbollah militant group.
Those returns came before a lightning offensive by Islamist rebels late last year ousted Assad, raising hopes of an end to a 13-year civil war that killed over half million dead and sent millions seeking refuge abroad.
Turkiye, which shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria, hosts some 2.9 million Syrians who have fled since 2011.
Turkish authorities, who are hoping to see many of those refugees return to ease growing anti-Syrian sentiment among the population, are allowing one member of each refugee family to make three round trips until July 1, 2025 to prepare for their resettlement.
Netanyahu says Israel will not proceed with Gaza ceasefire until it gets hostage list
- “Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” Netanyahu said
JERUSALEM: Israel will not proceed with the Gaza ceasefire until it receives a list of the 33 hostages who will be released by Hamas in the first phase of the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
“We will not move forward with the agreement until we receive the list of hostages who will be released, as agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. The sole responsibility lies with Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Austin Tice's mother, in Damascus, hopes to find son missing since 2012
- "It'd be lovely to put my arms around Austin while I'm here. It'd be the best," Debra Tice told Reuters
- "I feel very strongly that Austin's here, and I think he knows I'm here... I'm here"
DAMASCUS: The mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to step up the search for her son and said she hopes she can take him home with her.
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first U.S. journalists to make it into Syria after the outbreak of the civil war.
His mother, Debra Tice, drove into the Syrian capital from Lebanon with Nizar Zakka, the head of Hostage Aid Worldwide, an organisation which is searching for Austin and believes he is still in Syria.
"It'd be lovely to put my arms around Austin while I'm here. It'd be the best," Debra Tice told Reuters in the Syrian capital, which she last visited in 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities about her son, before they stopped granting her visas.
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December by Syrian rebels has allowed her to visit again from her home in Texas.
"I feel very strongly that Austin's here, and I think he knows I'm here... I'm here," she said.
Debra Tice and Zakka are hoping to meet with Syria's new authorities, including the head of its new administration Ahmed al-Sharaa, to push for information about Austin. They are also optimistic that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will take up the cause.
"I am hoping to get some answers. And of course, you know, we have inauguration on Monday, and I think that should be a huge change," she said.
"I know that President Trump is quite a negotiator, so I have a lot of confidence there. But now we have an unknown on this (Syrian) side. It's difficult to know, if those that are coming in even have the information about him," she said.
Her son, now 43, was taken captive in August 2012, while travelling through the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
Reuters was first to report in December that in 2013 Tice, a former U.S. Marine, managed to slip out of his cell and was seen moving between houses in the streets of Damascus' upscale Mazzeh neighbourhood.
He was recaptured soon after his escape, likely by forces who answered directly to Assad, current and former U.S. officials said.
Debra Tice came to Syria in 2012 and 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities, who never confirmed that Tice was in their custody, both she and Zakka said.
She criticised outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, saying they did not negotiate hard enough for her son's release, even in recent months.
"We certainly felt like President Biden was very well positioned to do everything possible to bring Austin home, right? I mean, this was the end of his career. This would be a wonderful thing for him to do. So we had an expectation. He pardoned his own son, right? So, where's my son?"
Debra Tice said her "mind was just spinning" as she drove across the Lebanese border into Syria and teared up as she spoke about the tens of thousands whose loved ones were held in Assad's notorious prison system and whose fate remains unknown.
"I have a lot in common with a lot of Syrian mothers and families, and just thinking about how this is affecting them - do they have the same hope that I do, that they're going to open a door, that they're going to see their loved one?"
Hezbollah chief warns Israel over ‘hundreds’ of truce violations
- Naim Qassem, the Hezbollah leader, called “on the Lebanese state to be firm in confronting violations, now numbering more than hundreds. This cannot continue”
- “I call on you not to test our patience“
BEIRUT: The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group on Saturday accused Israel of hundreds of violations of a ceasefire, to be fully implemented by next week, and warned against testing “our patience.”
His remarks came during a visit to Lebanon by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for Israel to end military operations and “occupation” in the south, almost two months into the ceasefire between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
Guterres on Friday said UN peacekeepers had also found more than 100 weapons caches belonging “to Hezbollah or other armed groups.”
Naim Qassem, the Hezbollah leader, called “on the Lebanese state to be firm in confronting violations, now numbering more than hundreds. This cannot continue,” he said in a televised speech.
“We have been patient with the violations to give a chance to the Lebanese state responsible for this agreement, along with the international sponsors, but I call on you not to test our patience,” Qassem said.
Under the November 27 ceasefire accord, which ended two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside peacekeepers from the UNIFIL mission in south Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws.
At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.
Qassem’s speech came as Guterres met Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun, the former army chief who has vowed that the state would have “a monopoly” on bearing weapons.
Analysts say Hezbollah’s weakening in the war with Israel allowed Lebanon’s deeply divided political class to elect Aoun and to back his naming as prime minister Nawaf Salam, who was presiding judge at the International Criminal Court.
Qassem insisted Hezbollah and ally Amal’s backing “is what led to the election of the president by consensus,” after around two years of deadlock.
“No one can exploit the results of the aggression in domestic politics,” he warned. “No one can exclude us from effective and influential political participation in the country.”
After his meeting with Aoun on Saturday, Guterres expressed hope Lebanon could open “a new chapter of peace.” The UN chief has said he is on a “visit of solidarity” with Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron was also in Lebanon on Friday and said there must be “accelerated” implementation of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
Two Supreme Court judges shot dead in Tehran, Iranian judiciary says
- The motive for the assassination is unclear, but the two judges handled ‘national security cases’
- Iranian judiciary says it has identified ‘spies and terrorist groups,’ sparking anger and resentment
TEHRAN: Two senior Iranian Supreme Court judges involved in handling espionage and terrorism cases were shot dead in the capital Tehran on Saturday, Iran’s judiciary said.
It said the attacker killed himself after opening fire at the judges inside the Supreme Court, and that a bodyguard of one of the judges was wounded.
The judiciary identified the judges who were killed as mid-ranking Shiite Muslim clerics Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini.
While the motive for the assassination was still unclear, judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir told state television that the two judges had long been involved in “national security cases, including espionage and terrorism.”
“In the past year, the judiciary has undertaken extensive efforts to identify spies and terrorist groups, a move that has sparked anger and resentment among the enemies,” he said.
State TV said these cases were related to individuals linked to Israel and the Iranian opposition supported by the United States. It did not elaborate.
Opposition websites have in the past said Moghiseh was involved in trials of people they described as political prisoners.
Razini was a target of an assassination attempt in 1998.
