WASHINGTON: One of the four Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Syria this week was a Navy sailor and married mother of two whose father is a high-ranking officer in the New York State Police, officials said on Friday.
The Pentagon identified three of the four Americans killed in Wednesday’s attack in the northern Syrian town of Manbij.
They are Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, who was based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Pine Plains, New York, and based at Fort Meade, Maryland; and a civilian, Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis.
The Pentagon has not identified the fourth casualty, a civilian contractor.
But according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an Arabic interpreter who had emigrated from Syria to the US was among at least 20 people killed in the bombing.
Ali Taher told the newspaper on Friday that his older sister, Ghadir Taher, 27, of East Point, Georgia, was killed by the blast.
Ali Taher, who immigrated with his family to the US, said his sister’s smile would light up the room. He said she graduated from Tri-Cities High School and was kind and very easy to talk to.
The family learned of her death from her employer, Valiant Integrated Services, a defense contractor, he said.
In an email to the newspaper, Valiant spokesman Tom Becker confirmed the death, adding they were “extremely saddened by the tragic and senseless passing” of Ghadir Taher.
The attack, claimed by Daesh, also wounded three US troops and was the deadliest assault on US troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015.
The Pentagon’s statement said Kent was from upstate New York but did not give a hometown. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that she was from Pine Plains and was the daughter of state police field commander Col. Stephen Smith, the agency’s third-highest position.
“We owe her our eternal gratitude for her selfless dedication and sacrifice,” Cuomo said while ordering flags on state government buildings to be flown at half-staff in Kent’s honor.
Tara Grieb, principal of Stissing Mountain Junior-Senior High School in Pine Plains, said Kent grew up in the small, picturesque Hudson Valley town 145 km north of New York City and graduated from the local high school in 2001.
Grieb said Kent moved away after enlisting in the Navy in 2003.
“She was an honor student and a fabulous person,” Grieb said. “We are proud of her and her service and we support her family 100 percent in their time of sorrow.”
Kent’s mother, Mary Smith, taught sixth grade in the district until retiring last year, Grieb said.
Kent, who lived in Maryland with her husband and two children, was assigned to the Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66 based at Fort George Meade.
Cryptologic technicians are part of the Navy’s intelligence-gathering apparatus, analyzing encrypted electronic communications and using computers and other technology to compile information on the nation’s enemies.
Cmdr. Joseph Harrison, the unit’s commanding officer, said in a statement that Kent “was a rockstar, an outstanding Chief Petty Officer, and leader to many in the Navy Information Warfare Community.”
Florida’s Palm Beach Post reported that Farmer’s parents loaded suitcases into a friend’s SUV on Friday morning before heading to Dover, Delaware, for the return of their son’s remains.
Duncan Farmer characterized his son as “a good man. Good son. Good father. Good husband.” Then he added, “A good friend.”
Duncan Farmer said they knew Jonathan, a Green Beret, was in Syria, but “we didn’t know exactly where.”
Jonathan Farmer was born in Boynton Beach, Florida, south of West Palm Beach. He grew up in Palm Beach Gardens, attending the Benjamin School before going to Bowdoin College in Maine.
His father said Jonathan Famer was in the military for 13 years and had been in dangerous places “many times,” including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
He said services will be at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Palm Beach Gardens, but a date has not been set. He said internment will be at Arlington National Cemetery.
In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson asked Missourians to pray for the family of Wirtz, a former Navy SEAL who was working for the US Defense Intelligence Agency as an operations support specialist.
Wirtz “died bravely serving our nation in a dangerous part of the world, and for that we are grateful,” Parson said.
Syrian-born woman among 4 slain Americans in Manbij
Syrian-born woman among 4 slain Americans in Manbij
- US government sources say the Pentagon and other national agencies are investigating the bombing
- This is one of the deadliest attacks on US forces in Syria since their deployment in 2015
Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza
- Mahmoud Abbas said Hamas must recognize that there should be ‘one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon’
- Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians
LONDON: The Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed that Hamas will not take part in governing the coastal enclave of the post-war Gaza Strip during a meeting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in Amman.
Abbas said Hamas must surrender its weapons to the PA and participate in political actions aligned with the principles of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad is part of the PLO, and both groups have long rejected calls to join what Palestinians consider their sole political representative since the 1960s.
Abbas said that Hamas must recognize that in the Palestinian territories, there should be “one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon,” during his meeting on Sunday evening with Blair, who served as the special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East from 2007 to 2015.
Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians, according to an official tally. Since then, it has engaged in several conflicts with Israel, the most recent being the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, which resulted in the deaths and abduction of several hundred people and prompted an ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed over 58,000 Palestinians.
Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian aid.
He stressed the need for a two-state solution and the importance of the French-Saudi-sponsored conference, scheduled for the end of July in New York, to gain support for establishing a Palestinian state.
Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
- The US is backing a 60-day ceasefire with a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and talks to end the conflict
DOHA: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.
The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages.
In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Younis in the south.
One strike on a tent in Khan Younis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.
Belal Al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death.”
AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.
Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“Gaza, we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4.
A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors.
But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied media reports that any meeting between the two was on the agenda.
In Israel, Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire when a deal for a temporary truce is agreed and only when Hamas lays down its weapons.
But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and with public frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostages and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, his fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but Netanyahu is seen as beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house displaced Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described the proposed facility as a “concentration camp” and Israel’s own security establishment is reported to be unhappy at the plan.
Israeli media said the costs were discussed at a security cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office on Sunday night, just hours before his latest court appearance in a long-running corruption trial on Monday.
Hamas’s attacks on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of which 49 are still being held, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,026 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM
- Ehud Olmert slams proposal by defense minister, saying it amounts to ethnic cleansing
- He condemns settler crimes in West Bank, calling extremist Israeli ministers ‘enemies from within’
London: Plans to build a “humanitarian city” for displaced Palestinians in Gaza would amount to creating a concentration camp, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.
The plan, outlined by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz last week and backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proposes to relocate around 600,000 Palestinians — and eventually Gaza’s entire population of over 2 million — to the site in Rafah. Once there, they would only be allowed to leave if traveling abroad.
“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert told The Guardian. “If they (Palestinians) will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city,’ then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing.”
He added: “When they build a camp where they (say they plan to) ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this (is that) it is not to save (Palestinians).
“It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”
Israeli legal experts and journalists wrote to Katz last week warning that “under certain conditions it could amount to the crime of genocide.”
Olmert also condemned the uptick in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, criticizing complicity by Israeli authorities and calling the deaths of two men recently, including a US citizen, war crimes.
“(It is) unforgivable. Unacceptable. There are continuous operations organised, orchestrated in the most brutal, criminal manner by a large group,” he said.
“There is no way that they can operate in such a consistent, massive and widespread manner without a framework of support and protection which is provided by the (Israeli) authorities in the (Occupied) Territories.”
Discussing extreme right-wing Israeli Cabinet ministers pushing the violence in the West Bank and using language such as “cleanse” in relation to Gaza, Olmert called them “the enemy from within,” warning that their rhetoric and actions would fuel anti-Israel sentiment.
“In the US there is more and more and more expanding expressions of hatred to Israel,” he said. “We make a discount to ourselves saying: ‘They are antisemites.’ I don’t think that they are only antisemites, I think many of them are anti-Israel because of what they watch on television, what they watch on social networks.
“This is a painful but normal reaction of people who say: ‘Hey, you guys have crossed every possible line.’”
Olmert said that although he backed the initial invasion of Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack, he is “ashamed and heartbroken” at how Israel’s government has prosecuted the war and abandoned peace negotiations.
“What can I do to change the attitude, except for number one, recognising these evils, and number two, to criticise them and to make sure the international public opinion knows there are (other) voices, many voices in Israel?” he asked.
Saying he believes the Israeli military’s actions have caused “the killing of a large number of non-involved people,” he added: “I cannot refrain from accusing this government of being responsible for war crimes committed.”
However, he voiced hope that peace and a two-state solution are still possible, telling The Guardian that he is working with former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa to lobby the international community to help make it happen.
Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
- Fighting between Druze militiamen and Bedouin tribal fighters was the first time that sectarian violence erupted inside the city of Sweida itself
DAMASCUS: Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias there.
Dozens of people have been killed in the fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province. Government security forces that were sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry has said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured in that fighting.
Dozens of people have been killed in fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province, where government security forces sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor reported at least 50 dead, including two children and six members of the security forces.
Clashes initially broke out between armed groups from the Druze religious minority and Sunni Bedouin clans, the observatory said, with some members of the government security forces “actively participating” in support of the Bedouins.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Noureddine Al-Baba told the state-run state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV that government forces entered Sweida in the early morning to restore order.
“Some clashes occurred with outlawed armed groups, but our forces are doing their best to prevent any civilian casualties,” he said.
The observatory said the clashes started after a series of kidnappings between both groups, which began when members of a Bedouin tribe in the area set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a young Druze man.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the observatory, said the conflict started with the kidnapping and robbery of a Druze vegetable seller, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings.
Syria’s defense and interior ministries were deploying personnel to the area to attempt to restore order.
The Interior Ministry described the situation as a dangerous escalation that “comes in the absence of the relevant official institutions, which has led to an exacerbation of the state of chaos, the deterioration of the security situation, and the inability of the local community to contain the situation despite repeated calls for calm.”
Factions from the Druze minority have been suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus after former President Bashar Assad fled the country during a rebel offensive led by Sunni Islamist insurgent groups in December. Earlier this year, Druze groups in Sweida clashed with security forces from the new government.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.
The Druze developed their own militias during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. Since Assad’s fall, different Druze factions have been at odds over whether to integrate with the new government and armed forces.
Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations
- Wizz said geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand
- Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region
LONDON: Low-cost carrier Wizz Air said on Monday it was quitting its Abu Dhabi operation after six years to focus on its main European market, citing geopolitical instability and limited market access.
Wizz, which originally focused on central and eastern Europe but expanded into Britain, Italy and Austria, said in future it would concentrate on its much more profitable European business.
Wizz said the geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand, while the impact of the hot environment in the Middle East had hurt engine efficiency, making it hard to operate its low-cost model.
Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region as it had hoped, the airline said.
“They just couldn’t make money out of the Middle East,” Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said.
Wizz said it will stop local flights from Sept. 1, 2025 and would be contacting customers regarding refunds.
“Supply chain constraints, geopolitical instability, and limited market access have made it increasingly difficult to sustain our original ambitions,” Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi said in a statement.
“While this was a difficult decision, it is the right one given the circumstances,” he added.
Wizz Air is in talks with Airbus about scaling back its order for 47 A321XLR, a longer range aircraft, and converting some of them to regular A321 jet.
“We have 47 XLRs on order. We are going to scale that back,” Varadi said.
“We have conversion rights for the majority of that of that aircraft order. So we are talking to the manufacturer.”
