ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT: The United States is likely just weeks away from starting the withdrawal of ground troops from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump, the top US commander overseeing American forces in the Middle East said on Sunday.
US Army General Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command, cautioned that the exact timing would depend on the situation in Syria, where US-backed fighters have launched a final assault against Daesh enclaves near the Iraqi border.
The US military has already started withdrawing equipment from Syria. Asked whether the withdrawal of America’s more than 2,000 troops would begin in days or weeks, Votel said: “Probably weeks. But again, it will all be driven by the situation on the ground.”
“In terms of the withdrawal ... I think we’re right on track with where we wanted to be,” Votel told reporters traveling with him during a trip to the Middle East.
“Moving people is easier than moving equipment and so what we’re trying to do right now is again (to) kind of clear out those materials, that equipment, that we do not need.”
Trump’s surprise announcement in December that he was withdrawing American troops from Syria helped trigger the resignation of his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and sent US military officials scrambling to construct a withdrawal plan that preserves as many gains as possible.
Hundreds of additional troops have been sent to Syria to facilitate the withdrawal.
US officials have long estimated that the Syria pullout could take until sometime in March or April to execute fully, but have been reluctant to set an exact timeline given hard-to-predict battlefield conditions.
Votel did not speculate about when the drawdown would be completed.
IRAQ TROOPS STEADY
One big question has been whether some US forces in Syria might move to neighboring Iraq, where the United States has more than 5,000 troops helping Baghdad fight Daesh and prevent the group’s resurgence.
Votel said he did not believe the United States would broadly increase overall troop numbers in Iraq. He did leave open the possibility of changing the composition of forces to help the United States keep pressure on the militant group.
Referring to future US troop levels in Iraq, Votel said: “I think it’s going to remain more or less steady.”
“This isn’t just wholesale — ‘Everybody in Syria move over to Iraq.’ That doesn’t make sense,” Votel said.
Votel is one of many current and former US officials who have warned of the risk of a resurgence by Daesh unless the United States and its allies can keep pressure on the group following the US withdrawal. They say Daesh still has enough leaders, fighters, facilitators and financial resources to fuel a menacing insurgency.
But a clear US plan on how to keep up the pressure has yet to be articulated. It is also unclear whether the United States will be able to satisfy the security concerns in Syria of its NATO ally Turkey without sacrificing the interests of US-backed Kurdish fighters there.
Ankara sees the Kurdish militia as terrorists.
Washington views the Kurdish militia as loyal partners in the fight against Daesh, whose help will likely continue to be needed to prevent the group’s resurgence.
The Pentagon’s own internal watchdog released a report last week warning about the risks still posed by Daesh. It cautioned that, absent sustained pressure, the group would likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and retake some limited territory.
A UN report seen by Reuters last week estimated there are up to 18,000 Daesh militants in Iraq and Syria, including up to 3,000 foreign fighters. It warned the group was interested in attacking aviation and using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials.
Withdrawal of US forces in Syria likely to start in ‘weeks’ — US general
Withdrawal of US forces in Syria likely to start in ‘weeks’ — US general
- Washington views the Kurdish militia as loyal partners in the fight against Daesh, whose help will likely continue to be needed to prevent the group’s resurgence
More than half of Syrian children out of school: Save the Children to AFP
The overwhelming majority of Syrian children are also in need of immediate humanitarian assistance including food, the charity said, with at least half of them requiring psychological help to overcome war trauma.
“Around 3.7 million children are out of school and they require immediate action to reintegrate them in school,” Rasha Muhrez, the charity’s Syria director, told AFP in an interview from the capital Damascus, adding “this is more than half of the children at school age.”
While Syrians have endured more than a decade of conflict, the rapid rebel offensive that toppled president Bashar Assad on December 8 caused further disruption, with the UN reporting more than 700,000 people newly displaced.
“Some of the schools were used as shelters again due to the new wave of displaced people,” Muhrez told AFP.
The war, which began in 2011 after Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, has devastated Syria’s economy and public infrastructure leaving many children vulnerable.
Muhrez said “about 7.5 million children are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.”
“We need to make sure the children can come back to education, to make sure that they have access again to health, to food and that they are protected,” Muhrez said.
“Children were deprived of their basic rights including access to education, to health care, to protection, to shelter,” by the civil war, but also natural disasters and economic crises, she said.
Syria’s war spiralled rapidly from 2011 into a major civil conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
More than one in four Syrians now live in extreme poverty according to the World Bank, with the deadly February 2023 earthquake bringing more misery.
Many children who grew up during the war have been traumatized by the violence, said Muhrez.
“This had a huge impact, a huge traumatic impact on them, for various reasons, for losses: a parent, a sibling, a friend, a house,” she said.
According to Save the Children, around 6.4 million children are in need of psychological help.
Muhrez also warned that “continued coercive measures and sanctions on Syria have the largest impact on the Syrian people themselves.”
Syria has been under strict Western sanctions aimed at Assad’s government, including from the United States and European Union, since early in the war.
On Sunday, Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa expressed hope that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump would lift sanctions.
“It’s very difficult for us to continue responding to the needs and to reach people in need with limited resources with these restrictive measures,” she said.
Israel UN envoy warns Houthis risk sharing same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah
- Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians
NEW YORK: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations issued on Monday what he called a final warning to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants to halt their missile attacks on Israel, saying they otherwise risked the same “miserable fate” as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashar Assad if they persisted.
He also warned Tehran that Israel has the ability to strike any target in the Middle East, including in Iran, adding that Israel would not tolerate attacks by Iranian proxies.
Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli fire in Gaza.
“To the Houthis, perhaps you have not been paying attention to what has happened to the Middle East over the past year. Well, allow me to remind you what has happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Assad, to all those who have attempted to destroy us. Let this be your final warning. This is not a threat. It is a promise. You will share the same miserable fate,” Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told the UN Security Council.
Speaking before the meeting, Danon told reporters: “Israel will defend its people. If 2,000 kilometers is not enough to separate our children from the terror, let me assure you, it will not be enough to protect their terror from our strengths.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Houthis that Israel was “just getting started” following Israeli strikes on multiple Houthi-linked targets in Yemen, including Sanaa airport, ports on the country’s west coast and two power plants.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack by Israel. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.
Israel’s elimination of the top leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah and the destruction of their military structure along with Assad’s collapse represent a succession of monumental wins for Netanyahu.
Briefing the Security Council meeting, Assistant UN Secretary General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari reiterated grave concern about the escalation in violence, calling on the Houthis to halt attacks on Israel and for international and humanitarian law to be respected.
“Further military escalation could jeopardize regional stability with adverse political, security, economic and humanitarian repercussions,” Khiari said.
“Millions in Yemen, Israel and throughout the region, would continue to bear the brunt of escalation with no end.”
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, while condemning Houthi missile attacks on Israel, also criticized Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen, as well those by what he called the “Anglo-Saxon coalition” of US and British warships in the Red Sea, saying they were “clearly not proportional.”
Syria appoints Maysaa Sabrine as first woman to lead central bank, official says
- Sabrine has been a longtime central bank official mostly focused on oversight of the country’s banking sector
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new rulers have appointed Maysaa Sabrine, formerly a deputy governor of the Syrian central bank, to lead the institution as the first woman to do so in its more than 70-year history, a senior Syrian official said.
Sabrine, a longtime central bank official mostly focused on oversight of the country’s banking sector, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She replaces Mohammed Issam Hazime who was appointed governor in 2021 by then-President Bashar Assad and remained on after Assad was ousted by a lightning militant offensive on Dec. 8.
Since the takeover, the bank has taken steps to liberalize an economy that was heavily controlled by the state, including by canceling the need for pre-approvals for imports and exports and tight controls on the use of foreign currency.
But Syria and the bank itself remain under strict US sanctions.
The bank has also taken stock of the country’s assets after Assad’s fall and a brief spate of looting that saw Syrian currency stolen but the main vaults left unbreached, Reuters reported.
The vault holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it had at the start of its civil war in 2011, sources told Reuters, but foreign currency reserves had dwindled from around $18 billion before the war to around $200 million, they said.
Lebanon receives thousands of expatriates amid Israeli aggression
- Country faces realities while getting ready to welcome the new year
BEIRUT: Fadi Al-Hassan, director-general of Lebanon’s civil aviation authority, said on Monday that “Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport welcomed 11,700 visitors in one day,” and that “the total number of arrivals to date in December has reached about 220,000.”
Al-Hassan described the figures as “an important achievement compared with the previous years.”
Lebanon is trying to recover from an expanded, destructive Israeli war that started last October against Hezbollah and ended about a month ago under a conditional agreement that provides for the Lebanese army’s deployment in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces, which must completely withdraw from the areas they invaded in the south within a period of 60 days pursuant to the agreement, continue to detonate and bulldoze houses, evacuating only a few areas.
The Israeli army carried out a huge demolition operation in Taybeh, Marjayoun, after bulldozing houses in Taybeh, Mays Al-Jabal, Khiam, Kfarkila and Chamaa.
Most of the arrivals in Lebanon are expatriates who came to spend the holidays with their families, as well as Syrians using Beirut’s airport to return to Syria.
Lebanon is preparing to welcome the new year, while living two separate realities.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, littered with the rubble of flattened buildings, dozens of “for sale” signs are displayed on the balconies of several buildings that survived the war.
Nisrine, who came back from Germany to check on her mother in Burj Al-Barajneh, told Arab News: “What we saw on the screen is different than reality. The destruction here is scary. The suburb is gloomy and no longer looks like itself.
“Nights are horrific,” she added. “People are tired and worried, the cost of rebuilding what was destroyed is huge, and non-Hezbollah partisans complain of the absence of financial aid to help fix the broken windows at least.”
On the other hand, the areas not affected by war face increased road traffic, with holiday decorations taking over the streets, restaurants and shops.
Therese, who runs a pub with her children in Badaro, hoped “that the situation would get better in the coming new year, and that the 2024 war would be the country’s last.”
She said that “the whole country was affected by what happened in the southern suburbs, the south, and Bekaa. People want to go on with their lives, and we try to be a beacon of hope for them to reduce the weight of the days they went through.”
Security agencies are taking precautions, covering all expected tourist spots in Lebanon.
Minister of Interior Bassam Malawi, and the director-general of the internal security forces, Maj. Gen. Imad Othman, will personally supervise the launch of security patrols, with the event to be broadcast live on TV channels.
Civil aviation’s Al-Hassan said that “Emirati, French, and German airlines, as well as other companies that have suspended flights to Lebanon during the war, could possibly resume their flight schedule to Lebanon in the next 10 days,” adding that “other companies have already resumed their activity with a limited number of flights to Lebanon.”
He expected “the organization of flights to be further improved next month.”
In other news, a parliamentary session is expected to take place on Jan. 9 to elect a president — a position that has been vacant for 26 months due to political disputes between Hezbollah and its allies on one hand, and its opponents on the other, as to the president’s identity.
With nine days remaining until the session, the identity of the candidate with the highest chances of winning is still unknown. It is also unclear whether the quorum will be met, or whether any political party would be willing to compromise.
Despite Hezbollah’s struggle with the rubble removal, compensation and reconstruction file, the party considered, according to its head of Arab and International Relations, Ammar Moussawi, that “some fools and idiots think that the resistance was defeated and written off.”
He added: “We tell them that as long as our hearts are beating, the resistance will remain. Dreaming of a Lebanon without the resistance is wishful thinking.”
Hezbollah parliament MP Hassan Fadlallah said that “the resistance’s firmness, and the political effort led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in full coordination with Hezbollah’s leadership, are what led to the ceasefire agreement, which in turn forced the enemy to withdraw within a 60-day period from the border area.”
He added that “the agreement didn’t allow the enemy to carry out any violations and hostilities on Lebanese territory and in the southern area and border villages.”
Fadlallah believed that “besides the internal political divisions and conflicts, confronting the Israeli hostilities against our country should be part of a responsible national stance, where every party assumes its responsibilities, be it the state, the official authorities or the political forces.”
He continued: “This cause must concern all the Lebanese. The south is part of our country, and everyone should be involved in defending and protecting the country’s sovereignty. This requires a national stance.”
He emphasized that “the only way to confront this enemy is through the resistance’s weapons and the people-army-resistance equation.”
On the Israeli side, Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that “every dollar denied to Hezbollah is a step closer toward weakening this organization. We will block Hezbollah’s attempts to recover.”
Katz said: “The long arm of Israel will act in every way to ensure the safety of our citizens, and we are working on all fronts to dry up Hezbollah’s sources of funding as it attempts to rebuild its capabilities.”
Palestinian Authority says five more Gazans die in Israeli detention
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority’s ministry for detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club announced on Monday that they had received reports of the deaths of five Gazans in Israeli detention.
Amani Sarahna, a spokesperson for the Prisoners’ Club, confirmed to AFP that two of the five died on Sunday, while the remaining three died earlier.
The club said the five prisoners were arrested during the Israel-Hamas war, some of them while fleeing from the north of the Gaza Strip southwards.
According to the two organizations, 54 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Thirty-five of the dead have been from the Gaza Strip, with the rest from the occupied West Bank.
The detainees ministry is an arm of the Palestinian Authority responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in Israeli jails and their families.
The two organizations named four of the dead prisoners as Mohammad Rashid Okka, 44, Samir Mahmoud Al-Kahlout, 52, Zuhair Omar Al-Sharif, 58, and Mohammad Anwar Labad, 57.
An additional prisoner, Ashraf Mohammad Abu Warda, 51, died in Israel’s Soroka Hospital on Sunday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.
They did not provide details of how the prisoners died.
In a joint statement, the two organizations accused Israel of “liquidation operations against prisoners and detainees.”
They said the number of prisoners killed in Israeli jails was at a historic high, calling it “the most bloody phase.” According to the statement, 291 Palestinian prisoners have died in custody since 1967, when Israel began occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Currently, more than 10,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, including 89 women, at least 345 children and 3,428 administrative detainees who are held without trial.
The Israel Prisons Service did not immediately respond to an AFP request for confirmation of the deaths.
