US-backed force tracks Syria extremists after ‘caliphate’ falls
More than a dozen coalition air strikes have targeted Daesh hideouts near Baghouz since Sunday
Daesh fighters also retain a presence in Syria’s vast Badia desert and various other hideouts
Updated 02 April 2019
AFP
BEIRUT: A US-backed force said Tuesday it was chasing Daesh group fighters in eastern Syria, as coalition warplanes pound the militants more than a week after their “caliphate” was declared defeated.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by warplanes of a US-led coalition, dislodged Daesh fighters from their last redoubt in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border on March 23, following a months-long offensive.
The US-backed alliance is now “tracking down remnants of the terrorist group,” SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said on Tuesday.
“There are groups hiding in caves overlooking Baghouz,” he said.
The US-led coalition said it was supporting sweeping operations with air strikes on militant hideouts.
“The Syrian Democratic Forces continues to deny Daesh a physical space and influence in the area and work to deny them the resources they need to return,” coalition spokesman Scott Rawlinson told AFP on Monday.
“In support of back-clearance operations, the coalition continues to conduct precision strike support in coordination with SDF,” he said.
The official said anti-Daesh operations are now focusing on “eroding” Daesh’s “capacity to regenerate and collaborate.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that more than a dozen coalition air strikes have targeted Daesh hideouts in Baghouz since Sunday.
Strikes hit caves and farmlands in the village where holdout militants are believed to be hiding, it said.
Daesh fighters also retain a presence in Syria’s vast Badia desert and various other hideouts, and have continued to claim deadly attacks in SDF-held territory.
Last week, Daesh killed seven US-backed fighters in an attack on a checkpoint in the northern city of Manbij, which is controlled by a local council linked to the SDF.
The Observatory on Tuesday said that nine suspected militants were captured in the former Daesh bastion of Raqqa since Sunday.
The SDF has warned that a new phase has begun in anti-Daesh operations, following the defeat of the militant proto-state.
They appealed for sustained coalition assistance to help smash sleeper cells.
The “caliphate” proclaimed in mid-2014 by fugitive Daesh supremo Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi started collapsing in 2017 when parallel offensives in Iraq and Syria wrested back its main urban hubs — Mosul and Raqqa.
The nearly five years of fighting against the most brutal extremist group in modern history left major cities in ruins and populations homeless.
US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy
Updated 3 sec ago
ISTANBUL: The United States has begun reducing its military presence in Syria with a view to eventually closing all but one of its bases there, the US envoy for the country has said in an interview. Six months after the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, the United States is steadily drawing down its presence as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a military task force launched in 2014 to fight the Daesh group (IS). “The reduction of our OIR engagement on a military basis is happening,” the US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said in an interview with Turkiye’s NTV late on Monday. “We’ve gone from eight bases to five to three. We’ll eventually go to one.” But he admitted Syria still faced major security challenges under interim leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in December. Assad’s ouster brought an end to Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war, but the new authorities have struggled to contain recent bouts of sectarian violence. Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkiye, called for the “integration” of the country’s ethnic and religious groups. “It’s very tribal still. It’s very difficult to bring it together,” he said. But “I think that will happen,” he added. The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve its troops in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, saying the IS presence had been reduced to “remnants.”
Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the killing of more 30 Palestinians
He called for an “immediate and independent investigation” into the incident
Updated 31 min 4 sec ago
AP
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.
The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.
The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.
The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn’t address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.
The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday.
It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.
The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday,
it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”
‘Either way we will die’ The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.
The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.
At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher Al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.
Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of whom were declared dead on arrival and eight more who later died of their wounds.
The 27 dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. in the city’s Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution hub.
He said he saw several people killed or wounded. Neima Al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, gave a similar account.
“There were many martyrs and wounded,” she said, saying the shooting by Israeli forces was “indiscriminate.”
She said she managed to reach the hub but returned empty-handed.
“There was no aid there,” she said. “After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said.
“Either way we will die.” Rasha Al-Nahal, another witness, said “there was gunfire from all directions.”
She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.
She said she also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub, and that Israeli forces “fired at us as we were returning.” 3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza
The Israeli military meanwhile said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.
The military said the three soldiers, all in their early 20s, fell during combat in northern Gaza on Monday, without providing details.
Israeli media reported that they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.
Israel ended the ceasefire in March after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner.
Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the war.
They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government.
Its toll is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
One dead, dozens injured as quake hits Turkey's Marmaris
One killed and dozens injured reported the interior minister
The quake struck at 2:17 am 10 kilometers off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said
Updated 03 June 2025
AP
ANKARA: A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Marmaris area of southwestern Turkiye early on Tuesday, killing one teenager and injuring dozens of people, the interior minister said.
A 14-year-old girl died following a panic attack and some 70 people were hurt in the province of Mugla as they rushed to find safety, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
There were no initial reports of buildings destroyed, he said.
The quake struck at 2:17 am (2317 GMT on Monday) some 10 kilometers (six miles) off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said.
“In Fethiye, a 14-year-old girl named Afranur Gunlu was taken to the hospital due to a panic attack but, unfortunately, despite all interventions, she passed away,” Yerlikaya said.
Marmaris’ governor, Idris Akbiyik, told the station that seven people were being treated for injuries after jumping from windows or balconies in panic but there was no immediate report of any serious damage.
Turkiye sits on top of major fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.
In 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkiye and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.
Israel intercepts Yemen missile, Houthi rebels claim attack
In a video statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group’s “missile force... carried out a military operation” targeting Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv
Updated 03 June 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile launched Monday from Yemen, whose Houthi rebels claimed an attack targeting Israel’s main airport.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the army said in a statement, as loud booms were heard in the skies over Jerusalem.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel.
In a video statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group’s “missile force... carried out a military operation” targeting Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
Monday’s interception followed another the day before that was claimed by the Iran-backed rebels.
The Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but began again after Israel resumed its military campaign in the territory.
While most of the projectiles have been intercepted, one missile fired in early May hit inside the perimeter of Ben Gurion airport for the first time.
Israel has carried out several strikes in Yemen in retaliation for the attacks, including on ports and the airport in the capital Sanaa.
Can sanctions relief deliver quick wins for Syria’s economy?
A major boost came when Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced they would jointly fund salary support for Syrian state employees
Experts want legal clarity and investor safeguards to be put in place quickly for loans, grants and investments to start flowing in
Updated 03 June 2025
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: Like a relic from another era, its promise long faded, the Syrian pound still lingers in the wallets of shopkeepers and shoppers in Damascus. Yet, green shoots of hope are sprouting across the war-weary nation.
That rekindled sense of optimism owes much to US President Donald Trump’s pledge to ease sanctions and signs of regional support for Syria’s economic recovery.
A major boost came on May 31, when Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced they would jointly fund salary support for Syrian state employees, many of whom have struggled for years on paltry and irregular wages.
The pledge builds on earlier Gulf efforts to stabilize Syria’s economy and signals a deeper commitment to reconstruction. On May 12, Saudi Arabia and Qatar settled Syria’s $15.5 million in arrears to the World Bank’s International Development Association — a key step that reopened access to loans and grants.
The international backing comes at a crucial moment. After 14 years of war and isolation, Syria’s economy has nearly collapsed. Exports have dried up, foreign reserves have fallen to just $200 million, the currency has lost 99 percent of its value, and more than 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line.
The new interim government, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, inherited a damaged economy and the sanctions that helped undermine it. (AFP)
Trump’s March 13 announcement in Riyadh sparked spontaneous celebrations in the capital’s streets. But even amid the jubilation, many Syrians recognized that true recovery would take more than a policy shift — and much longer to materialize.
“Partial sanctions relief sends a political signal, not a legal guarantee,” Harout Ekmanian, public international lawyer at Foley Hoag LLP in New York, told Arab News.
“Investors remain cautious, and there is a risk of overcompliance with any remaining sanctions that are in place, particularly in sensitive sectors like banking,” he said.
He added that the need for “a complete lifting of the tangled web of sanctions to facilitate investment from compliance sensitive investors from the US and Europe” cannot be overstated.
Delaney Simon, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group’s US program, concurred. “If Trump is actually planning to lift all or even most sanctions on Syria, he is doing something virtually unprecedented in the recent history of sanctions relief,” he told Arab News.
He cautions, though, that “lifting sanctions is not straightforward.”
“It will require a massive bureaucratic and possibly political lift in Washington, including mobilization of different arms of the US government including the Treasury, State and Commerce departments and Congress,” Simon said.
Even with formal relief, private firms may be slow to re-engage. “Relief on paper might not translate to relief in practice,” he said. “The private sector may be wary of engaging with Syria once the restrictions are lifted.”
Despite those concerns, Simon urges patience. “President Trump has a tough road ahead to make good on this commitment, but he should persevere,” he said. “He is right that lifting sanctions gives Syria a chance at greatness.”
For now, such an outcome remains uncertain. The most severe Western sanctions were imposed in 2011 by the US, EU, UK, and others in response to the Assad regime’s crackdown on protesters.
Following the ousting of Bashar Assad in December, the new interim government, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, inherited a damaged economy and the sanctions that helped undermine it.
Washington’s measures were among the most sweeping: a near-total trade embargo, asset freezes, and secondary sanctions targeting foreign firms doing business with Syria. The Caesar Act of 2020 imposed additional restrictions, further isolating Assad’s regime.
Renewed violence has erupted in several areas, including rural Damascus, Homs, and the Alawite-dominated coast, now largely controlled by HTS, the group that led the offensive to oust Assad. (AFP)
Signs of change came on May 23, when the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 25, lifting most of those restrictions. The relief, however, comes with conditions: political reform, respect for human rights, and counterterrorism commitments from Damascus.
Soon after, the EU and UK followed suit, underscoring a broader Western alignment with the Al-Sharaa government. Still, experts say sanctions relief alone will not revive an economy ravaged by years of conflict.
A key next step is rejoining the SWIFT financial network. Bankers in Damascus expect the connection to be restored within weeks, enabling smoother international transactions and potentially unlocking billions in remittances from Syrians abroad.
Nevertheless, global banks remain cautious, awaiting clearer legal guidance from Western governments. “Syria’s financial system is a black box that nobody understands,” Stephen Fallon, a banking and sanctions expert, told The Economist newsmagazine. “If I run a Western bank and I accidentally receive funds from terrorists, it’s me the American regulators will come after.”
Foley Hoag’s Ekmanian sees potential short-term gains but says they depend on legal clarity. “Sanctions relief can act as a pressure valve by easing immediate economic distress, but without legal clarity on asset recovery and investor protections, quick wins may remain elusive,” he said.
INNUMBERS
• $15.5m World Bank arrears paid by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
• $200m Left in Syria’s foreign currency reserves.
• $400m Frozen assets that, if recovered, could support reform.
(Sources: World Bank, Central Bank of Syria, & Reuters)
Access to frozen reserves could help stabilize liquidity. But long-term recovery, he added, depends on structural reform and investor confidence — both difficult to achieve.
Syria’s central bank holds just $200 million in foreign exchange reserves, Reuters news agency reported — a steep decline from the $18.5 billion the International Monetary Fund estimated before the war. It also retains nearly 26 tonnes of gold, currently valued at over $2.6 billion.
The interim government hopes to unlock up to $400 million in frozen overseas assets to fund reforms, including recent salary hikes for public workers. But the actual value, location, and timeline for repatriation remain unclear.
Switzerland has identified $118 million in local banks, according to Reuters, while The Syria Report estimates another $217 million is in the UK.
US President Donald Trump pledged to ease sanctions and signs of regional support for Syria’s economic recovery. (AFP)
Ekmanian emphasized that even modest gains “hinge on the credibility of the sanctions relief architecture.” He noted that “if businesses fear snapback sanctions or regulatory ambiguity, even the thawing of restrictions won’t translate into meaningful economic movement.”
Predictability, he said, underpins international investment. “International investment law tells us that predictability is key,” he said.
“While sanctions relief can unlock trade routes and aid, without legal assurances and investment protection commitments, Syria risks a piecemeal recovery vulnerable to geopolitical shifts.”
Beyond legal guarantees, Syria must overhaul its domestic institutions. “Legal frameworks must catch up with policy signals,” Ekmanian said.
“Re-engagement with Syria under international economic law requires more than opening bank accounts,” he explained. “It demands credible reforms to the domestic legal framework, judiciary, arbitration frameworks, debt transparency, and governance of sovereign assets.”
He also warned of legal risks that could deter investors: a growing docket of war-related tort and atrocity litigation in European and US courts under universal jurisdiction and terrorism exceptions to sovereign immunity.
“Even with various US sanctions and EU Council Regulation 36/2012 partially relaxed, this needs to be accompanied by steps to ensure that the new government and Syrian people are not unduly burdened by the prior regime’s liabilities,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, “modest sanctions relief can ease humanitarian transactions and marginally bolster foreign-exchange buffers, but it cannot deliver a durable uplift in trade, investment or debt restructuring without parallel movement on governance, transparency, and human-rights benchmarks that anchor international economic law.”
Syria’s external debt is another major obstacle, estimated by the new government to be between $20 billion and $23 billion — high relative to its 2023 GDP of about $17.5 billion. Much of it was accrued under Assad through military and oil-related loans from allies such as Iran and Russia, complicating restructuring efforts.
Despite these hurdles, some see progress. “US sanctions relief will be a major step not only towards economic recovery, but also towards ending the cycles of violence that have trapped Syria for over a decade,” said Nanar Hawach, a senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Many Syrians recognize that true recovery would take more than a policy shift — and much longer to materialize. (AFP)
He argued that economic collapse has contributed to insecurity by weakening services, deepening grievances and driving recruitment into armed groups. “Lifting sanctions could help reverse that dynamic,” he told Arab News.
Syria’s post-Assad transition remains unsettled. Renewed violence has erupted in several areas, including rural Damascus, Homs, and the Alawite-dominated coast, now largely controlled by HTS, the group that led the offensive to oust Assad.
The group has since absorbed rival factions, some still having Daesh-aligned extremists in their ranks. Elsewhere, sectarian clashes have hit Homs and rural Damascus, while the interim government struggles to contain unrest among Druze in the south and Kurds in the northeast.
Still, the psychological effect of sanctions relief may prove powerful. “The most immediate benefit is psychological: a clear boost in investor confidence,” Hawach said.
“Even when sanctions were partially eased in the past, most banks and companies, especially international ones, avoided Syria out of fear of getting blacklisted,” he said. “Simply put, the word ‘Syria’ was enough to trigger overcompliance,” but a shift is noticeable now.
He noted that some regional investors are already engaging with Syria. “Some have already taken the decision to invest and are now looking into the technical aspects of it,” he said. “There’s a lot of momentum. It’s looking very promising.”
Since May 13, several regional investors have announced major projects. On May 29, Syria signed a strategic agreement with a consortium led by Qatar’s UCC Holding to build four gas power plants and a 1,000-megawatt solar facility — a $7 billion investment expected to meet over half the country’s electricity needs.
In another sign of momentum, DP World, the Dubai-based ports operator, signed an $800 million agreement to develop and expand the port of Tartus — the largest foreign investment in Syria since sanctions relief began.
After 14 years of war and isolation, Syria’s economy has nearly collapsed. (AFP)
Diaspora entrepreneurs are also stepping in. Mohamed Ghazal, managing director of Startup Syria, a community-led initiative supporting Syrian entrepreneurs, says Syrian startup founders are targeting key sectors for recovery: infrastructure, public services, agriculture, digital services, and food security.
“These sectors can generate jobs quickly, particularly in construction, agriculture, and tech,” Ghazal told Arab News. He also cited healthcare, education, and fintech as areas for investment, especially given Syria’s push to reconnect with global financial systems.
“Vocational training, online learning, digital health services — these are where youth and diaspora professionals can really contribute,” he said.
As Syria begins its journey back into the international community, the road ahead is still rocky and the challenges daunting. Yet, for the first time in years, the nation appears to be moving toward a new era — one shaped not by conflict and sanctions, but by constructive diplomacy, reform and cautious optimism.