Iran in direct contact with groups in new Syrian leadership, Iranian official says

FILE PHOTO: An Iranian man reads a newspaper with a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Tehran, Iran December 8, 2024. (Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters)
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Updated 09 December 2024
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Iran in direct contact with groups in new Syrian leadership, Iranian official says

DUBAI : Iran has opened a direct line of communication with rebels in Syria’s new leadership since its ally Bashar Assad was ousted, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, in an attempt to “prevent a hostile trajectory” between the countries. The lightning advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, marked one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations. Assad’s fall as president removed a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Hours after Assad’s fall, Iran said it expected relations with Damascus to continue based on the two countries’ “far-sighted and wise approach” and called for the establishment of an inclusive government representing all segments of Syrian society.
There is little doubt about Tehran’s concern about how the change of power in Damascus will affect Iran’s influence in Syria, the lynchpin of its regional clout.
But there is no panic, three Iranian officials told Reuters, as Tehran seeks diplomatic avenues to establish contact with people whom one of the officials called “those within Syria’s new ruling groups whose views are closer to Iran’s.”
“The main concern for Iran is whether Assad’s successor will push Syria away from Tehran’s orbit,” a second Iranian officials said. “That is a scenario Iran is keen to avoid.”
A hostile post-Assad Syria would deprive Lebanese armed group Hezbollah of its only land supply route and deny Iran its main access to the Mediterranean and the “front line” with Israel.
One of the senior officials said Iran’s clerical rulers, facing the loss of an important ally in Damascus and the return of Donald Trump to the white House in January, were open to engaging with Syria’s new leaders.
“This engagement is key to stabilize ties and avoiding further regional tensions,” the official said.

Contacts with Syrian Leadership

Tehran has established contacts with two groups inside the new leadership and the level of interaction will be assessed in the coming days after a meeting at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a top security body, he said.
Two of the Iranian officials said Tehran was wary of Trump using Assad’s removal as leverage to intensify economic and political pressure on Iran, “either to force concessions or to destabilize the Islamic Republic.”
After pulling the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers in 2018, then-President Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” policy that led to extreme economic hardship and exacerbated public discontent in Iran. Trump is staffing his planned administration with hawks on Iran.
In 2020, Trump, as president, ordered a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander and mastermind of overseas attacks on US interests and those of its allies.
“Iran is now only left with two options: fall back and draw a defensive line in Iraq or seek a deal with Trump,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
The fall of Assad exposed Tehran’s dwindling strategic leverage in the region, exacerbated by Israel’s military offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Iran’s clerical rulers spent billions of dollars propping up Assad during the civil war that erupted in Syria in 2011 and deployed its Revolutionary Guards to Syria to keep its ally in power and maintain Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” to Israel and US influence in the Middle East.
Assad’s fall removes a critical link in Iran’s regional resistance chain that served as a crucial transit route for Tehran to supply arms and fund its proxies and particularly Hezbollah.


Lebanon says one dead in Israeli strike in south

Updated 6 sec ago
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Lebanon says one dead in Israeli strike in south

“An Israeli enemy drone strike... killed one person” in Marjayoun, the ministry said

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli drone strike in the south killed one person on Saturday, the latest deadly raid despite a more than two-week ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An Israeli enemy drone strike... killed one person” in Marjayoun district, the health ministry said in a statement. The official National News Agency reported a car was targeted.

Top Arab, US diplomats meet to discuss Syria’s future

Updated 6 min 58 sec ago
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Top Arab, US diplomats meet to discuss Syria’s future

  • Syria’s northern neighbor Turkiye has for years supported Syrian opposition forces looking to oust Assad and is poised to play an influential role in Damascus
  • Arab diplomats attending the talks said they were seeking assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process that prevents partition of Syria

AQABA, Jordan: Top diplomats from the United States, Turkiye, the European Union and Arab nations met in Jordan on Saturday for talks on Syria as regional and global powers scramble for influence over whatever government replaces ousted President Bashar Assad.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration has begun engaging with the victorious opposition groups including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which led a lightning assault that ended in the capture of Damascus on Sunday.

Biden sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region this week to seek support for principles that Washington hopes will guide Syria’s political transition, such as respect for minorities.

Meanwhile, Syria’s northern neighbor Turkiye has for years supported Syrian opposition forces looking to oust Assad and is poised to play an influential role in Damascus.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that his country’s embassy in the Syrian capital would resume work on Saturday, after Turkiye’s intelligence chief visited this week.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, left, speaks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba, on Dec. 14, 2024. (AP)

Syria’s neighbor Jordan was hosting Saturday’s gathering in Aqaba. Russia and Iran, who were Assad’s key supporters, were not invited.

Blinken, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Fidan and foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar met around a circular table at a Jordanian government guesthouse. There was no Syrian representative at the table.

The Arab diplomats earlier met separately.

Blinken, meeting Pederson at his hotel earlier on Saturday, said it was a time of “both opportunity but also real challenge” for Syria.

Arab diplomats attending the talks said they were seeking assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process that prevents partition of Syria on sectarian lines.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attend a meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba on December 14, 2024. (REUTERS)

Turkiye and the United States, both NATO members, have conflicting interests when it comes to some of the groups. Turkiye-backed groups in northern Syria have clashed with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF, which controls some of Syria’s largest oil fields, is the main ally in a US coalition against Daesh militants. It is spearheaded by YPG militia, a group that Ankara sees as an extension of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought the Turkish state for 40 years and who it outlaws.

Blinken told Turkish officials during a visit to Ankara on Thursday and Friday that Daesh must not be able to regroup, and the SDF must not be distracted from its role of securing camps holding Daesh fighters, according to a US official with the US delegation. Turkish leaders agreed, the official said.

Fidan told Turkish TV later on Friday that the elimination of the YPG was Turkiye’s “strategic target” and urged the group’s commanders to leave Syria.


At least 18 killed in Israeli Gaza strikes, Palestinian medics say

Updated 23 min 3 sec ago
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At least 18 killed in Israeli Gaza strikes, Palestinian medics say

  • Casualties were being carried by foot, on rickshaws and private cars from the site of the attack to the hospital
  • The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 44,930 people have been killed in more than 14 months of war

CAIRO: At least 18 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Saturday, medics said, while the Israeli military said it targeted gunmen operating from shelters and aid storages.
At least 10 people were killed in an airstrike near the municipality building in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip where people gathered to receive aid, medics said.
Casualties were being carried by foot, on rickshaws and private cars from the site of the attack to the hospital, medics said. The strike killed the head of the Hamas-run administrative committee in central Gaza, a Hamas source said.
The Israeli military was looking into the report, a spokesperson said. Earlier, Israeli aircraft struck militants and weapon caches near an aid warehouse, the military said, after gunmen had fired rockets into Israel from there.
Meanwhile, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 44,930 people have been killed in more than 14 months of war. The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 106,624 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
A separate strike in Gaza City on a former shelter housing displaced people targeted Hamas fighters, the military said. At least seven people were killed in that attack, Palestinian medics said, including a woman and her baby.
It was unclear whether any of the other people killed were fighters. The military said it had taken precautions to reduce risk of harm to civilians.
A separate strike in Gaza City killed a local journalist, medics said. The military was looking into the report, a spokesperson said.
The war in Gaza began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200, mostly civilians, people and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel then launched an air, sea and land offensive that has killed at least 44,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
A fresh bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Saturday discussed with visiting US officials efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostages-for prisoners deal in the Palestinian enclave, El-Sisi’s office said.


Top Arab, US diplomats meet to discuss Syria’s future

Updated 11 min 36 sec ago
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Top Arab, US diplomats meet to discuss Syria’s future

  • Arab diplomats seek assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process

AQABA, Jordan: Top diplomats from the United States, Turkiye, the European Union and Arab nations met in Jordan on Saturday for talks on Syria as regional and global powers scramble for influence over whatever government replaces ousted President Bashar Assad.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration has begun engaging with the victorious militant groups including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which led a lightning assault that ended in the capture of Damascus on Sunday.

Biden sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region this week to seek support for principles that Washington hopes will guide Syria’s political transition, such as respect for minorities.

Meanwhile Syria’s northern neighbor Turkiye has for years supported Syrian opposition forces looking to oust Assad and is poised to play an influential role in Damascus.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that his country’s embassy in the Syrian capital would resume work on Saturday, after Turkiye’s intelligence chief visited this week.

Syria’s neighbor Jordan was hosting Saturday’s gathering in Aqaba. Russia and Iran, who were Assad’s key supporters, were not invited.

Blinken, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Fidan and foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar met around a circular table at a Jordanian government guesthouse. There was no Syrian representative at the table.

The Arab diplomats earlier met separately.

Blinken, meeting Pederson at his hotel earlier on Saturday, said it was a time of “both opportunity but also real challenge” for Syria.

Arab diplomats attending the talks said they were seeking assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process that prevents partition of Syria on sectarian lines.

Turkiye and the United States, both NATO members, have conflicting interests when it comes to some of the militants. Turkiye-backed militants in northern Syria have clashed with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF, which controls some of Syria’s largest oil fields, is the main ally in a US coalition against Daesh militants. It is spearheaded by YPG militia, a group that Ankara sees as an extension of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought the Turkish state for 40 years and who it outlaws.

Blinken told Turkish officials during a visit to Ankara on Thursday and Friday that Daesh must not be able to regroup, and the SDF must not be distracted from its role of securing camps holding Daesh fighters, according to a US official with the US delegation. Turkish leaders agreed, the official said.

Fidan told Turkish TV later on Friday that the elimination of the YPG was Turkiye’s “strategic target” and urged the group’s commanders to leave Syria.


Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank

Updated 14 December 2024
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Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank

  • Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Palestinian Authority
  • Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation

JENIN, West Bank: At least one person was killed as Palestinian security forces clashed with Palestinian militants and set up checkpoints on Saturday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, residents and medics said.
Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas following raids by the PA.
Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation.
The PA’s security branch said in a statement that its forces were undertaking a security operation to restore law and order to Jenin’s historic refugee camp suburb, a stronghold of Palestinian militants alienated from the Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been fighting Israeli forces in Gaza for more than a year, condemned the PA for the Jenin operation and its allied group Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
Jenin has also been a hotbed of conflict between the Palestinian militant groups and the Israeli military in recent years. Since March 2022, Jenin and outlying areas in the north of the West Bank have drawn intensified Israeli raids after a spate of Palestinian street attacks.