DAMASCUS: France raised its flag at its Damascus embassy on Tuesday for the first time in 12 years and European Union officials prepared to engage with the new Syrian leadership, a sign of the growing contacts after Bashar Assad was ousted as president.
Western states are gradually opening channels to the new authorities in Damascus led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, though they continue to designate the group as terrorists.
As well as France and Britain, which sent a team to meet Sharaa on Monday, Germany is also planning meetings with the new administration and the European Union said on Tuesday it will also establish contacts.
Nine days after Assad was ousted, the new prime minister installed by Sharaa’s Islamist HTS group said the government was grappling with very low currency reserves and called for sanctions imposed on the ousted government to be lifted.
Sharaa’s group was part of Al-Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to a northwest corner of Syria for years until this month when the army melted away as it swept into Damascus.
France said its raising of the flag did not automatically mean it would reopen its embassy.
During his meeting with British officials, Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, called for countries to restore ties and lift sanctions on Syria to help refugees return home, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.
SANA released photos of Sharaa sitting in a suit with an open shirt during the meeting with the British. Sharaa “spoke about the need to build a state of law and institutions, and establishing security,” SANA reported. “He also spoke about Britain’s important role internationally.”
Assad’s fall, a blow to Syria’s longstanding Russian and Iranian allies, could potentially open the way for Western states to reopen contacts with Damascus. But for now at least, that requires manoeuvring around both the terrorism designation imposed on HTS during its days as an Al-Qaeda affiliate and financial sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad.
German diplomats are also planning talks with representatives of HTS in Damascus on Tuesday, the German foreign ministry said. A German foreign ministry spokesperson said the talks would focus on a transitional process for Syria and the protection of minorities.
“The possibilities of a diplomatic presence in Damascus are also being explored there,” the spokesperson added in a statement, reiterating that Berlin was monitoring HTS closely in light of its roots in Al-Qaeda ideology.
“As far as one can tell, they have acted prudently so far,” the spokesperson said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, whose country was the biggest backer of rebels during the civil war, said an inclusive administration was now needed in Damascus and called on the European Union to support the return of refugees.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher, the newly installed Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir said the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Syria has many ethnic and sectarian minority groups, some of whom have worried about how they might be treated under the rule of groups such as HTS with roots in Sunni Islamist militancy.
Asked what he would say to those worried about a single religious or political group dominating Syria, Bashir said: “Those who are afraid...of a religion trend or anything else don’t truly understand Islam, the forgiveness of Islam, the justice of Islam.”
“Syria is for all Syrians,” he said. “Everyone is a partner for us building the Syria of the future.”
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated government in Idlib province, has said he will remain in office until March.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday the European Union should be ready to ease sanctions on Syria if the country’s new leadership takes “positive steps” to establish an inclusive government and respect women’s and minority rights.
UN humanitarian coordinator Tom Fletcher said he had also met Sharaa, posting on social media: “we have basis for ambitious scaling up of vital humanitarian support” for Syria.
The Syrian conflict, which spiralled out of a 2011 uprising against Assad’s repressive rule, drove millions of Syrians abroad as refugees, including around 1 million who went to Germany.
France returns flag to Damascus embassy as new Syria authorities build contacts with West
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France returns flag to Damascus embassy as new Syria authorities build contacts with West
- UK sends team to meet Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa
- German diplomats also plan talks with representatives of HTS in Damascus
Sudan’s army shells Omdurman in push to oust RSF from capital region
The army ousted the RSF from its last footholds in Khartoum on Wednesday but the paramilitary RSF holds some areas in Omdurman, directly across the Nile River, and has consolidated in west Sudan, splitting the nation into rival zones.
Khartoum residents expressed delight fighting was over for the first time since it erupted in April 2023.
“During the last two years the RSF made our life hell killing and stealing. They didn’t respect anybody including women and old men,” teacher Ahmed Hassan, 49, said by phone.
The war has ruined much of Khartoum, uprooted more than 12 million Sudanese from their homes, and left about half of the 50 million population suffering acute hunger in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Overall deaths are hard to estimate but a study published last year said the toll may have reached 61,000 in Khartoum state alone in the first 14 months of the conflict.
The conflict has added to instability around northeast Africa, with Sudan’s neighbors Libya, Chad, Central African Republic and South Sudan each weathering internal bouts of conflict over recent years.
In a video posted on Thursday from the recaptured presidential palace, army chief Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan declared: “Khartoum is free.”
The RSF said in a statement that it had never lost a battle, but that its forces had “strategically repositioned and expanded across the battlefronts to secure their military objectives,” without naming Khartoum or other locations.
While the seizure of Khartoum marks a significant turning point, the war looks far from over.
Residents in the western state of Darfur said the RSF was shelling army positions in Al-Fashir, the main city there, on Thursday.
RETREATING RSF
RSF fighters pulling out of Khartoum on Wednesday via a Nile dam 40 km south redeployed, some heading into Omdurman to help stave off army attacks and others heading west toward Darfur, witnesses said.
The army controls most of Omdurman, home to two big military bases, and looks focused on driving out the last RSF troops to secure control over Khartoum’s entire urban area. Thursday’s shelling was directed at southern Omdurman.
The RSF still holds a last patch of territory around the dam at Jebel Aulia south of Khartoum, two residents of the area said, to secure a line of retreat for stragglers.
Residents of a village in North Kordofan state said they had seen an RSF military convoy with dozens of vehicles passing through on its way west.
The army and RSF had been in a fragile partnership, jointly staging a coup in 2021 that derailed the transition from the Islamist rule of Omar Al-Bashir, a longtime autocrat ousted in 2019.
The RSF, under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, developed from Darfur’s janjaweed militias and Bashir developed the group as a counterweight to the army, led by career officer Burhan.
Under an internationally backed transition plan the RSF was meant to integrate into the army, but there were disputes over how and when that should happen and fighting broke out.
In Khartoum the RSF quickly spread through residential districts, taking most of the city and besieging the better-equipped army in big military bases that had to be resupplied by air.
The army’s capture of Khartoum could open the way for it to announce the formation of a government. The RSF has said it would support the formation of a rival civilian administration.
Six dead in tourist submarine sinking off Egypt resort: state media
- The website of the state-owned Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said the deceased were all foreigners
- Investigations were underway to determine what caused the accident
CAIRO: Six tourists died on Thursday when a tourist submarine sank off the resort of Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, state media reported.
The website of the state-owned Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said the deceased were all foreigners, adding that 19 others were injured.
Investigations were underway to determine what caused the accident, according to the newspaper, which said the injured were transported to nearby hospitals along with the bodies of the deceased.
Hurghada, a bustling tourist city some 460 kilometers (285 miles) southeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, is a major destination for visitors to Egypt.
The Red Sea coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast are major draws, contributing to the country’s vital tourism sector which employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.
While dozens of tourist boats sail through the coastal area daily for snorkeling and diving activities, the website of Sindbad Submarines, the vessel owner according to Akhbar Al-Youm, says the company deploys the region’s “only real” recreational submarine.
Israel intercepts two missiles launched from Yemen
- The Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas fighters
DUBAI: The Israeli military said on Thursday it had intercepted two missiles launched from Yemen before they crossed into Israeli territory, after sirens sounded in several areas in Israel including Jerusalem.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas fighters. The United States has been striking Houthi strongholds in Yemen since March 15, with President Donald Trump vowing to hold Iran responsible for any attacks carried out by the group.
The Houthis are an armed movement that has taken control of the most populous parts of Yemen despite nearly a decade of Saudi-led bombing.
The group is also part of what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance” — a network of anti-Israel, anti-Western regional militias that also includes the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose capabilities Israel significantly reduced in an air and ground campaign last year.
Hamas says spokesman killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
- A fragile ceasefire that brought weeks of relative calm to Gaza ended on March 18 with Israel resuming its bombing campaign across the territory
GAZA: Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed one of its official spokesmen in Gaza on Thursday, the latest high-ranking operative targeted since Israel resumed its bombardment.
The group said in a statement it mourned the loss of Abdul Latif Al-Qanou who was killed in what it called a “direct” strike on a tent he was in, in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.
A fragile ceasefire that brought weeks of relative calm to Gaza ended on March 18 with Israel resuming its bombing campaign across the territory.
According to the health ministry in Gaza, at least 855 people have been killed since.
Qanou is the latest Hamas official to be killed in recent Israeli strikes.
Israel’s military said last week it had killed the head of Hamas’s internal security agency, Rashid Jahjouh, in an air strike.
Days earlier, Hamas had named the head of its government in the Gaza Strip, Essam Al-Dalis, and interior ministry head Mahmud Abu Watfa, among a list of officials it said were killed in strikes.
The Israeli military confirmed it had killed Dalis, a member of Hamas’s political bureau who became the head of its administration in Gaza in June 2021.
Hamas has also confirmed the deaths of Salah Al-Bardawil and Yasser Harb, both members of its political bureau.
“The occupation’s targeting of the movement’s leaders and spokespersons will not break our will,” Hamas said Thursday.
Israel parliament passes judicial reform law, opposition challenges
- The opposition, which swiftly filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, views these judicial reforms as signs of Netanyahu’s authoritarian shift toward an illiberal democracy
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament Thursday passed a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges, defying a years-long movement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial reforms that saw massive street protests.
The approval comes as Netanyahu’s government, one of the most right-wing in Israel’s history, is locked in a standoff with the supreme court after beginning proceedings to dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, head of the internal security agency.
The opposition, which swiftly filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, views these judicial reforms as signs of Netanyahu’s authoritarian shift toward an illiberal democracy.
The legislation was approved by a vote of 67 in favor and one against, with the opposition boycotting the early-morning vote.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has 120 lawmakers.
The overall judicial reform package had sparked one of the largest protest movements in Israel’s history in 2023 before being overtaken by the war in Gaza.
The war began following the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Yair Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, announced on social media platform X that he had filed an appeal with the supreme court against the law on behalf of several opposition parties, just minutes after the parliamentary vote.
According to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who sponsored the bill, the measure was intended to “restore balance” between the legislative and judicial branches.
In his closing remarks ahead of the vote, Levin slammed the supreme court for what he described had “effectively nullified the Knesset.”
“It has taken for itself the authority to cancel laws and even Basic Laws. This is something unheard of in any democracy in the world,” said Levin, the key architect of the judicial reforms.
“But our supreme court didn’t stop at trampling the Knesset; it placed itself above the government. It can annul any government action, compel the government to perform any action, cancel any government appointment.”
Levin said with the new bill the country was “opening a new page.”
“It is hypocrisy and one-sided to say that the Knesset is forbidden to act while the court is allowed to act in the middle of a war,” Levin said.
“The days of appeasement and silencing are over, never to return. I am proud to stand here and demand justice, and I am even prouder to deliver justice.”
Currently, judges — including supreme court justices — are selected by a nine-member committee comprising judges, lawmakers, and bar association representatives, under the justice minister’s supervision.
Under the new law, which would take effect at the start of the next legislative term, the committee would still have nine members: three supreme court judges, the justice minister and another minister, one coalition lawmaker, one opposition lawmaker, and two public representatives — one appointed by the majority and the other by the opposition.
The government’s judicial reforms package, first unveiled in early 2023, had triggered massive street protests that effectively divided Israeli society.
Netanyahu’s detractors warn the multi-pronged package could pave the way for authoritarian rule and be used by Netanyahu to quash possible convictions against him in his ongoing corruption trial, an accusation the premier denies.
Protesters had rallied weekly against the government reforms since they were unveiled.
Rallies have once again erupted in key cities, and on Wednesday thousands protested against the bill before it was approved in parliament.
Netanyahu had slammed the opposition on Wednesday during a speech in parliament.
“You recycle the same worn-out and ridiculous slogans about ‘the end of democracy’. Well, once and for all: Democracy is not in danger, it is the power of the bureaucrats that is in danger.
“Perhaps you could stop putting spanners in the works of the government in the middle of a war. Perhaps you could stop fueling the sedition, hatred and anarchy in the streets.”
