Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered

DAMASCUS: A car bomb on Monday killed 15 people, mostly women farm workers, in the northern Syrian city of Manbij where Kurdish forces are battling Turkiye-backed groups, state media reported.

Citing White Helmet rescuers, SANA news agency said there had been a “massacre” on a local road, with “the explosion of a car bomb near a vehicle transporting agricultural workers” killing 14 women and one man.

The attack also wounded 15 women, some critically, SANA said, adding the toll could rise.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

It was the second such attack in recent days in war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic, where Islamist-led rebels toppled autocratic president Bashar Assad in December.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported nine people, including an unspecified number of pro-Turkiye fighters, killed Saturday “when a car bomb exploded near a military position” in Manbij.

Turkiye-backed forces in Syria’s north launched an offensive against the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in November, capturing several Kurdish-held enclaves in the north despite US efforts to broker a ceasefire.

With US support, the SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted the Daesh group from Syrian Arab Republic in 2019.

But Turkiye accuses the main component of the group – the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – of being affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Both Turkiye and the United States have designated the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil, a terrorist group.

Syrian Arab Republic’s new rulers have called on the SDF to hand over their weapons, rejecting demands for any kind of Kurdish self-rule.

Assad ruled Syrian Arab Republic with an iron fist and his bloody crackdown down on anti-government protests in 2011 sparked a war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

AL-HOL, Syrian Arab Republic: Ahmad Abdullah Hammoud was lucky to have some food stored to feed his family after a US-funded organization abruptly suspended its aid activities at the sprawling tent camp in northeastern Syrian Arab Republic where they have been forced to stay for nearly six years.
His family is among 37,000 people, mostly women and children, with alleged ties to the Daesh group at the bleak, trash-strewn Al-Hol camp, where the Trump administration’s unprecedented freeze on foreign aid caused chaos and uncertainty and worsened the dire humanitarian conditions.
When the freeze was announced shortly after Trump took office, US-funded aid programs worldwide began shutting down operations, including the
Aid organization works under the supervision of the US-led coalition formed to fight Daesh.
The US-based Blumont briefly suspended operations, according to the camp’s director. It had been providing essentials such as bread, water, kerosene and cooking gas. Blumont didn’t reply to questions.
“We were troubled when Blumont suspended its activities,” said Hammoud, who denies links with Daesh and had been sheltering in an Daesh -controlled area after being displaced during Syrian Arab Republic’s civil war.
“Believe me, we did not find food. Even bread only came at 2 p.m.,” said another camp resident, Dirar Al-Ali.
Camp director Jihan Hanan told The Associated Press that other aid agencies, including the World Health Organization, had ceased some operations.
“It is a disgraceful decision,” Hanan said of the Trump administration’s action, adding that some residents argued they should be allowed to leave if food cannot be provided.
She said Blumont distributes 5,000 bags of bread daily at a cost of about $4,000, something that local authorities in the Kurdish-run enclave cannot afford.
Uncertain times ahead
Hanan said Blumont received a two-week waiver from the Trump administration and resumed work on Jan. 28. It is not clear what will happen once the waiver ends.
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control northeastern Syrian Arab Republic, said he has raised the aid freeze issue with officials from the US-led coalition.
“We are on the verge of finding an alternative to this decision,” Abdi said, adding that an exemption might be issued for northeastern Syrian Arab Republic.
The US freeze comes as Daesh tries to take advantage of the vacuum created by the fall of Assad’s government in early December to insurgents. Another cut in food supplies could lead to riots by camp residents that Daesh, which has sleeper cells there, could exploit.
Hanan said the camp had received information from the US-led coalition against Daesh, the Iraqi government and the US-backed and Kurdish-led SDF, that Daesh was preparing to attack the camp after Assad’s fall. Security was increased and the situation is under control, she said.
The SDF runs 28 detention facilities in northeastern Syrian Arab Republic holding some 9,000 Daesh members. Security at Al-Hol camp and the detention facilities are not expected to be affected by the US aid freeze, according to Hanan and an official at the largest detention facility in the northeastern city of Hassakeh, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The main part of Al-Hol houses some 16,000 Iraqis and 15,000 Syrians. In a separate, heavily guarded section known as the Annex are another 6,300 people from 42 countries, the vast majority of them wives, widows and children who are considered the most die-hard Daesh supporters.
The camp has no paved roads and piles of trash. Teenagers and children with almost nothing to do spend their time playing soccer or wandering around.
Children in the Annex threw stones at visiting AP journalists and shouted “You are a Satan” and “The Islamic State is lasting.”
’Sustenance is from God’
A Chinese woman in the Annex, who identified herself as Asmaa Ahmad and said she came from the western region of Xinjiang, described her husband as “an Islamic State martyr” killed in 2019 in the eastern Syrian Arab Republic village of Baghouz, where Daesh lost the last sliver of land it once controlled.
Ahmad, who is in the camp with her four children, said she does not want to go back to China, fearing persecution. Asked about the temporary loss of US aid, she replied: “Sustenance is from God.”
She said she is waiting for Daesh members to rescue her family one day.
Al-Hol is the most dangerous place in the world, camp director Hanan asserted, adding that countries should repatriate their citizens to prevent children being fed the extremist ideology. “This place is not suitable for children,” she said.
The US military has been pushing for years for countries who have citizens at Al-Hol and the smaller, separate Roj Camp to repatriate them.
“Without international repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration efforts, these camps risk creating the next generation of Daesh,” Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of US Central Command, said during a visit to Al-Hol in mid-January.
Hanan said that since the fall of Assad, many Syrians in the camp have expressed a desire to return to their homes in areas held by the country’s new rulers. She said camp authorities decided that any Syrian who wants to leave can go.
Even if the camp population drops, “there will be a disaster” if US aid is suspended again, she added.