Russia, seeking to keep bases in Syria, says it held ‘frank’ talks with new leader
Russia, seeking to keep bases in Syria, says it held ‘frank’ talks with new leader/node/2588239/middle-east
Russia, seeking to keep bases in Syria, says it held ‘frank’ talks with new leader
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends Russia's President Vladimir Putin's annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (AFP)
Russia, seeking to keep bases in Syria, says it held ‘frank’ talks with new leader
Kremlin spokesman declined to comment when asked to confirm whether Russia had been asked to return Assad and pay compensation
Russia is seeking to retain its naval base in Tartous and Hmeimim air base near the port city of Latakia
Updated 1 min 53 sec ago
Reuters
MOSCOW: Russia said on Wednesday it had held “frank” discussions with Syria’s new de facto leader as it tries to retain its two military bases in the country, but it declined to comment on what he was demanding in return.
A Syrian source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the new leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, had requested that Moscow hand over former Syrian president Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia when he was toppled by Sharaa’s rebels in December.
Syrian news agency Sana said Damascus also wanted Russia, which backed Assad in the country’s civil war, to rebuild trust through “concrete measures such as compensation, reconstruction and recovery.”
Asked to confirm whether Russia had been asked to return Assad and pay compensation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.
Russia, whose troops and air force backed Assad for years against Syrian rebels, is seeking to retain its naval base in Tartous and Hmeimim air base near the port city of Latakia. Losing them would deal a serious blow to its ability to project power in the region.
The new Syrian administration said after Tuesday’s talks with a Russian delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov that it had “stressed that restoring relations must address past mistakes, respect the will of the Syrian people and serve their interests.”
But the Syrian source told Reuters that the Russians had not been willing to concede such mistakes and the only agreement that was reached was to continue discussions.
Russia’s foreign ministry said there had been a “frank discussion of the entire range of issues.” It said the two sides would pursue further contacts in order to seek “relevant agreements,” without referring specifically to the two bases.
At least 14 killed in Syria in attacks by Turkish-backed forces, says Kurdish militia
Updated 2 min 9 sec ago
Reuters
CAIRO/ANKARA: At least 14 civilians were killed and 29 wounded in attacks by Turkish-backed forces in northern Syria on Monday and Tuesday, the US-backed Kurdish militia group said.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Turkish-backed forces targeted a market in the city of Sarrin with drones on Tuesday, killing eight civilians and injuring 20 others. Some of the wounded were in critical condition, they said.
Shelling by Turkish-backed forces on another area in northern Syria killed three civilians and injured nine on Tuesday, according to the SDF. They said Turkish forces also shelled a village near the town of Ain Issa in northern Syria on Monday, killing three civilians, including two children.
Turkiye’s defense ministry said in statements on Tuesday and Wednesday that Turkish forces had killed a total of 27 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, without mentioning civilian deaths.
A Turkish defense ministry official said on Wednesday the SDF’s statement was disinformation and denied the claims. Turkiye says it does not target civilians in its cross-border operations and takes measures to avoid harming any civilians, religious sites and residential areas.
The SDF, an ally in the US coalition against Daesh militants, is spearheaded by the YPG — a group that Turkiye sees as a terrorist organization and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has fought the Turkish state for 40 years.
Since the ouster of Syria’s Bashar Assad in December by rebels who have set up an administration friendly to Ankara, Syria’s Kurdish factions have been on the back foot. It is not clear whether Washington’s longtime support for Kurdish forces will continue under the administration of President Donald Trump.
Negotiators from the Syrian leadership, the United States, Turkiye, and the SDF have been zeroing in on a potential deal on the group’s fate. Syria’s new leadership wants to bring all of the country back under the government’s authority.
The SDF on Wednesday rejected Turkiye’s statement on the number of its fighters killed in attacks this week
Plane crash in South Sudan’s Unity State kills 18, UN’s Radio Miraya reports
Updated 3 min 13 sec ago
Reuters
NAIROBI: A plane carrying 21 passengers and crew in South Sudan's Unity State has crashed killing 18, United Nations' Radio Miraya reported on Wednesday.
The discovery of brutal mass graves in Syria reveals Assad’s legacy of horror
Since Nov. 28, the White Helmets have uncovered “more than 780 bodies, most of unknown identity,” Abed Al-Rahman Mawwas, a member of the rescue service, told The Associated Press
Updated 29 January 2025
AP
DAMASCUS, Syria: The charred remains of at least 26 victims of the Bashar Assad government were located Tuesday by Syrian civil defense workers in two separate basements in rural Damascus.
The discovery adds to the growing tally of mass graves unearthed since the fall of the Assad government in December. The remains, which are believed to include men, women and children, showed evidence of gunshot wounds and burning.
Members of Syria’s White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense group, exhumed the fragmented, weathered skeletal remains from the basement of two properties in the town of Sbeneh, southwest of the capital. Wearing hazmat suits, they carefully logged and coded each set of remains before placing them into body bags, which were then loaded onto trucks for transport.
Since Nov. 28, the White Helmets have uncovered “more than 780 bodies, most of unknown identity,” Abed Al-Rahman Mawwas, a member of the rescue service, told The Associated Press. He said many were found in shallow graves uncovered by locals or dug up by animals. The bodies are transferred to forensics doctors to determine their identities, time of death and cause of death, as well as to match them with possible family members.
“Of course, this takes years of work,” he said.
Mohammad Al-Herafe, a resident of one of the buildings where remains were uncovered, said the stench of decomposing bodies was overwhelming when his family returned to Sbeneh in 2016 after fleeing because of fighting in the area during the country’s uprising-turned-civil war that began in 2011.
He said they found the bodies in the basement but chose not to report it out of fear of government reprisals. “We could not tell the regime about it because we know that the regime did this.”
The Assad government, which ruled Syria for over two decades, employed airstrikes on civilian areas, torture, executions and mass imprisonment, to maintain control over Syria and suppress opposition groups during the country’s 13-year civil war.
Ammar Al-Salmo, another Civil Defense member dispatched to the second basement site, said further investigation is needed to identify the victims.
“We need testimonies from residents and others who might know who stayed behind when the fighting intensified in 2013,” he told the AP.
Mohammad Shebat, who lived in the second building where bodies were found, said he left the neighborhood in 2012 and returned in 2020 when he and his neighbors discovered the bodies and demanded their removal. But no one cooperated, he said.
Shebat believes the victims were civilians who fled the nearby Al-Assali neighborhood when the fighting escalated and the Assad government imposed a siege in 2013. He said forces of the former government used to “trap people in basements, burn them with tires and leave their bodies.”
“There are several basements like this, full of skeletons,” he said.
In a report released Monday, the United Nations Syria Commission of Inquiry said that mass graves can be used as evidence to uncover the fates of thousands of missing detainees.
The report, spanning 14 years of investigations and drawing on over 2,000 witness testimonies, including more than 550 survivors of torture, detailed how detainees in Syria’s notorious prisons “suffering from torture injuries, malnutrition, disease and illness, were left to die slowly, in agonizing pain, or were taken away to be executed.”
Assad’s fall on Dec. 8 drove hundreds of families to scour prisons and morgues in desperate search of loved ones. While many were freed after years of imprisonment, thousands remain missing, their fates still unknown.
The UN commission has said that forensic exhumations of mass graves, as well as safeguarding evidence, archives and crime sites, may offer grieving families a chance to learn the truth.
The commission was established in 2011 by the Human Rights Council to investigate Syria’s alleged violations of international human rights law.
The UN report documented brutal methods of torture by the former government, including “severe beatings, electric shocks, burning, pulling out nails, damaging teeth, rape, sexual violence including mutilation, prolonged stress positions, deliberate neglect and denial of medical care, exacerbating wounds and psychological torture.”
“For Syrians who did not find their loved ones among the freed, this evidence, alongside testimonies of freed detainees, may be their best hope to uncover the truth about missing relatives,” said Commissioner Lynn Welchman.
This is what one family in Gaza returned home to after 15 months of war
Since Monday, more than 375,000 Palestinians have made their way back to northern Gaza, many of them on foot
Over 15 months, Israel launched repeated offensives in Gaza City and surrounding areas, trying to crush Hamas fighters who often operated in densely populated neighborhoods
Updated 29 January 2025
AP
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip: The grove of orange, olive and palm trees that once stood in front of Ne’man Abu Jarad’s house was bulldozed away. The roses and jasmine flowers on the roof and in the garden, which he lovingly watered so his family could enjoy their fragrance, were also gone.
The house itself was a damaged, hollowed-out shell. But after 15 months of brutal war, it stood.
At the sight of it Monday, Ne’man; his wife, Majida; and three of their six daughters dropped the bags they had been lugging since dawn, fell to their knees and prayed, whispering, “Praise be to God, praise be to God.” The sunset blazed orange in the sky above.
In this image made from an Associated Press video, Ne'man Abu Jarad and his family return to their home in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2025, for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel began. (AP)
After 477 days of hell — fleeing the length of the Gaza Strip, hiding from bombardment, sweltering in tents, scrounging for food and water, losing their possessions – they had finally returned home.
“Our joy is unmatched by any other, not the joy of success, of a marriage or of a birth,” Majida said. “This is a joy that can’t be described in words, in writing or in any expression.”
In October, at the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war, The Associated Press traced the Abu Jarad family’s flight around the territory seeking safety. They were eight of the roughly 1.8 million Palestinians driven from their homes by Israel’s massive campaign of retaliation against Hamas following the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
In this image made from an Associated Press video, Ne'man Abu Jarad and his family return to their home in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2025, for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel began. (AP)
Like many families, they were displaced multiple times. Ne’man, Majida and their daughters – the youngest in first grade, the oldest in her early 20s – fled their home at the northernmost part of Gaza hours after Israeli bombardment began. They would move seven times in total, fleeing all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city Rafah.
Each time, their conditions worsened. By October 2024, they were languishing in a sprawling tent camp near the southern city of Khan Younis, exhausted and depressed, with little hope of seeing home again.
Hope suddenly revived when Israel and Hamas reached a long-awaited ceasefire earlier this month. On Jan. 19, the first day of the truce, Majida began packing up their clothes, food and other belongings. On Sunday, the announcement came: The next day, Israeli troops would pull back from two main roads, allowing Palestinians to return to the north.
Members of the Abu Jarad family, who were displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, gather in front of their tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in the Muwasi area, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP)
Since Monday, more than 375,000 Palestinians have made their way back to northern Gaza, many of them on foot.
The Abu Jarads set off Monday from their tent at 5 a.m., loading bags stuffed with their belongings into a car. The driver took them to the edge of the Netzarim Corridor, the swath of land across Gaza that Israeli forces had turned into a military zone that – until this week – had barred any returns north.
There, they got out and walked, joining the massive crowds making their way down the coastal road. For around 8 kilometers (5 miles), the 49-year-old Ne’eman carried one sack on his back, held another in his arms, and two bags dangled from the crooks of his elbows. They stopped frequently, to rest, rearrange bags, and drop items along the way.
“The road is really hard,” Majida told an AP journalist who accompanied them on the journey. “But our joy for the return makes us forget we’re tired. Every meter we walk, our joy gives us strength to continue.”
Reaching the southern outskirts of Gaza City, they hired a van. But it quickly ran out of fuel, and they waited more than an hour before they found another one. Driving through the city, they got their first look at the war’s devastating impact in the north.
Over 15 months, Israel launched repeated offensives in Gaza City and surrounding areas, trying to crush Hamas fighters who often operated in densely populated neighborhoods. After each assault, militants would regroup, and a new assault would follow.
The van made its way down city streets strewn with rubble, lined with buildings that were damaged husks or had been reduced to piles of concrete.
“They destroyed even more in this area,” Ne’man said, staring out the window as they left Gaza City and entered the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – scene of one of Israel’s most ferocious offensives in the last three months before the ceasefire.
As the sun began to set, the van dropped them off at the edge of their neighborhood. Ne’man’s daughters stood in shock. One gaped, her hands on her cheeks. Her sister pointed out at the field of flattened houses. They walked the last few hundred meters, over a landscape of rutted, bulldozed dirt.
Trudging as fast as he could under the bags draping from his body, Ne’man — a taxi driver before the war — repeated over and over in excitement, “God is great, God is great. To God is all thanks.”
Their home still stood, sort of — a hollow shell in a row of damaged buildings. After they prayed in front of it, Ne’eman leaned on the bare concrete wall of his house and kissed it. To his joy he discovered that one flowering vine in front of the house had miraculously survived. He immediately set about examining and arranging its tendrils.
One of the girls dashed in through the now doorless front entrance. “Oh Lord, oh Lord,” her gasps came from the darkness inside. Then she began to cry, as if all the shock, sorrow, happiness and relief were gushing out of her.
Like others streaming back into northern Gaza, the Abu Jarads will face the question of how to survive in the ruins of cities decimated by war. Water and food remain scarce, leaving the population still reliant on humanitarian aid, which is being ramped up under the ceasefire. There is no electricity. Tens of thousands are homeless.
Adjoining the Abu Jarads’ home, Ne’man’s brother’s three-story house is now a pile of concrete wreckage after it was destroyed by an airstrike. It damaged Ne’man’s home as it collapsed, “but, thank God, there is an undamaged room which we will live in,” he said. He vows to repair what is damaged.
Grief from the war lays heavily on him, Ne’man said. His uncle lost his home, and several of his uncle’s children were killed. Several of his neighbors’ homes were destroyed. Ne’man said he will have to walk several kilometers (miles) to find water, just like he did in the displacement camps.
“Once again, we will live through suffering and fatigue.”
Russia, Syria to hold further talks on Russian military bases in Syria, TASS reports
Updated 29 January 2025
Reuters
DAMASCUS: Russia and Syria will hold further talks regarding Russian military bases in Syria, Russia’s news agencies reported late on Tuesday, citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as telling journalists after his talks with Syrian officials.
“This issue requires additional negotiations,” TASS news agency cited Bogdanov as saying. Bogdanov is heading Russia’s delegation to Damascus for the first time since Moscow’s ally President Bashar Assad was toppled.
He added that so far there have been no changes to the presence of Russian military bases in the country.
