[🇸🇾] Rebels Oust Assad

[Saif]

Syria won’t negatively interfere in Lebanon

Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, told Lebanese Druze leaders yesterday that his country would not negatively interfere in Lebanon and would respect its neighbour’s sovereignty.

www.thedailystar.net

Syria won’t negatively interfere in Lebanon
HTS leader Julani tells visiting Druze chiefs

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, told Lebanese Druze leaders yesterday that his country would not negatively interfere in Lebanon and would respect its neighbour's sovereignty.

Syria will no longer exert "negative interference in Lebanon at all -- it respects Lebanon's sovereignty, the unity of its territories, the independence of its decisions and its security stability," Sharaa told visiting Druze chiefs Walid and Taymur Jumblatt.

Walid Jumblatt is the first Lebanese figure to meet Sharaa since his group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied rebel factions launched a lightning offensive last month, seizing Damascus on December 8 and ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Syria "will stay at equal distance from all" in Lebanon, Sharaa added, acknowledging that Syria has been a "source of fear and anxiety" for the country.

Walid Jumblatt, long a fierce critic of Assad and his father Hafez who ruled Syria before him, arrived in Damascus Sunday at the head of a delegation of lawmakers from his parliamentary bloc and religious figures from Lebanon's Druze minority.​

 

[Saif]

Syria rescuers say site outside Damascus believed to be mass grave

A key Syrian rescue group and an activist said on Wednesday a burial site outside Damascus was likely a mass grave for detainees held under former president Bashar al-Assad and fighters killed in the civil war.

www.newagebd.net

Syria rescuers say site outside Damascus believed to be mass grave
Agence France-Presse . Damascus 26 December, 2024, 00:42

A key Syrian rescue group and an activist said on Wednesday a burial site outside Damascus was likely a mass grave for detainees held under former president Bashar al-Assad and fighters killed in the civil war.

In a vast walled area located near the Baghdad Bridge, some 35 kilometres from the capital, AFP journalists visiting the site saw a long row of graves more than one metre deep, mostly covered with cement slabs.

Several of the slabs had been moved and inside, white bags could be seen stacked over each other with names and numbers written on them. One of the bags contained a human skull and bones.

‘We think this is a mass grave — we found an open grave with seven bags filled with bones,’ said Abdel Rahman Mawas from the White Helmets rescue group, which visited the site several days earlier.

He said by telephone that the bags, six of which bore names, were ‘taken to a secure location’, adding that ‘necessary procedures were begun for DNA testing’.

He said if additional graves had been exposed it meant other people may have been searching the site, warning people to ‘stay away from graves and let the relevant authorities handle them’.

The site, near the Adra industrial area northeast of the capital, is less than 20 kilometres from the Saydnaya prison.

Diab Serriya, from the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison, said the site was first identified in 2019 through ‘testimony of an intelligence personnel member who had deserted’.

Satellite imagery suggests the site was in use from 2014, he said.

‘Probably this grave contains detainees but also former regime or opposition fighters killed in battle,’ he said by telephone.

The notorious Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.

Serriya said ‘the bags of bones were probably brought from other graves’, adding that ‘the road to discovering who is buried here will be long’.

The doors of Syria’s prisons were flung open after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted Assad this month, more than 13 years after his brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 5,00,000 people.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict.

Mohammed Ali from the Adra municipal council denied residents were aware of the site, which is located near a Syrian army facility.

‘It was forbidden to approach it or take photos as it was a military zone,’ he said.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Syria rescuers say site outside Damascus believed to be mass grave

A key Syrian rescue group and an activist said on Wednesday a burial site outside Damascus was likely a mass grave for detainees held under former president Bashar al-Assad and fighters killed in the civil war.

www.newagebd.net

Syria rescuers say site outside Damascus believed to be mass grave
Agence France-Presse . Damascus 26 December, 2024, 00:42

A key Syrian rescue group and an activist said on Wednesday a burial site outside Damascus was likely a mass grave for detainees held under former president Bashar al-Assad and fighters killed in the civil war.

In a vast walled area located near the Baghdad Bridge, some 35 kilometres from the capital, AFP journalists visiting the site saw a long row of graves more than one metre deep, mostly covered with cement slabs.

Several of the slabs had been moved and inside, white bags could be seen stacked over each other with names and numbers written on them. One of the bags contained a human skull and bones.

‘We think this is a mass grave — we found an open grave with seven bags filled with bones,’ said Abdel Rahman Mawas from the White Helmets rescue group, which visited the site several days earlier.

He said by telephone that the bags, six of which bore names, were ‘taken to a secure location’, adding that ‘necessary procedures were begun for DNA testing’.

He said if additional graves had been exposed it meant other people may have been searching the site, warning people to ‘stay away from graves and let the relevant authorities handle them’.

The site, near the Adra industrial area northeast of the capital, is less than 20 kilometres from the Saydnaya prison.

Diab Serriya, from the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison, said the site was first identified in 2019 through ‘testimony of an intelligence personnel member who had deserted’.

Satellite imagery suggests the site was in use from 2014, he said.

‘Probably this grave contains detainees but also former regime or opposition fighters killed in battle,’ he said by telephone.

The notorious Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.

Serriya said ‘the bags of bones were probably brought from other graves’, adding that ‘the road to discovering who is buried here will be long’.

The doors of Syria’s prisons were flung open after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted Assad this month, more than 13 years after his brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 5,00,000 people.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict.

Mohammed Ali from the Adra municipal council denied residents were aware of the site, which is located near a Syrian army facility.

‘It was forbidden to approach it or take photos as it was a military zone,’ he said.​

Mass grave of international CIA volunteers of Al-Qaeda and Daesh no?

What else?

 

[Saif]

Syria authorities launch operation in Assad stronghold

Syria’s new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.

www.newagebd.net

Syria authorities launch operation in Assad stronghold
Agence France-Presse . Damascus 27 December, 2024, 01:32

Syria’s new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.

Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan’s five-decade rule.

After 13 years of civil war sparked by Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, Syria’s new leaders from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.

Rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community from which Assad hails.

With 5,00,000 dead in the war and more than 1,00,000 missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.

On Thursday, state news agency SANA said security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad militias in the western province of Tartus, ‘neutralising a certain number’ of armed men.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, three gunmen linked with Assad’s government were killed in the operation.

It comes a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes in the same province when forces tried to arrest an Assad-era officer, according to the Observatory.

The Britain-based monitor said the wanted man, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, was a military justice official who had ‘issued death sentences and arbitrary judgements against thousands’ of detainees at the notorious Saydnaya prison complex.

The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.

During the offensive that precipitated Assad’s ousting, rebels flung open the doors of prisons and detention centres around the country, letting out thousands of people.

In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung up posters of their loved ones, in the hope that with Assad’s ouster, they may one day learn what happened to them.

World powers and international organisations have called for the urgent establishment of mechanisms for accountability.

But some members of the Alawite community fear that with Assad gone, they may be at risk of attacks from groups hungry for revenge or driven by sectarian hate.

On Wednesday, angry protests erupted in several areas around Syria, including Assad’s hometown of Qardaha, over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine that circulated online.

The Observatory said that one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded ‘after security forces... opened fire to disperse’ a crowd in the central city of Homs.

The transitional authorities appointed by HTS said in a statement that the shrine attack took place early this month, with the interior ministry saying it was carried out by ‘unknown groups’ and that republishing the video served to ‘stir up strife’.

On Thursday, the information ministry introduced a ban on publishing or distributing ‘any content or information with a sectarian nature aimed at spreading division and discrimination’.

In one of Wednesday’s protests over the video, large crowds chanted slogans including ‘Alawite, Sunni, we want peace’.

Assad long presented himself as a protector of minority groups in Sunni-majority Syria, though critics said he played on sectarian divisions to stay in power.

In Homs, where the authorities imposed a night-time curfew, 42-year-old resident Hadi reported ‘a vast deployment of HTS men in areas where there were protests’.

‘There is a lot of fear,’ he said.

In coastal Latakia, protester Ghidak Mayya, 30, said that for now, Alawites were ‘listening to calls for calm’, but putting too much pressure on the community ‘risks an explosion’.

Noting the anxieties, Sam Heller of the Century Foundation think tank said Syria’s new rulers had to balance dealing with sectarian tensions while promising that those responsible for abuses under Assad would be held accountable.

‘But they’re obviously also contending with what seems like a real desire on the part of some of their constituents for what they would say is accountability, maybe also revenge, it depends on how you want to characterise it,’ he said.

Since HTS and its allies swept to power earlier this month, a bevy of delegations from the Middle East, Europe and the United States have visited Damascus seeking to establish ties with the country’s new rulers.

A delegation from Iraq met with the new authorities Thursday to discuss ‘security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border’, Iraqi state media said, while Lebanon, which has a fraught history with Syria, said it hoped for better ties with its neighbour going forward.​

 

[Sharma Ji]

Chalk up yet another win for the rampaging Jew.

Greater Ijrael phase 1 chal ra hai, bhaijis

and many musalmands be cheering wildly, k ek heretic Alawi ko nikal dia Jews ne.. what utter idiots.

"moderate opposition" gonna cede land to the Jew now, Golan + will be officially handed over to them, all while they continue to depopulate the Gaja Istrip. Years, maybe decades of instability to come.. xutias are happy but.. that lot deserves it.

@Lulldapull