logo
US envoy doubles down on support for Syria's government; slams Israel's intervention

US envoy doubles down on support for Syria's government; slams Israel's intervention

BEIRUT: A U.S. envoy doubled down on Washington's support for Syria's new government, saying Monday there is 'no Plan B" to working with it to unite the country still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Tom Barrack also slammed Israel's recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying it complicated efforts to stabilize the region.
Barrack is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, with a short-term mandate in Lebanon. He spoke in Beirut following more than a week of clashes in Syria's southern province of Sweida between militias of the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim Bedouin tribes.
Syrian government forces intervened, ostensibly to restore order, but ended up siding with the Bedouins before withdrawing under a ceasefire agreement with Druze factions.
Hundreds have been killed in the fighting, and some government fighters allegedly shot dead Druze civilians and burned and looted homes.
Neighboring Israel intervened last week on behalf of the Druze, who are seen as a loyal minority within Israel and often serve in its military. Israel launched dozens of strikes on convoys of government forces in Sweida and struck the Ministry of Defense headquarters in central Damascus.
Over the weekend, Barrack announced a ceasefire between Syria and Israel. Syrian government forces have redeployed in Sweida to halt renewed clashes between the Druze and Bedouins, and civilians from both sides were set to be evacuated Monday.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

French court to rule on Assad immunity over Syria chemical attack charges
French court to rule on Assad immunity over Syria chemical attack charges

Business Standard

time2 hours ago

  • Business Standard

French court to rule on Assad immunity over Syria chemical attack charges

France's highest court is ruling Friday on whether it can strip the head of state immunity of Bashar Assad, the former leader of Syria now in exile in Russia, because of the brutality of the evidence in accusations against him collected by Syrian activists and European prosecutors. If the judges at the Cour de Cassation lift Assad's immunity, it could pave the way for his trial in absentia over the use of chemical weapons in Ghouta in 2013 and Douma in 2018, and set a precedent to allow the prosecution of other government leaders linked to atrocities, human rights activists and lawyers say. Assad has retained no lawyers for these charges and has denied he was behind the chemical attacks. Ruling could open door for prosecutions in other countries A ruling against Assad would be a huge victory for the victims, said Mazen Darwish, president of the Syrian Center for Media which collected evidence of war crimes. It's not only about Syrians, this will open the door for the victims from any country and this will be the first time that a domestic investigative judge has the right to issue an arrest warrant for a president during his rule. He said the ruling could enable his group to legally go after regime members, like launching a money laundering case against former Syrian Central Bank governor and Minister of Economy Adib Mayaleh, whose lawyers have argued he had immunity under international law. For over 50 years, Syria was ruled by Hafez Assad and then his son Bashar. During the Arab Spring, rebellion broke out against their tyrannical rule in 2011 across the country of 23 million, igniting a brutal 13-year civil war that killed more than half a million people, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Millions more fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkiye and Europe. The Assad dynasty manipulated sectarian tensions to stay in power, a legacy driving renewed violence in Syria against minority groups despite promises that the country's new leaders will carve out a political future for Syria that includes and represents all its communities. The ruling stripping Assad's immunity could set a significant precedent that could really set the stage for potentially for other cases in national jurisdictions that strike down immunities," said Mariana Pena, a human rights lawyer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, which helped bring the case to court. As the International Criminal Court has issued arrests warrants for leaders accused of atrocities like Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines the French judges' ruling could empower the legal framework to prosecute not just deposed and exiled leaders but those currently in power. Assad allegedly bombed, tortured and gassed civilians The Syrian government denied in 2013 that it was behind the Ghouta attack, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, but Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Assad to give up his chemical weapons' stockpile. Assad survived more than a decade longer, aided militarily by Russia and Iranian-backed proxies. Activists and human rights group accuse him of using barrel bombs, torture, and massacres to crush opponents. But then in late 2024, a surprise assault by rebels swept into Aleppo and then Damascus, driving the dictator to flee for his ally Russia on December 8, 2024. While Darwish and others plan to press Interpol and Russia to extradite him, they know it is unlikely. But an arrest warrant issued by France could lay the groundwork for the former dictator's trial in absentia or potential arrest if he travels outside Russia. Any trial of Assad, whether in absentia or if he leaves Russia, would mean this evidence could then be brought to light, Pena said, including an enormous trove of classified and secret evidence amassed by the judges during their investigations. Syrians often took great personal risk to gather evidence of war crimes. Darwish said that in the aftermath of a chlorine gas attack in Douma, for example, teams collected eyewitness testimonies, images of devastation, and soil samples. Others then tracked down and interviewed defectors to build a chain of command for the regime's chemical weapons production and use. We link it directly to the president himself, Bashar al-Assad, he said. Head of state immunity is 'almost taboo' Assad was relatively safe under international law. Heads of state could not be prosecuted for actions taken during their rule, a rule designed long ago to ease dialogue when leaders needed to travel the world to meet, said Jeanne Sulzer, a French lawyer who co-led the case against Assad for the 2013 chemical attack. She said that kind of immunity is "almost a taboo" regardless of the weight of the charges. "You have to wait until the person is not a sitting in office to be able to prosecute, she said. But that protection has been whittled away over the years by courts ruling that the brutality of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Charles Taylor in Liberia, and Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, to name just a few, merited a restructuring of the world's legal foundations, said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative. Ending impunity in Syria Syria today remains beholden to many awful legacies of the Assad dynasty. Poverty, sectarianism, destruction, and violence still haunt the Syrian Arab Republic. Damascus' new rulers are investigating nearly 300 people for crimes during several days of fighting on Syria's coast earlier this year. The interim authorities in Damascus have pledged to work with the United Nations on investigating further war crimes of the Assad regime and the civil war. The global chemical weapons watchdog has called on the new government of interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa to protect and dismantle Assad's stockpiles. Darwish is working on 29 cases against Assad and other regime figures who have fled to Russia, the Gulf, Lebanon and Europe. He said many Syrians hope Assad sits for a fair trial in Syria. It should be done in Damascus, but we need also a lot of guarantees that we will have a fair trial even for this suspect," he said. His organisation has already received requests to bring to court war crimes accusations against those involved in recent bloodshed in southern Syria. So anyone, whatever his name, or the regime, or their authority, we will keep fighting this type of crime, Darwish said.

What to know about the man charged with trying to assassinate Trump in Florida
What to know about the man charged with trying to assassinate Trump in Florida

Time of India

time3 hours ago

  • Time of India

What to know about the man charged with trying to assassinate Trump in Florida

Ryan Wesley Routh takes part in a rally in central Kyiv, Ukraine, April 30, 2022. A man charged with attempting to assassinate president Donald Trump in South Florida last year was back in court this week, asking a federal judge to let him represent himself, as prosecutors tried to block him from introducing irrelevant evidence during trial. Ryan Routh's court-appointed federal public defenders on Thursday asked to be taken off the case, saying he had refused repeated attempts to meet with their team. Separately, prosecutors trying the case asked a judge ahead of the September trial to rule out the introduction of inadmissible evidence, such as Routh's previous writings, that may unfairly influence jurors. The judge was planning to hear arguments over that matter on Friday. Here's what to know about the case. The judge lets Ryan Routh represent himself US District Judge Aileen Cannon signed off Thursday on Ryan Routh's request to represent himself during his trial but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel. The judge told Routh that she believed it was a bad idea for Routh to represent himself, but he wouldn't be dissuaded. Routh, who has described the extent of his education as two years of college after earning his GED certificate, told Cannon that he understood and would be ready. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Your Finger Shape Says a Lot About Your Personality, Read Now Tips and Tricks Undo On Friday, the judge was hearing a motion from prosecutors to limit unrelated evidence at trial. "As the Court knows, Routh has been very explicit in his desire to turn this trial into a circus where his supposed good character is weighed against the President's," the prosecutors wrote. Routh is a self-styled mercenary leader The 59-year-old Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press. In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he had a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a "weapon of mass destruction," which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch-long fuse. In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence. Routh is charged with attempted assassination Authorities said Routh tried to assassinate Trump, who was running for his second term last September as the GOP presidential nominee, while he played golf at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Routh is facing five felony counts in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida. They include attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate; possessing a firearm to carry out a violent crime; assaulting a federal officer; felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition; and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Judge presided over Trump's classified documents case If the judge's name sounds familiar, it's because she presided over another high-profile case involving Trump - the classified documents case. Last year, Cannon sided with Trump's lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the US justice department. Cannon's ruling halted a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the president faced before he returned to office last January. Cannon was a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020. Trump was not hurt in the incident He was fine, US secret service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing golf noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away. An agent fired, and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera. He was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighbouring county. Last September's assassination attempt took place just nine weeks after Trump survived another attempt on his life in Pennsylvania.

Israeli and Syrian ministers meet in US-brokered talks for first time in 25 years
Israeli and Syrian ministers meet in US-brokered talks for first time in 25 years

First Post

time3 hours ago

  • First Post

Israeli and Syrian ministers meet in US-brokered talks for first time in 25 years

Senior ministers from Israel and Syria met in Paris for the first high-level talks in over 25 years, focusing on de-escalating tensions and security in southern Syria. read more Druze from Syria and Israel protest on the Israeli-Syrian border, in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. AP Senior ministers from Israel and Syria convened in Paris on Thursday for a four-hour meeting facilitated by the U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack. These talks mark the first high-level official engagement between the two nations in over 25 years. The discussions primarily focused on de-escalating tensions and reaching security understandings in southern Syria, according to reports in the Times of Israel. Key takeaways from the meeting: * **De-escalation of tensions:** The primary objective of the meeting was to reduce tensions between Israel and Syria. The discussions aimed to address recent sectarian violence and security concerns, with both parties expressing a commitment to finding common ground. This follows reports from Saudi media on Tuesday that Israel and Syria had resumed dialogue on security matters. * **US mediation:** The United States played a crucial role in brokering the talks, with U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack overseeing the discussions. Barrack confirmed that he met with Syrian and Israeli officials in Paris. His involvement underscores the U.S.'s effort to stabilize the region and foster dialogue between the two countries, despite recent criticisms of Israel's intervention in Syria, where Barrack called it poorly timed and complicating stabilization efforts, according to PBS News. * **Security understandings in southern Syria:** A key focus of the meeting was to establish security understandings in southern Syria. This is particularly important for maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria and preventing further conflict. The talks also addressed the issue of Israeli incursions into Syrian border areas, with the aim of finding ways to prevent conflict and reduce these incursions, as per Reuters. * **High-level engagement after decades:** This meeting represents the most significant diplomatic engagement between Israel and Syria in over two decades. Given the historical lack of diplomatic and economic ties between the two countries, the meeting signals a potential shift in relations, driven by the new Syrian authorities' openness to peace and upholding the 1974 ceasefire agreement, according to Al Jazeera. The meeting also touched on broader regional issues, including the upcoming Iranian nuclear programme, as reported by The Jerusalem Post. While the talks are currently focused on joint security, they represent a critical step toward addressing long-standing issues and promoting stability in the region. Looking ahead, the ongoing dialogue may pave the way for further discussions and agreements aimed at resolving the complex challenges facing Israel and Syria. The international community will be closely watching these developments, as they could have significant implications for the broader West Asia, according to the Times of Israel. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store