Syria expels top figure among pro-Iranian remnants
Syria has expelled a radical Palestinian leader, officials said on Sunday, in the latest move against pro- Iran remnants as the US enters the war in the Middle East.
Talal Naji, who heads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), was ordered to leave Syria in the past two weeks after being briefly incarcerated, sources said. They did not say where he went, citing security concerns.
'A political decision was taken to remove him,' said a Syrian security official who requested anonymity.
Syria, a base for an array of Palestinian factions before the downfall of the Bashar Al Assad regime last year, is looking to use the current Iran-Israel war to its advantage. Washington entered the conflict on Sunday by bombing Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
Chief among Syria's goals are accelerating establishing ties with the US and western assistance for recovery. US President Donald Trump asked Syrian leader Ahmad Al Shara in a breakthrough meeting last month to curb militants in the country and join the Abraham Accords with Israel.
Mr Al Shara, a former rebel fighter, commands Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a group once linked with Al Qaeda that has been in power since ousting the Iranian and Russian-backed Assad regime in December.
Mr Al Shara has expressed support for the Palestinian cause without the anti- Israeli rhetoric of the former regime. He said in March that Israel and Syria were engaged in indirect talks to prevent military escalation, after Israeli forces made incursions into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
A Palestinian security official confirmed to The National from Ramallah that Mr Naji, a political foe of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, had left Syria.
'They couldn't keep such a figure in jail while Israel keeps attacking Gaza. It would just help pile accusations against them that they are traitors,' the official said.
Mr Naji is almost 80 and lost an eye in a bomb explosion many years ago. He is married to a relative of Asma Al Assad, the former Syrian president's wife.
The PFLP-GC was one of several groups supported by Tehran that attacked Israeli targets with rockets and drones in the last year of Mr Al Assad's rule. When the Syrian revolt started in 2011, the PFLP-GC acted as the regime's enforcer in Syria's Palestinian refugee camps, crushing protests.
Mr Naji also recruited hundreds of Palestinians into a militia that was called Jerusalem Brigades, which fought on Mr Al Assad's side during the civil war.
Support for radical Palestinian groups was a reason behind US sanctions on Syria, which started in 1979 and were toughened after the 2011 revolt. Mr Trump decided to remove most of the sanctions last month.
PFLP-GC positions were targets of Israeli attacks on Syria in 2023 and 2024. The country was a conduit for weapons and supplies to Hezbollah, as well as launch pad for attacks by Iranian proxies against the Israeli military.
The new Syrian authorities had closed all the facilities belonging to Palestinian factions. In recent weeks, they allowed the Fatah faction of Mr Abbas to reopen some of its offices, the sources said.
Smaller factions and splinter groups opposed to Mr Abbas were also based in Syria. Among them were the Palestinian Liberation Front, Fatah Al Intifada, and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. Most of their cadres fled, or were allowed to leave to Jordan, Lebanon and possibly Iran after the ouster of Mr Al Assad, according to the sources. Syria's Ba'ath Party also established in the 1960s a Palestinian militia called Storm Troops, which took Mr Al Assad's side in the civil war.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Trump the ‘peacemaker' becomes wartime president
Pakistan has announced it will formally recommend US President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his 'pivotal leadership' and role as 'peacemaker' during the recent Kashmir crisis. Setting aside India's denial that Mr Trump facilitated an end to the hostilities in the region, Islamabad's timing could hardly have been more awkward. It could not have known, of course, but by the time Pakistan had issued its Nobel recommendation, US B-2 stealth bombers were already en route from an airbase in Missouri to Iran. Mr Trump had ordered the Pentagon to attack three Iranian nuclear sites, taking a strategic gamble that four presidents (and he himself, during his first term) had shied away from. Mr Trump and his administration had repeatedly warned that Iran could never obtain a nuclear weapon, and he stressed that the strikes were calibrated to avoid a broader conflict with Iran. He said 'now is the time for peace', while his Vice President JD Vance said the US was 'not at war with Iran, we're at war with Iran's nuclear programme". But it could well be a distinction without a difference for Tehran, where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will feel enormous pressure to retaliate, at least to some degree, after the US joined Israel's air campaign that had already blunted much of Iran's military capabilities. If Tehran were to try to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, or if one of its proxies were to attack any of the 40,000 US military personnel stationed across the region, a conflagration could easily be sparked that would make Mr Trump a wartime president whose military is dragged into another massively destructive regional quagmire. It was not supposed to be this way. The Republican bucked his party's hawkish tendencies during the election campaign, furiously denouncing America's 'stupid endless wars' and promising his legacy would be that of ' peacemaker and unifier". And just last month in Saudi Arabia, he attacked America's foreign policy record in the Middle East, saying the neocons who tried to 'nation build' had wrecked far more countries than they had constructed. Mr Trump, predictably, has come under criticism from Democrats, mainly because the US Congress was largely kept in the dark about the precise nature and timing of the strikes against Iran. Influential Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Mr Trump's 'disastrous decision' to bomb Iran without authorisation was a grave breach of the Constitution and Congress's war powers. 'He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations,' she said as she called for his impeachment. Republicans say the secrecy was necessary to avoid telegraphing an coming attack. There is another faction Mr Trump needs to pay attention to – his most loyal followers in the isolationist Make America Great Again, or Maga, movement. 'Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,' Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a passionate Trump supporter and prominent member of the Maga movement, wrote on X. But Marc Thiessen, a conservative author, wrote in The Washington Post on Sunday that too much has been made of any schism in the Maga movement, pointing to recent polling. He said large majorities of regular and Maga Republicans say they do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and that they regard Israel's security as important to the US. A look on Mr Trump's Truth Social feed is instructive, too. When he demanded Iran's ' unconditional surrender ' last week, many of his followers expressed dismay that the US appeared set to get involved in a conflict in the Middle East again. But in posts since the American strikes, his Maga base now appears, for the most part, to be rallying around the flag and unifying in support of the decision to attack Iranian nuclear sites. Still, here we are. For all his talk of diplomacy and deal making, Mr Trump has become entangled in another Middle East conflict with consequences that are impossible to predict. "I won't get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do," Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post last week. "Including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that's all that matters to me."
Zawya
an hour ago
- Zawya
UAE President holds phone calls with leaders of Qatar, Kuwait, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to discuss regional developments
ABU DHABI: UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan today held telephone calls with His Highness Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Emir of the State of Kuwait; His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar; and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The calls focused on the latest developments in the Middle East and the serious implications of recent attacks on the Islamic Republic of Iran for regional peace and security. The discussions form part of ongoing consultations led by His Highness aimed at de-escalation and restoring stability and security across the region. During the calls, all sides emphasised that the current tensions could have grave repercussions both regionally and globally. They called on all parties to apply wisdom, prioritise dialogue and peaceful solutions, exercise maximum restraint, and avoid further escalation. They also reaffirmed their countries' support for all efforts aimed at de-escalation through diplomatic means.
Zawya
an hour ago
- Zawya
Oil to open higher as US strikes on Iran boost supply risk premium
LONDON: Oil is likely to rise by $3-5 per barrel when trading resumes on Sunday evening after the U.S. attacked Iran at the weekend, market analysts said, with gains expected to accelerate only if Iran retaliates hard and causes a major oil supply disruption. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites in strikes overnight, joining an Israeli assault in an escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself. Iran is OPEC's third-largest crude producer. "An oil price jump is expected," said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad and a former OPEC official. "Even in the absence of immediate retaliation, markets are likely to price in a higher geopolitical risk premium." Global oil benchmark Brent crude could gain $3 to $5 per barrel when markets open, SEB analyst Ole Hvalbye said in a note. Brent settled at $77.01 a barrel on Friday and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $73.84. Ole Hansen, analyst at Saxo Bank, said crude could open $4 to $5 dollars higher, with potential for some long positioning being unwound. Crude had settled down on Friday after the U.S. imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions, including on two entities based in Hong Kong, and counter-terrorism-related sanctions, according to a notice on the U.S. Treasury Department website. Brent has risen 11% while WTI has gained around 10% since the conflict began on June 13 with Israel targeting Iran's nuclear sites and Iranian missiles hitting buildings in Tel Aviv. Currently stable supply conditions and the availability of spare production capacity among other OPEC members have limited oil's gains. Risk premiums have typically faded when no supply disruptions occurred, said Giovanni Staunovo, analyst at UBS. "The direction of oil prices from here will depend on whether there are supply disruptions - which would likely result in higher prices - or if there is a de-escalation in the conflict, resulting in a fading risk premium," he said. A senior Iranian lawmaker said on June 19 that the country could shut the Strait of Hormuz as a way of hitting back against its enemies, though a second member of parliament said this would only happen if Tehran's vital interests were endangered. About a fifth of the world's total oil consumption passes through the strait. SEB said any closure of the strait or spillover into other regional producers would "significantly lift" oil prices, but they saw this scenario as a tail risk rather than a base case given China's reliance on Gulf crude. Ajay Parmar, oil and energy transition analytics director at consultancy ICIS, said it was unlikely Iran would be able to enforce a blockage of the strait for too long. "Most of Iran's oil exports to China pass through this strait and Trump is unlikely to tolerate the inevitable subsequent oil price spike for too long - the diplomatic pressure from the world's two largest economies would also be significant," he said. (Reporting by Anna Hirtenstein, Ahmad Ghaddar, Robert Harvey and Seher Dareen in London, Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru, editing by Alex Lawler, Clelia Oziel and Giles Elgood)
