Eyad al-Gharib found guilty of aiding and abetting a crime against humanity
A court in Germany has found a former Syrian regime official guilty of being an accomplice to crimes against humanity, in a historic first victory for efforts worldwide to bring legal accountability for atrocities committed in Syria’s long war.
Eyad al-Gharib, a 44-year-old former colonel in the Syrian intelligence service, carried out orders in one of Bashar al-Assad’s notorious prisons.
Continue reading...Revelations about London company reinforce suspicions that Beirut, and not Mozambique, was intended destination of ammonium nitrate
The company used to ship a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate to Beirut port, where it caused a devastating explosion last August, has been linked to three influential businessmen with ties to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, a new investigation has found.
The revelations about Savaro Ltd – a London shelf company that was deregistered at Companies House on Tuesday – have amplified suspicions that Beirut had always been the cargo’s intended destination, and not Mozambique, its official endpoint.
Continue reading...In 2021, the world will slowly begin to fight back against Covid. But what else will change as the vaccines are administered? Here are the figures who will shape a vital year
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Continue reading...Three NGOs file evidence to war crimes unit against Assad regime over use of chemical weapons
A group of NGOs has submitted a criminal complaint to the German courts over sarin gas attacks in Syria, a legal milestone which marks the first step on the long road to holding Bashar al-Assad’s regime accountable for its use of chemical weapons.
The Justice Initiative, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and the Syrian Archive submitted the filing and dossier of evidence to the German federal public prosecutor in Karlsruhe on behalf of victims on Monday.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has warned that the US will retaliate with “1,000 times greater” force against any Iranian attack on its interests.
Related: ‘The US feels very volatile’: former ambassador warns of election violence
Continue reading...Asma al-Assad among dozens targeted in campaign to deny regime revenue and support
The Syrian first lady, Asma al-Assad, has been named in the first round of new US sanctions that are certain to intensify pressure on the embattled regime and its backers as the country’s crippled economy continues to wither.
The law, known as the Caesar Act, came into effect on Wednesday, placing anyone who does business with 39 named individuals and regime entities in the cross hairs of the US Treasury. The sanctions are the toughest yet imposed on Bashar al-Assad and are set to be the centrepiece of a pressure campaign that also targets his government’s two major backers, Iran and Hezbollah.
Continue reading...Marches held on streets of Sweida amid soaring food prices and disillusion with corruption
A town in regime-controlled Syria is set for fresh protests this weekend as a burgeoning economic crisis engulfing even Bashar al-Assad’s most loyal supporters is now posing the biggest challenge to his grip on the country in years.
Food is now more expensive than at any other time during the nine-year conflict, triggering scenes reminiscent of the Arab spring protests of 2011 on the streets of the nominally government-loyal town of Sweida this week.
Continue reading...Critics say legislation is being used for US strategy and could cause further problems for country and wider region
Its currency has plunged by 70% since April, more than half its people face food scarcity, and hopes of rebuilding a country shattered by war continue to ebb.
Syria seems barely able to absorb new shocks, but new US sanctions that take effect next week, could devastate what is left of its flatlining economy and amplify the gravest regional decline in decades.
Continue reading...Rami Makhlouf, former backer of Assad regime, also barred from doing business with state
One of Syria’s wealthiest businessmen has said that the government of his cousin Bashar al-Assad has ordered the seizure of his assets and barred him from doing business with the state for five years, escalating a dispute deeply mixed in family affairs.
Related: Could Assad row with cousin tear down Syrian regime?
Continue reading...Power struggle between Bashar al-Assad and first cousin sparks rare family fissure and leaves public aghast
A defiant tyrant and his ruthless wife square up against the family oligarch, with the spoils of a nation at stake. It could be standard Ramadan television fare, but not this year. Instead, all the intrigue of Syria’s ruling family has been laid out in a spectacular real-life drama that has gripped the country and the region.
Leading the cast is the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, and Syria’s first lady, Asma al-Assad, but star billing has so far been taken by the president’s first cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who last week took to Facebook to do the unthinkable: air the normally inscrutable family’s dirty laundry.
Continue reading...Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of the Syrian leader, has accused him of arresting his employees
Syria’s richest man and first cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, who is accused by the US and EU of bankrolling the regime, has exacerbated a spectacular falling out with the Syrian leader, accusing him of sending security forces to arrest his employees and take over his businesses.
Rami Makhlouf on Sunday released a second Facebook video –two days after an earlier shock appearance – which lifted the lid on his split with Assad and laid bare the workings of the ruling family’s normally inscrutable inner sanctum.
Continue reading...Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib accused of roles in Assad regime’s torture apparatus
Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib thought they had escaped Syria’s civil war when they fled to Germany and applied for political asylum. But unlike most of those seeking refuge, they had once been part of the state’s machinery of oppression.
When the conflict began, both men were members of the notoriously vicious intelligence service, which arrested, tortured and killed protesters and opposition figures. But both defected from the regime, and they seemed to have thought that would protect them from their past.
Continue reading...For the first time, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has directly accused Syria’s leadership of ordering illegal attacks on its people
There is a temptation, to which some European governments and politicians are prey, to imagine that Syria’s civil war is over. It would, after all, be politically convenient if the millions of refugees languishing in Turkey and Jordan were to go home, rather than serve as a constant reminder of the EU’s chronic fear of migrants.
An end to the war would remove a prime cause of instability in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean region. Russia and Iran would have less excuse to play games of geopolitical chance with civilian lives. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s irascible president, would have less to complain about.
Continue reading...Report by UN-aligned body that oversees chemical weapons use is hailed by rights groups
The UN-aligned body that oversees chemical weapons use has for the first time blamed the Syrian regime for using sarin gas on the battlefield in a report hailed by rights groups as a landmark moment with implications for war crimes investigations.
The report, released on Wednesday by the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), accuses the Syrian Air Force of twice using sarin to attack the town of Ltamenah in late March 2017. It also found that regime aircraft had bombed the same town with chlorine gas in the same week.
Continue reading...Watchdog to release first report blaming president for attacks during the conflict
The UN’s chemical weapons watchdog is expected to release its first report explicitly blaming Bashar al-Assad for sarin and chlorine gas attacks on civilians in Syria as efforts to establish accountability for the use of chemical agents in the nine-year-old conflict gain momentum.
Observers anticipate that public and classified versions of a report by a new unit at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be published on Wednesday, close to the anniversaries of a major chlorine attack on the then rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma that killed at least 85 people in 2018 as well as a deadly sarin attack on Khan Sheikhun in 2017 which killed at least 89. The report is believed to focus on 2017 attacks on the village of al-Lataminah.
Continue reading...Russian and Turkish leaders will try to hammer out yet another deal to stabilise Idlib
A summit between the leaders of Turkey and Russia on Thursday may be the last chance to work out a deal that avoids further calamity in north-west Syria.
Faced with increasing military losses in Idlib province and a potential wave of people fleeing the fighting, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is eager for a ceasefire – and Vladimir Putin is ready to bargain.
Continue reading...The country was also blamed for indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas without ‘a specific military objective’
A UN investigation into atrocities committed in Syria has for the first time accused Russia of direct involvement in war crimes for indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
The latest report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria focuses on events of July 2019 to January this year, and in particular attacks by “pro-government forces” on civilian targets like medical facilities, driving 700,000 civilians from their homes.
Continue reading...The White Helmets civil defence service has released footage showing a rescue operation after airstrikes by the Syrian regime and Russian forces on Tuesday. Eight school facilities were bombed in Idlib province, Syria, in a single day, killing more than 20 people as the battle for control of the country’s last opposition stronghold intensified
Continue reading...Six schools and two nurseries reported targets of airstrikes by Assad regime and Russia
Eight school facilities have been bombed in Idlib province, in Syria, in a single day as the battle for control of the country’s last opposition stronghold intensifies.
The attacks came despite warnings that the violence has already led to the worst humanitarian crisis in the Syrian war to date.
Continue reading...Outsiders can be forgiven for being tired of the Syrian conflict. After all, the violence has lasted for nearly a decade and the worst chapters – for outsiders, at least – have come and gone: Islamic State (Isis) seized almost half the country, in addition to one-third of Iraq and launched a global network of terror in 2014. But the world has now caught its breath and the threat has all but ended. Refugees, too, flooded Europe some years ago but the influx has been contained.
Also, expert warnings about a resurgence of violence or extremism did not materialise and the return of state control seems to be the steady trajectory of the conflict despite persistent problems. Most of the country is currently under the control of either the regime, Turkey or the United States-backed Kurdish forces in eastern Syria. Even in the Kurdish zone, many would concede that it might be just a matter of time before these areas are recaptured by Damascus, even without much fighting, if and when the US eventually ends its presence there.
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