Category Archives: Syria

Lawyer for Australian families repatriated from Syria says focus should be on their recovery

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Moustafa Kheir says women and children have returned to NSW ‘from hell on earth’ and are cooperating with authorities

The lawyer for four Australian families repatriated from Syria says the focus should be on their recovery, not on the prospect of them being charged with terror offences.

Moustafa Kheir, who represents the four women and their 13 children who arrived in Sydney on Saturday, said he had been involved in interviews the women have had with authorities.

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‘Full responsibility’: Michaelia Cash challenges Labor on security after repatriation of families from Syria

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Government says process was informed by national security advice, individual assessments and detailed work by security agencies

The Albanese government must assume “full responsibility” if there is any risk to Australians from repatriating women and children from Syrian camps after the fall of Islamic State, Michaelia Cash has warned.

The former attorney general made the remarks following the return of four Australian women and 13 children to Sydney on Saturday.

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Australian women and children trapped in Syria back in Sydney as Coalition condemns ‘inexcusable’ mission

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Children in a ‘wild new world’ but mothers could face continued controls, including ankle monitors and curfews

Four Australian women and 13 children who had been detained in an internally displaced persons camp since the fall of Islamic State in 2019 in Syria have arrived safely in Sydney.

However, the mothers, who were partners to Islamic State members, could face continued controls, including ankle monitors and curfews, based off a fear they had been radicalised while in Syria.

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Perpetrator of Syria’s Tadamon massacre still working on military base

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Maj Amjad Yousef, identified on videos as killer of dozens of people, accused of directing more mass killings

The Syrian intelligence officer at the centre of one of the most shocking acts of the civil war – the Tadamon massacre – is still working on a military base outside Damascus and has since been accused by colleagues of directing up to a dozen more mass killings.

Amjad Yousef, a major in one of Syria’s most feared intelligence units, is operating from the Kafr Sousa base, where he has been for most of the past six months since the Guardian revealed his role in shooting dead dozens of people across a death pit in Tadamon, a suburb of the Syrian capital in 2013.

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Head of WHO’s Syria office faces allegations of fraud and abuse

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Numerous complaints made about Dr Akjemal Magtymova, AP reports after whistleblower leak

The head of the World Health Organization’s Syria office has been accused of widespread mismanagement, including misspending donor money, plying government officials with gifts and pressing for contracts to be signed with regime officials and politicians.

Staff at the UN organisation have made numerous complaints about Dr Akjemal Magtymova, who has led WHO’s Syrian operations for almost three years, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

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French cement firm admits paying IS nearly $6m to keep Syrian plant open

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Lafarge agrees to $778m fine after pleaded guilty in US trial to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation

The French cement company Lafarge pleaded guilty on Tuesday to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group in exchange for permission to keep open a plant in Syria, in a case the US justice department called the first of its kind. The company also agreed to penalties totalling about $778m (£688m).

Prosecutors accused Lafarge of turning a blind eye to the conduct of the militant group, making payments to it in 2013 and 2014 as IS occupied a broad swath of Syria and as some of its members were involved in torturing or beheading kidnapped westerners. The company’s actions occurred before it merged with a Swiss company Holcim, to form the world’s largest cement-making business.

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Dismay as key cholera vaccine is discontinued

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Exclusive: halt to production of Shanchol vaccine alarms WHO amid ‘unprecedented’ global outbreaks

The manufacturer of one of only two cholera vaccines for use in humanitarian emergencies is to halt production at the end of this year, just as the world faces an “unprecedented” series of deadly outbreaks, the Guardian has learned.

Shantha Biotechnics, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi, will stop production of its Shanchol vaccine within months and cease supply by the end of 2023, causing alarm among health officials.

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First British woman and her child repatriated to UK from Syrian camp

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Woman, said to have been trafficked, is only adult allowed back since end of Islamic State ground war

A British woman and her child have been repatriated from a Syrian camp, the first time an adult has been allowed to come back to the UK from detention since the end of the ground war against Islamic State.

The Foreign Office said that British policy to those held in Syria remained unchanged, and that it considered requests for help on “a case by case basis”, but campaigners said it was a significant first step.

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UN rebukes Finland for violating rights of its children held in Syria camps

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Child rights committee says Helsinki must do more to repatriate those detained as relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters

A UN watchdog has accused Finland of violating the rights of Finnish children stuck in Syrian prison camps holding suspected jihadists and their families.

Adding to mounting criticism directed at western countries, the UN child rights committee said Finland had a responsibility to make serious efforts to bring the children home.

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Young and sick children to be first Australians repatriated from Syrian detention camps

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About 60 wives, sons and daughters of slain or jailed IS combatants to be rescued from Roj camp, but some women face arrest upon return to Australia

The youngest, most unwell and most vulnerable of the Australian children currently held in squalid Syrian detention camps will be the first ones repatriated to Australia. But some of their mothers could face arrest – and potential charges – upon return to the country.

The Australian government is currently implementing plans to repatriate about 60 Australian women and children – wives, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – who have been held for more than three years in the dangerous detention camps in north-east Syria.

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Families of Australians held in Syrian detention camps welcome ‘incredibly exciting’ news of planned repatriation

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One man whose daughter and grandchildren are in the Roj camp says the government has not notified family members of rescue missions

A lawyer for Australians trapped in Syrian detention camps say conditions are “volatile and unsafe” inside the camps as winter approaches, with interruptions to food and water supply, and the need for their repatriation growing increasingly urgent.

Guardian Australia reported on Sunday that the government was preparing an operation to start repatriating more than 60 Australians – widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters – who are in the al-Hawl and Roj detention camps. About 20 are adults, many of whom say they were coerced or tricked into travelling to Syria by husbands who have since died.

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Australian children rescued from Syrian camps need tailored support to reintegrate into society, expert says

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Shane Healey urges government to establish holistic and ‘individualised’ process for kids who spent formative years in violent conditions

A former ADF Special Operations intelligence analyst who is now an expert on countering violent extremism says Australian children brought out of Syrian refugee camps will require intensive support to successfully integrate into the community.

“It’s a long, intensive and individualised process but, done holistically, will have excellent results,” Shane Healey said. “Australia has the capability and the expertise to support these children.”

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Australia to launch rescue mission for women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps

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Exclusive: More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children related to Islamic State combatants held in al-Hawl And Roj camps

The Australian government is preparing to launch a mission to rescue dozens of Australian women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps.

More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children – the widows, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – remain within the al-Hol and Roj detention camps in north-east Syria.

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Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits founding Wagner mercenary group

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Russian businessman confirms deployment to countries in Latin America and Africa in first public confirmation of link

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has admitted that he founded the Wagner Group private military company in 2014, the first public confirmation of a link he has previously denied.

Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” because his catering business hosted dinners attended by the Russian president, said he founded Wagner to support Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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Death toll from sinking of Lebanon boat rises to 94

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Survivors say boat that sank off Syrian coast had between 120 and 150 people onboard

The death toll from a boat that sank off the Syrian coast after sailing from Lebanon earlier this week has risen to 94, Syrian state TV said on Saturday.

The country’s transport ministry has quoted survivors as saying the boat left Lebanon’s northern Minyeh region on Tuesday bound for Europe with between 120 and 150 people onboard.

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Scores dead in worst sinking of migrant boat from Lebanon in recent years

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At least 77 people drowned and many still missing after shipwreck off coast of Syria

At least 77 people have drowned after the migrant boat they boarded in Lebanon sank off Syria’s coast, the deadliest such shipwreck from Lebanon in recent years, amid fears the death toll could be far higher.

The country, which has been mired since 2019 in a financial crisis the World Bank has described as one of the worst in modern times, has become a launchpad for migration, with its own citizens joining Syrian and Palestinian refugees clamouring to leave the country.

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Syrian refugees mass in convoy on Turkish border to walk into Greece

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Tens of thousands of people are planning to enter EU country together, after alleged racist attacks and rising tensions

Thousands of Syrian refugees are assembling in Turkey in a convoy, which organisers have dubbed the Caravan of Light, in an audacious and desperate attempt to enter the EU en masse.

Since early September, Syrians have been drawing up plans for the journey via a Telegram channel, which now has more than 85,000 members.

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Israeli airstrike on Damascus airport kills five Syrian troops – reports

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The bombings also targeted the countryside, according to Syrian state media, and reportedly killed two Iranians as well

An Israeli airstrike near Damascus airport has killed five Syrian soldiers, according to state media in Syria.

“The aggression led to the death of five soldiers and some material damage,” Syria’s official news agency Sana quoted a military source as saying on Saturday.

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France must rethink case of IS-linked women refused re-entry, rules ECHR

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Families argued detention in Syria exposed the two women and their children to inhumane treatment

The European court of human rights has condemned France over its refusal to repatriate French women who travelled to Syria with their partners to join Islamic State and are currently being held with their children at Kurdish-run prison camps.

The ruling will be studied closely by other countries who still have citizens detained in camps in north-eastern Syria, including the UK.

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Shamima Begum ‘smuggled into Syria for Islamic State by Canadian spy’

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Canada and UK accused of covering up involvement of double agent in British teenager’s recruitment for IS

Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria for Islamic State at the age of 15 by a Canadian spy whose role was covered up by the police and Britain’s security services, it has been claimed in a book out this week.

Begum, along with her schoolfriends Kadiza Sultana, then 16, and Amira Abase, then 15, were met at Istanbul bus station for their onward journey to Syria by a man called Mohammed al-Rashed.

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