Category Archives: Syria

Australian government wrongly cancelled citizenship of man on death row in Iraq, family claim

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Ahmad Merhi, who travelled from Sydney to Syria and is accused of joining Islamic State, says he is now stateless as he awaits hanging

The former Coalition government wrongly cancelled the citizenship of an Australian man on death row in Iraq, leaving him stateless as he awaited hanging on terrorism charges, his family and lawyers claim.

Ahmad Merhi, originally from Sydney, travelled to Syria in 2014. He was captured in the country in 2017.

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Turkey should face international court over Yazidi genocide, report says

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Exclusive: Investigation by group of prominent human rights lawyers also criticises Syria and Iraq

Turkey should face charges in front of the international court of justice for being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people, while Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to prevent the killings, an investigation endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said.

The groundbreaking report, compiled by a group of prominent human rights lawyers, is seeking to highlight the binding responsibility states have to prevent genocide on their territories, even if they are carried out by a third party such as Islamic State (IS).

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More than 100 murders in 18 months in Syria’s al-Hawl camp, UN says

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Many victims at detention facility for families of Islamic State fighters have been women, top official says

More than 100 people, including many women, have been murdered in a Syria’s al-Hawl detention camp in 18 months, according to the UN.

The camp is becoming increasingly unsafe and child detainees are being condemned to a life with no future, said Imran Riza, the UN resident coordinator in Syria, who called on countries to repatriate their citizens from the sprawling facility.

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Network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified

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Campaign disseminating disinformation sent thousands of tweets, often targeting the White Helmets

A network of more than two dozen conspiracy theorists, frequently backed by a coordinated Russian campaign, sent thousands of disinformation tweets to distort the reality of the Syrian conflict and deter intervention by the international community, new analysis reveals.

Data gathered by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) identified a network of social media accounts, individuals, outlets and organisations who disseminated disinformation about the conflict, with 1.8 million people following their every word. The three principal false narratives promoted by the network of conspiracy theorists involved misrepresenting the White Helmets, the volunteer organisation working to evacuate people in Syria. They also focused on the denial or distortion of facts about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons and on attacking the findings of the world’s foremost chemical weapons watchdog.

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Closing Syria aid route would be ‘catastrophe’, UN warned

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Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from Turkey

The last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.

On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib.

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Turkey’s plan to forcibly relocate Syrian refugees gains momentum

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President Erdoğan presses on with move by leveraging his Nato veto over Nordic states’ accession

Turkey’s plan to expand a buffer zone inside northern Syria and use it to relocate large numbers of refugees has gained momentum after officials endorsed a military push that analysts from both countries say will force demographic shifts inside Syria.

Though a timeline has not been decided, military and political leaders have confirmed that an extensive operation is being prepared to move Kurdish populations away from Turkey’s southern border and assert Turkish control as deep as 18 miles into northern Syria.

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Syria’s barrel bomb experts in Russia to help with potential Ukraine campaign

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Over 50 specialists skilled in delivering crude explosive working with Putin’s forces

Technicians linked to the Syrian military’s infamous barrel bombs that have wreaked devastation across much of the country have been deployed to Russia to help potentially prepare for a similar campaign in the Ukraine war, European officials believe.

Intelligence officers say more than 50 specialists, all with vast experience in making and delivering the crude explosive, have been in Russia for several weeks working alongside officials from Vladimir Putin’s military.

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‘Forgotten’ Syrian interpreter attempts suicide after UK asylum delays

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The man, who has been awaiting a Home Office decision for almost two years, says the anxiety has had a significant impact on his wellbeing

A Syrian interpreter who has worked for the British government and the White Helmets has tried to kill himself after waiting nearly two years for a decision on his asylum claim.

Ali [not his real name] worked as an interpreter and translator for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Istanbul, and for Mayday Rescue, a humanitarian organisation that supported the work of the White Helmets (officially known as the Syria Civil Defence) across Syria.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here

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UK aid cuts have forced 40,000 Syrian children out of school, charity says

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Funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, leaving pupils at risk of child labour and early marriage

More than 40,000 Syrian children are out of school as a direct result of British aid cuts and more schools could soon close, a leading charity has said.

British funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, as the government cut its total foreign aid spending from its commitment of 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.

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Biden will meet with parents of US journalist abducted in Syria 10 years ago

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Marc and Debra Tice are expected to meet with the president at the White House to speak about their son, Austin Tice

Joe Biden said he was meeting Monday with the parents of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 10 years ago.

The meeting with Marc and Debra Tice was expected to take place at the White House.

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Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal

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After a rookie militiaman secretly watched a video of 41 people being brutally killed, he knew he had to get the horrific images to the outside world

• Warning: this report contains images readers may find upsetting

On a spring morning three years ago, a new recruit to a loyalist Syrian militia was handed a laptop belonging to one of Bashar al-Assad’s most feared security wings. He opened the screen and curiously clicked on a video file, a brave move given the consequences if anyone had caught him prying.

The footage was unsteady at first, before it closed in on a freshly dug pit in the ground between the bullet-pocked shells of two buildings. An intelligence officer he knew was knelt near the hole’s edge in military fatigues and a fishing hat, brandishing an assault rifle and barking orders.

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Australia failing its own citizens held in ‘sordid’ camps in Syria, UN experts say

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Letter to government renews calls to repatriate citizens, including 30 children, held in conditions that ‘meet the standard of torture’

United Nations experts have accused Australia of failing to prevent the “sheer obliteration of the rights” of its own citizens including children who are held in “sordid” conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria.

In a move that humanitarian groups hope will intensify pressure on Australia to act, 12 UN special rapporteurs have written jointly to the government to raise concerns about 46 Australian citizens, including 30 children, held in the camps.

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MPs call for British child and ill mother to be returned to UK from Syrian camp

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Mother is unlikely to survive without medical intervention, leaving her young son orphaned, say doctors

MPs and a human rights group have called on the UK government to repatriate a young British boy and his gravely ill mother from a detention camp in Syria, after doctors said she was at risk of dying and leaving the child orphaned.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it was reviewing the case of Zaid* and his mother, Maryam* – who was injured in an explosion in Syria in 2019 and left with shrapnel in her head – “as a matter of priority”.

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Women face chronic violence in Syria’s ‘widow camps’, report warns

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Conditions drastically worse than in general camps, with some women forced to engage in ‘survival sex’, says World Vision

Women and children living in some of the hardest-to-reach camps in north-west Syria face chronic and high levels of violence and depression, with some women forced to engage in “survival sex”, a new report has revealed.

Children in so-called “widow camps” have been found to be severely neglected, abused and forced to work while mothers are at “breaking point” psychologically. More than 80% of women say they do not have adequate healthcare and 95% expressed feelings of hopelessness.

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Syria’s $1.5bn seizure of protesters’ property ‘akin to scare tactic’

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Human rights group accuses Assad regime of profiting from detainees forced to sign away their rights, some while blindfolded

More than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) worth of personal property including cars, olive groves, shops, houses, electronics and jewellery has been seized by the Syrian government from citizens accused of joining anti-government protests, according to a rights group.

The Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) estimates that almost 40% of those detained after the Syrian uprising of 2011 were subject to property seizures.

It alleges the Syrian regime has attempted to circumvent international sanctions through this revenue, while ensuring that former detainees in exile have nothing to return to as the country struggles to rebuild.

“The regime did this, they took everything so that we don’t go back,” said Hassan Al Haj, remembering his family’s land in a village near Aleppo. “We used to have lands with olive and pistachio trees. I’d built a house there but never moved in. The government seized it before I was able to.”

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Syria using maze of shell companies to avoid sanctions on Assad regime’s elite

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Exclusive: documents seen by the Guardian prove Assad minister’s boast that evading financial sanctions has ‘become a Syrian craft’

The Syrian regime is setting up shell companies in a systematic attempt to avoid sanctions, according to official documents obtained by the Guardian.

The documents, not publicly available, detail at least three companies established in Syria on the same day with the explicit purpose of operating as a shell to buy shares and manage other companies.

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Syrians join Russian ranks in Ukraine as Putin calls in Assad’s debt

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Analysis: Safe in his palace, Syrian leader appears to have given Moscow carte blanche to airlift his army

After 11 years of war, the destruction of towns, cities and much of the Syrian military, Bashar al-Assad’s army has launched a recruitment drive. But the recruits are not fresh from bootcamps and will not fight on the home front. They are the vanguard of what could be the biggest state-backed mercenary force in the world. Within days, Syrian troops could be deployed to reinforce the stalled Russian frontlines in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin is about to extract a lethal price for Moscow’s rescue of the Syrian leader.

The first Syrian troops to join Putin’s ranks – an advance force of 150 – arrived in Russia on Thursday, European intelligence officials claim. Ukrainian military intelligence, echoing a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, believes 40,000 Syrians have signed up to fight – a figure that would represent a sizeable chunk of the battle-ready capacity of the country’s entire military.

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‘The enemy is the same’: Idlib’s message to Ukraine as Syrian war enters 12th year

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Rebel enclave hopes global outcry against Russia, the Syrian regime’s main backer, will renew interest in their cause

Thousands of protesters in the rebel enclave of Idlib have marked 11 years since the start of Syria’s anti-government uprising, buoyed up by the global outcry over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

More than 5,000 people gathered on the main square in the north-western city on Tuesday in one of the largest rallies the region had seen in months. Many demonstrators hoped the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer, would rekindle interest in their cause.

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Islamic State names new leader, confirming US raid killed predecessor

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Audio message names Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi as new leader in first admission of former head’s death

Islamic State has named a new leader after confirming that its previous head was killed by the US in north-western Syria over a month ago.

In an audio message released on Thursday, an IS spokesman, Abu Omar al-Muhajer, confirmed the death of the group’s leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, as well as that of its former spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, in the US raid.

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Russia’s ‘warning’ of Ukraine’s biological weapons sounds just like Syria

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Analysis: Putin used the same false justification for brutal bombings in Syria, in the glare of western media

When a Russian spokesperson took to a podium in Moscow on Wednesday and warned of a “biological weapons programme” in Ukraine, fighters on another battlefield – Syria – understood what she meant.

The anti-Assad opposition groups that still held northern Syria had heard it all before. From 2015, when Russia took a prominent stake in the conflict, and throughout the gruesome years that followed, claims that they, instead of the Assad regime, had used chemical weapons were a ready-made slur that put them on notice of an imminent assault. The allegations were made by Moscow, whenever ground forces it was supporting wanted to clear a town or city. Brutal, indiscriminate bombardment followed. So did impunity.

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