Category Archives: Syria

Erdoğan and Putin hold face-to-face talks over Syria ceasefire

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Turkey’s president wants to shore up the truce because it has been ruptured repeatedly in the last 18 months

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin have held face-to-face talks for the first time since the pandemic in which they discussed the future of the last pocket of Syria outside regime control.

The leaders met in Russia’s Black Sea resort town of Sochi for Wednesday’s summit, Erdoğan sought to shore up a March 2020 ceasefire deal which ended a bruising assault by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies on Turkish-backed fighters in north-west Syria. The fighting last year brought Ankara and Moscow close to direct confrontation and threatened Turkey – which is already home to around four million Syrians – with a new wave of refugees.

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Syrian exiles forced to prop up regime with fees for avoiding conscription

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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Siraj reveal how refugees are pressured for cash

Early this year, Yousef, a 32-year-old Syrian living in Sweden, found himself faced with an impossible choice: either enlist in the army of the government that made him a refugee, or risk his family losing their home back in Syria.

Military service is mandatory for Syrian men between the ages of 18 and 42, and the stakes rose significantly in February when an army official announced on Facebook that a new regulation would allow authorities to confiscate the property of “service evaders” and their families. Pressure was mounting on Yousef to decide.

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Assad the outcast being sold to the west as key to peace in Middle East

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After 10 years of bloodshed, foreign allies are seeking to rehabilitate the Syrian leader

For almost a decade he was a pariah who struggled to get a meeting abroad or even to assert himself on his visitors. Largely alone in his palace, save for trusted aides, Bashar al-Assad presided over a broken state whose few friends demanded a humiliating price for their protection, and weren’t afraid to show it.

During regular trips to Syria, Vladimir Putin arranged meetings at Russian bases, forcing Assad to trail behind him at functions. Iran too readily imposed its will, often dictating military terms, or sidelining the Syrian leader on decisions that shaped the course of his country.

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Shamima Begum, regardless of her new image, remains the UK’s responsibility | Gina Vale

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She was groomed as a child and has endured trauma – and to say she now ‘looks western’ is an insult to British Muslims

  • Dr Gina Vale is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation

In her first live interview since joining Islamic State (IS), on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, 22-year-old Shamima Begum made her latest appeal to return to the UK. She is one of over 6,000 minors who became affiliated with IS, but ever since the grainy CCTV pictures emerged of her leaving the UK with two east London schoolmates in 2015, her case has captured international media attention.

Begum’s case first raises the issue of accountability of minors who become radicalised. At first, media reporting described the three girls as being “lured” into IS, comparing their childhood innocence to the monstrosity of their recruiters. The then education secretary, Nicky Morgan, wrote to their school saying, “We hope and pray for the safe return of the pupils”. In the rush to explain the fact that young girls could turn away from their lives in Britain to join a terrorist organisation, the “jihadi bride” narrative took hold – a catch-all phrase that focuses on girls’ romantic motives.

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The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas

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Syria cement plant at centre of terror finance investigation ‘used by western spies’

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Jordanian intelligence officer tells Guardian Lafarge factory was used by intelligence agencies to gather information on IS hostages

A cement plant in Syria at the centre of a terror financing investigation in France was used by western intelligence agencies to gather information on hostages held by Islamic State, sources connected to the operation have said.

A Jordanian intelligence officer who was central to the spying effort has confirmed to the Guardian that the Lafarge factory, which continued operating after the terrorist group overran eastern Syria, in one of the most controversial episodes of the war, was the regional hub of a failed effort to rescue up to 30 hostages. Those IS held included the American journalist James Foley, British photographer John Cantlie and Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, two of whom were later confirmed to have been killed.

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‘People try to stop us speaking up’: Angelina Jolie’s lessons from young activists

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The actor’s latest project is a book to teach teenagers their rights. Here, she sits down with four young people to hear what they’re fighting for

• Read an interview with Jolie here

Angelina Jolie How do you feel the older generation are handling things?

Christina Adane, 17, a British anti-poverty campaigner, originally from Ethiopia If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said they had failed us and left us with a bunch of problems. I still feel that way at times, but I think cross-generational communication is crucial when fighting issues like racial and climate justice. It’s easy to fall into the mentality of us v them, youth v old people in power. But loads of older people want to help us. So it’s about connecting with decision-makers and ensuring they are listening, so they can represent us where we are not represented – in government, at meetings at the top of companies. We need to work with the older generation.

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Iranian fuel tanker heading for Syria poses test for US sanctions

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Contents will be trucked to Lebanon to ease energy crisis, a plan that could challenge US resolve towards two foes

An Iranian tanker carrying fuel bound for Lebanon was at anchor in the Red Sea on Friday ahead of the final leg of a voyage to Syria, which is set to pose the biggest test yet to US sanctions imposed on two arch regional foes.

The tanker is expected in the Syrian port of Baniyas early next week, in defiance of US sanctions that prevent oil exports from Iran and imports to Syria, which have both been subject to stringent US-imposed restrictions on trade. The imminent arrival is being hailed by the Lebanese militant group turned political bloc, Hezbollah, as a sanctions-busting solution for an energy crisis that has brought Lebanon to a standstill and led to widespread blackouts.

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Cyprus prepares for Mediterranean oil spill from Syrian power plant

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Officials in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus say 20,000 tonnes of oil is approaching its coastline

Turkish Cypriot authorities have taken emergency action to stop an oil slick blamed on a faulty power plant in Syria from wreaking environmental havoc along some of the island’s finest unspoilt coastline.

Officials in the war-partitioned country’s breakaway north erected what local media described as a 400 metre barrier off the Karpas peninsula to prevent the slick reaching its pristine shores.

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Purple Sea review – panic and terror as Syrian refugees battle to stay afloat

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Syrian director Amel Alzakout records her own stranding in this difficult-to-watch film on a day when 40 people died off the coast of Lesbos

Powerful but painful to watch, this experimental documentary challenges viewers to avert their eyes from the tragedy unfolding before them. It consists almost entirely of footage recorded on a waterproof camera that was strapped to the wrist of Syrian co-director Amel Alzakout while she was floating in the sea off the coast of Lesbos, after the boat she’d been travelling in sunk. Like the other 300 people on the vessel that day in 2015, Alzakout had paid people smugglers to help her escape the war in Syria and find a better life abroad. While she lived to make this film and was reunited with her partner and co-director Khaled Abdulwahed, some 40 people died in the water that day.

It’s possible that some of the perished are even captured on film here – though to be honest, it’s hard to make out much for long stretches as the images thrash around, evoking the panic Alzakout and her fellow passengers, many in lifejackets, must have been experiencing as they tried to stay afloat. Sometimes the camera is above the waterline and we can hear people crying, calling hysterically, blowing whistles to call for help. Otherwise, the view is of jeans-clad legs and other jumbled bodies twisting in the water, the sound muffled by the sea.

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Vanuatu strips Syrian businessman of controversial ‘golden passport’ citizenship

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Abdul Rahman Khiti has approval for citizenship revoked after Guardian revealed sanctioned businessman among more than 2,000 people who bought passports

Vanuatu has reportedly revoked the citizenship of a Syrian businessman who was granted approval to receive a Vanuatu passport earlier this year, after a Guardian investigation into the country’s controversial citizenship by investment scheme.

Abdul Rahman Khiti is believed to be the first individual approved for citizenship of Vanuatu under the development support program, which allows foreign nationals to purchase citizenship for US$130,000, to have his Vanuatu citizenship revoked.

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Sabaya review – extraordinary documentary shows struggle to free women kidnapped by Isis

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Hogir Hirori’s film follows Mahmud as he and his team of volunteers infiltrate the dangerous al-Hawl camp in Syria to liberate Yazidi women trafficked as sex slaves

The first 20 minutes of Hogir Hirori’s extraordinary documentary has the beat of a gripping thriller, full of hushed voices, car chases, and the terrifying sounds of gunfight. Much of it shot at night, the film follows Mahmud, a member of an organisation called the Yazidi Home Center (YHC), and his trips with other volunteers to the dangerous al-Hawl camp in Syria which holds people with Isis links. The group’s goal is to retrieve and rescue Yazidi women who were kidnapped and sex-trafficked by Isis. Termed “sabaya” by their captors, the women endured unimaginable abuse, leaving them with debilitating lifelong trauma.

Intertwining with these tense, heartbreaking moments is the mundane daily life at Mahmud’s house, which doubles as a temporary shelter for the women. Recurring moments of his mother making food or his young son playing about the courtyard act as a calming balm to the victims’ psychological hurt, a semblance of the normality that hopefully awaits them in their home town in Sinjar. Sabaya is also especially poignant in how it doesn’t see Mahmud as a heroic figure. There’s a moving matter-of-factness to his routine of checking the continuous messages from people seeking their loved ones or his calm confrontation with Isis sympathisers who hide the Yazidi women in the camp.

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‘Still going through hell’: the search for Yazidi women seven years on

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As two women are rescued in Syria after being kidnapped by Isis years earlier, Yazidis renew calls for international help to find the thousands still unaccounted for

For seven years, their families waited and hoped for news. In July, they finally received it. Two young women, kidnapped by Islamic State as teenagers, had been found alive in Syria.

Salma*, now 25, was located in Deir el-Zour province, in the east of the country. She had “suffered all kinds of injustice”, said the Yazidi House in the Al-Jazira region, an organisation that assisted with the rescue of both women.

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‘Parents are dressing up their children to be buried’: Syria’s war on young escalates

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Mural artist Hussein Sabbagh, 13, one of 27 children killed in government attacks in north-west Syria in two months

Amid the rubble of bombed homes in Binnish, a town in north-west Syria, a brightly painted mural stands out. The image shows an intact house, with love hearts streaming from the windows. Overhead, however, the dark silhouettes of birds are accompanied by helicopters, warplanes and missiles, and the garden’s red and yellow flowers look like flames.

Related: Syria: Assad shells former opposition stronghold Deraa

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The Guardian view on Arab democracies: the least worst option | Editorial

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Benevolent dictatorship is not the answer to the region’s real problems

This week has shown that Arab regimes are tough on dissent, but much less interested in its causes. This will create problems for years to come as these states struggle to recover from the pandemic. Tunisia’s presidential power grab is a test for Joe Biden’s democracy and human rights agenda. War has impoverished ancient centres of Arab civilisation. The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia this week pointed out that poverty now affects 88% of the population in Syria and 83% in Yemen. Even nations once considered wealthy have been brought low by an unhappy meeting of leadership failures and Covid-19. Lebanon’s leaders are begging for foreign assistance after the local currency plummeted in value and the population ran short of food, fuel and medicine.

The Arab world is a varied place. The latest UN survey shows it diverging into wealthy Gulf absolute monarchies; a set of middle-income countries with more people than their oil reserves can comfortably afford; war zones in some of the largest nations such as Iraq; and very poor states. The oil-rich sheikhdoms are pulling ahead and using their financial and military clout to extend their influence, often with disastrous results. The Arab region, says the UN, hosts more than six million refugees and more than 11 million internally displaced persons. There is little coordinated action to deal with the numerous social challenges, including growing poverty, increased unemployment and persistent gender inequalities. Food insecurity has spread. One can be too downcast: the UN hopes for a silver lining in the prospect of peace in Libya.

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Syria: Assad shells former opposition stronghold Deraa

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President attempts to crush simmering insurrection with all-day offensive as rebels launch counterattack

Bashar al-Assad has attacked a former opposition stronghold with missiles and artillery shelling in an attempt to crush a simmering insurrection, in an unprecedented development in Syria’s decade-long war.

Deraa al-Balad and its surrounds, a district of Deraa city in the southern province of the same name, was targeted with heavy weaponry in tandem with a ground push on three axes from two Syrian army divisions and allied Iran-backed militias early on Thursday morning, in a large offensive which continued throughout the day.

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Denmark could face legal action over attempts to return Syrian refugees

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Activists fear a ‘dangerous precedent’ being set as Copenhagen uses a report that deems Damascus safe to deny residency status

Denmark’s attempt to return hundreds of Syrians to Damascus after deeming the city safe will “set a dangerous precedent” for other countries to do the same, say lawyers who are preparing to take the Danish government to the European court of human rights (ECHR) over the issue.

Authorities in Denmark began rejecting Syrian refugees’ applications for renewal of temporary residency status last summer, and justified the move because a report had found the security situation in some parts of the country had “improved significantly”. About 1,200 people from Damascus currently living in Denmark are believed to be affected by the policy.

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New Zealand agrees to repatriate suspected Isis member who grew up in Australia

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Jacinda Ardern said it was the ‘right step’ to allow return of woman and her children from Turkey

New Zealand has agreed that a suspected member of Islamic State who grew up in Australia can be repatriated from Turkey along with her two young children, a decision prime minister Jacinda Ardern said was “not taken lightly”.

The woman was a dual Australian-New Zealand citizen until Australia revoked her citizenship and refused to reverse the decision, prompting a furious response earlier this year from Ardern, who accused Australia of shirking its responsibilities.

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Syrian economy lies in ruins and China sniffs opportunity

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Analysis: War may be winding down, but with Assad in charge for seven more seven years the country remains splintered

Standing on a podium on Saturday to take an oath of office, Bashar al-Assad declared himself the only man who could rebuild Syria.

His first foreign guest, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, seemed to enhance his claim, endorsing the president’s win in a May poll described by Britain and Europe as “neither free nor fair” and laying a marker to help get the job started.

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