Category Archives: Syria

Ayouni review – a raging lament for Syria’s ‘disappeared’

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Yasmin Fedda’s powerful documentary lays bare the human cost of the Assad regime and salutes those who continue to fight

Director Yasmin Fedda, who is from a Kuwaiti and Syrian background and lectures in film at Queen Mary University of London, has created a powerful and urgent documentary tribute to those who have been “forcibly disappeared” by the Assad regime in Syria, estimated to be around 150,000 since 2011.

Fedda focuses on two people: dissident writer and computer programmer Bassel Khartabil, who was abducted in October 2015 in Damascus, and Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, the hugely popular and admired Christian priest who was taken in July 2013 in Raqqa. She uses existing video of these two, from various family members and organisations, along with her own footage showing the campaigns of the loved ones left behind with their burden of anguish and their need to battle on and bring these crimes to the world’s attention.

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Israel said to have used Covid vaccines as bargaining tool in Syria prisoner swap

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Russia mediated deal in which Israeli woman was exchanged for two Syrian shepherds

Israel secured coronavirus vaccines for the Syrian regime as part of a Russian-mediated prisoner swap agreed this week, according to an Israeli source and local media reports.

The source, who requested anonymity, did not state the number of vaccines, or whether they were from Israel’s own supply. Barak Ravid, an Israeli reporter, wrote on Twitter that the country had paid Russia $1.2m (£850,000) for its Sputnik V vaccine as part of the deal, citing “foreign sources”.

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Friday that a young Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria was heading back to the country. In return, the Israeli government had returned two Syrian shepherds it had been holding, he said. It is not clear why the Israeli woman entered Syria.

The press in Israel had initially referred to another unspecified but apparently significant clause in the deal, adding that the country’s military censor had blocked publication. Under Israeli law, the agency can prevent reporting on topics it deems related to security issues.

The Times of Israel website said a “central aspect of the agreement” had been barred by the censor “despite the fact that the matter would be seen as deeply controversial to the Israeli public”.

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Syria: dozens killed in weekend of violence

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At least 24 people killed and scores more injured in series of attacks in rebel-held areas of country

At least 24 people have been killed and scores wounded across parts of rebel-held Syria after a weekend of violence that included several car bomb attacks.

Eleven people died and 30 more were injured in the town of Azaz, when a car bomb detonated on Sunday near a building used by Turkish-backed fighters as an administrative headquarters. Pictures from the scene showed black smoke rising from the mangled remains of the car, damaged buildings and a street covered in debris from the explosion.

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Australia’s air attacks in the Middle East ended three years ago – or did they? | Paul Daley

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Defence is refusing to provide details about the Australians piloting deadly British air force drone strikes in Iraq and Syria

Australian air attacks on enemy ground targets in the Middle East ended three years ago. Or so the Australian military told us.

But undisclosed to either the Australian public or the federal parliament, this country’s air force personnel have been piloting deadly British air force drone strikes on enemy combatants in Iraq and Syria.

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How the Arab spring engulfed the Middle East – and changed the world

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An era of uprisings, nascent democracy and civil war in the Arab world started with protests in a small Tunisian city. The unrest grew to engulf the Middle East, shake authoritarian governments and unleash consequences that still shape the world a decade later

A decade ago this month, protests forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee his country. It was a quick and relatively peaceful revolution, coming after decades of stagnant but entrenched regimes across the Arab world.

Few at the time understood the power of the images of unrest being broadcast online and into homes across the Middle East. Within weeks, other significant protest movements would emerge, and by the middle of 2011, leaders in Cairo, Tripoli, Sana’a, Damascus and elsewhere were under serious pressure or had been swept away by a tidal wave of peaceful demonstrations and armed resistance.

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Businessmen with ties to Assad linked to Beirut port blast cargo

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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.

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Deadliest Israeli airstrikes on Syria in years kill 57, say observers

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Raids on arms depots and military positions kill Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan fighters, says Observatory for Human Rights

Israeli airstrikes on east Syria killed 57 regime forces and allied Iran-backed fighters in the deadliest such strikes since the start of the conflict, a war monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The overnight raids against arms depots and military positions killed at least 14 Syrian regime forces, 16 Iraqi militia fighters and 11 Afghan members of the pro-Iran Fatimid Brigade, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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Daniel review – terrifying tale of an Isis captive

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The family of a photojournalist held in Syria must raise a multimillion-dollar ransom after the Danish government refuses to negotiate

Over the last couple of decades, Danish cinema has increasingly proved to have a strong aptitude for emotive, nuanced drama and intelligent engagement, particularly through documentary-making, with conflicts abroad. This inspired-by-a-true-story feature, from journeyman director Niels Arden Oplev (who helmed the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo film) skilfully combines those two strands to tell the story of Daniel Rye, a young Danish photographer who was captured by Isis in Syria in 2013.

Filmed in a wiggly, handheld fashion – such a signature of the Dogma 95 years it almost feels like a retro affectation – the plot tracks methodically through Daniel’s story, holding tight on the expressive face of Esben Smed, who rises to the physical challenges of the role. For starters, he has to convincingly pass as Rye when he was young enough to be a contender for the Danish gymnastics team, although presumably a stuntman performed most of the acrobatics we see.

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World leaders urged to make Covid vaccine available to millions of refugees

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Global humanitarian figures and NGOs call for rollout to take in all people for the global public good

Global humanitarian figures and NGOs have urged world leaders to urgently make Covid-19 vaccinations available to millions of refugees and others displaced by war, as the pandemic continues to overwhelm some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.

The impact of the contagion has sharply intensified across the Middle East in recent weeks, matching soaring global numbers. However, it has been further amplified by drastically underresourced medical responses that cannot cope with the numbers of dying or seriously ill.

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Syria: dozens killed in Isis bus attack

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Assault reportedly targeted Syrian regime soldiers returning to their posts in Deir ez-Zor, near Iraq border

At least 37 people in Syria have been killed in one of the biggest attacks carried out by Islamic State since the fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate last year.

The assault on Wednesday reportedly targeted a convoy of Syrian regime soldiers and militiamen returning from leave to their posts in Deir ez-Zor province, a mainly desert area on the border with Iraq.

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Syrians refugees flee Lebanon camp after tents set on fire

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Three people wounded in clash between camp residents and youths near coastal city of Tripoli

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have fled their makeshift camp in north Lebanon after their tents were set alight when fighting broke out between local youths and camp residents.

At least three people were wounded in the clash on Saturday in the Miniyeh region near the coastal city of Tripoli, after which youths set fire to the camp, Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency said.

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‘Please help us’: child refugees running out of time to reach UK before Brexit

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Desperate relatives in Britain plead with Home Office for flexibility as paperwork holdups delay family reunions while deadline looms

The Home Office has said it will not allow a group of stranded refugee children to join their families in the UK if their cases do not make it through the Greek asylum system by 31 December when the EU family reunification programme comes to an end.

Around 20 children who are eligible to join their relatives in the UK under the current family reunification scheme are still waiting for their cases to be completed in Greece, before the UK government ends the programme when it leaves the EU on the 31st December.

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10 years on, the Arab spring’s explosive rage and dashed dreams

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The extraordinary shock of people power gave way to a bitter backlash. So where to now?

A decade ago this week, a young fruit seller called Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight outside the provincial headquarters of his home town in Tunisia, in protest against local police officials who had seized his cart and produce.

Accounts of the 26-year-old’s shocking act rippled through his homeland, where hundreds of thousands of people who had also been humiliated by an atrophied state and its officials now found the courage to raise their voices.

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Javid advised of ‘hostile public sentiment’ to Shamima Begum, court told

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Officials told then home secretary that withdrawing Isis recruit’s citizenship would not hurt community relations, supreme court hears

Home Office officials declared “public sentiment is overwhelmingly hostile” to Shamima Begum and argued removing her British citizenship would not affect community relations when they advised Sajid Javid to act against her last year.

The then home secretary was formally advised that “the general feeling” was that the young woman, who travelled from east London to live under Isis in Syria aged 15, had “made her decision and must now live with it”.

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Antony Blinken: Biden’s secretary of state nominee is sharp break with Trump era

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A born internationalist, Blinken will seek to soothe the frayed nerves of western allies

After reports first emerged on Sunday night that Antony Blinken would be secretary of state in the Biden administration, one interview from his past began circulating on social media.

It was a September 2016 conversation with Grover, a character from Sesame Street, on the subject of refugees, directed at American children who might have new classmates from faraway countries. “We all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem at first like we have much in common,” Blinken told the fuzzy blue puppet.

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Wealthy nations urged to give portion of Covid vaccine as ‘humanitarian buffer’

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Stockpile sought for use in rebel-held territories, asylum camps and for others unlikely to receive vaccinations

Public health groups are lobbying countries to commit a portion of their Covid-19 vaccine supplies to a “humanitarian buffer” that would be used to inoculate people living in rebel-held territories, those in asylum-seeker camps and others unlikely to receive vaccinations from their governments.

The emergency stockpile is intended to act as a safety net to ensure the global effort to end the Covid-19 pandemic is not sabotaged by governments using vaccines as bargaining chip with restive populations, or simply denying it to some marginalised groups.

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Israel says it launched airstrikes on Syria over explosive devices at border

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Syria says three military personnel were killed in ‘Israeli aggression’ over Damascus

Israel’s military has said it launched air strikes against the Syrian army and Iran’s Quds Force in Syria on Wednesday after explosive devices were planted in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its planes hit storage facilities, military compounds and Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries.

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Syrian refugees help put centuries-old glassware on show in Paisley

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Thirty-piece collection was bequeathed to museum in 1948 and recently rediscovered

An unusual collection of 2,000-year-old glassware is providing Syrian refugees in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley with a connection to their homeland, five years after they settled in Scotland.

The 30-piece collection, dating back to Roman times, was bequeathed to Paisley Museum in 1948 by Elizabeth Spiers Paterson, the daughter of thread manufacturers, and is believed to have been acquired from antiquities dealers in Syria, known as the birthplace of glass-making.

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Qatari officials intimidated claimants in terror case, high court told

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Met police counter-terror unit has been asked to investigate allegations, court hears

Counter-terrorism police have been asked to investigate claims that witnesses and claimants in a terror-funding case were intimidated by officials working for the state of Qatar, the high court has been told.

Allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged at the hearing in London on Wednesday in a case involving compensation claims submitted originally by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank, the headquarters of which are in the Gulf state.

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