Witnesses reported air strikes and tanks near the complex crowded with thousands of Palestinian patients and displaced people
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Monday he intended to visit Gaza but had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities”
Updated 19 March 2024
AFP
GAZA STRIP: Fighting raged Monday in and around the besieged Gaza Strip’s largest hospital complex where Israel said its forces killed and arrested Hamas militants, as Palestinians fled by foot under heavy bombardment.
While the army launched the overnight raid at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the Israeli government sent the head of its Mossad spy agency to Qatar for renewed talks toward a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The devastating war since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has left roughly half of Gazans — around 1.1 million people — experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, a UN-backed food security assessment warned.
The expert report is “exhibit A for the need for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, decrying an “entirely man-made disaster.”
“We must act now to prevent the unthinkable, the unacceptable and the unjustifiable,” he said.
Gaza’s soaring civilian death toll and large-scale destruction have hardened global opposition to Israel’s military operation and siege, including accusations of deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Israel’s military campaign had turned long-blockaded Gaza from the world’s “greatest open-air prison” into its biggest “open-air graveyard,” and that Israel was using famine as a “weapon of war.”
Foreign Minister Israel Katz replied that “Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza” and accused Borrell of “attacking Israel.”
In the latest heavy battle, Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa in an operation the army said targeted senior Hamas militants.
Witnesses reported air strikes and tanks near the complex crowded with thousands of Palestinian patients and displaced people.
AFP images showed black smoke engulfing parts of the city after bombardment, with Palestinians fleeing by foot along rubble-strewn roads as others treated the wounded in the street.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said nearby residents had reported dozens of casualties who could not be helped “due to the intensity of gunfire and artillery shelling.”
An AFP journalist witnessed air strikes on buildings in the area around Al-Shifa and reported seeing “hundreds of people, mostly children, women, and the elderly, fleeing their homes.”
The Israeli military, which had asked Gazans to evacuate the area, said 20 militants were killed and dozens of others were detained at the hospital.
The army identified one of the fatalities as Hamas internal security official Fayq Al-Mabhouh, saying that “weapons were located in the room adjacent to where he was eliminated.”
A Gaza police source confirmed his death and said he was a brigadier general in the force. Relatives said he was also the brother of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas’s armed wing slain in Dubai in 2010.
Israeli forces previously raided Al-Shifa in November, when ground operations were focused on northern Gaza. In January Israel said it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in the area.
Israel has repeatedly said the complex housed an underground Hamas control base, which the militants have denied.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “terribly worried” about the renewed fighting around Al-Shifa which was “endangering health workers, patients and civilians.”
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive that Gaza’s health ministry says has killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children.
As the fighting flared around Al-Shifa, elsewhere in Gaza City a massive crowd gathered at a UN food distribution center to collect bags of flour.
“There’s nothing to eat or drink. Children are dying,” said resident Umm Omar Al-Masharwai.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which operates the facility and coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has faced funding cuts since Israel accused about a dozen of its employees of involvement in the October 7 attack.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Monday he intended to visit Gaza but had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities,” a claim Israel did not immediately comment on.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of “starving children to death” in its siege of the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian charity Oxfam said Israel was “systematically and deliberately” blocking aid.
Global concern has focussed on Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians now live, many of them in crowded shelters and tent cities near the Egyptian border.
Repeated Israeli warnings of a looming ground invasion have raised fears of an even worse humanitarian catastrophe.
Responding to concerns voiced by top ally the United States and other governments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated that civilians would be evacuated from Rafah before any ground attack, without detailing where to.
Mediation efforts toward a truce were expected to resume, following a week-long ceasefire in November.
A meeting in Qatar between Israel’s Mossad spy chief, David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egyptian officials “is expected to take place today,” a source close to the talks said.
It follows the latest proposal submitted by Hamas for a six-week truce, vastly more aid into Gaza and the initial release of about 42 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
During the proposed truce, Israeli forces would withdraw from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza, according to a Hamas official.
Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that Hamas’s new proposal was “unrealistic” but that Israel would send a delegation to Doha.
The White House said US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke on Monday in their first call for over a month, with tensions rising over the war and its impact on civilians.
Freed Palestinian inmates set prison garb ablaze on return to Gaza
Ibrahim, 61, said he had left “prison and suffering,” but the Gaza Strip — for years under a crippling Israeli-led blockade — was “the largest prison in the world”
The vast majority of prisoners released on Saturday, in exchange for three Israeli hostages, were Gazans taken into Israeli custody during the war, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group
Updated 7 sec ago
AFP
KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: As Palestinian inmates released by Israel on Saturday stepped off the buses that took them to the Gaza Strip, some flashed a victory sign and swiftly set fire to sweatshirts they were made to wear in prison.
Images broadcast on Israeli media before their release under a ceasefire deal with Hamas showed rows of Palestinian prisoners wearing the sweatshirts emblazoned with the Star of David, the logo of Israel’s prison service and the Arabic phrase “we do not forget and we do not forgive.”
The white sweatshirts could be seen on the ground wreathed in orange flames at the prisoners’ reception point in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, an AFP correspondent said.
The growing blaze sent plumes of black smoke skywards over the crowds greeting the released inmates.
In previous releases under the Gaza deal, Palestinians were let out with plain grey prison tracksuits that did not bear any inscriptions.
The vast majority of prisoners released on Saturday, in exchange for three Israeli hostages, were Gazans taken into Israeli custody during the war, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.
The Gaza-bound convoy, facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, dropped off jubilant prisoners who threw victory signs and waved at the crowd welcoming them.
Other Palestinians freed Saturday were serving life sentences over attacks against Israelis, with some of them deported upon release.
Hamas, the Palestinian group whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war, and ally Islamic Jihad both condemned the Israeli prison service sweatshirts, calling them “racist.”
Ibrahim, 61, a freed prisoner who declined to share his last name, said he was sad to see the extent of the destruction wrought by the war in Gaza.
He said he had left “prison and suffering,” but the Gaza Strip — for years under a crippling Israeli-led blockade — was “the largest prison in the world.”
He said he had been arrested in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, and still did not know why he was jailed for nine months.
Abd Abu Zayra, another freed prisoner, told AFP he had Hamas to thank for his release, a moment “of joy and victory mixed with sadness and tragedy.”
“We pray that the war ends and that all prisoners are released,” he said.
The buses inched forward through the dense crowd, dropping off prisoners one after the other.
Paramedics taking the freed prisoners to hospital for check-ups were overwhelmed by the sea of relatives and friends who had gathered to greet them.
Muhammad Zaqout, director of Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, said medical examinations would be conducted for each prisoner.
He said many have suffered “torture” and neglect in jail.
Tariq Haniyeh, a 22-year-old Gazan, told AFP he had come to Khan Yunis to welcome his relative Loay Haniyeh a year after his arrest at a refugee camp near Gaza City.
“It’s a great joy to see the prisoners freed, but I’m very sad because I still have other relatives who are still detained,” said Tariq Haniyeh.
He said his family was still in mourning after the deaths of 21 relatives during the war, including distant cousin Ismail Haniyeh, the former Hamas chief killed by Israel in Tehran in July 2024.
Unlike Ismail Haniyeh, Tariq said his relative Loay, had “no connection to any Palestinian faction, and they (Israel) arrested him like thousands of others, without reason.”
Those in the last buses, too excited to wait, began their reunion from the bus windows.
One man stood on the shoulders of another to kiss a prisoner from the window. A child was hoisted in the air to be embraced.
Some stood on their toes to try to reach the hand of a loved one, while some prisoners still on the buses grabbed the microphones of journalists to start recounting their journey.
Four freed Palestinian prisoners transferred to West Bank hospital: Red Crescent
Negotiations on a second phase of the ceasefire, meant to lay out steps towards a more permanent end to the war, are expected to begin next week
Updated 35 min 42 sec ago
AFP
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Four Palestinian prisoners freed from an Israeli jail on Saturday as part of the ongoing truce in Gaza were transferred to hospital on arrival in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the Red Crescent said.
“Our teams are transferring four released (Palestinian) prisoners from the location of reception to the hospital,” the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement following the sixth hostage-prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel.
How Syrians can pursue justice, fast-track peace in post-conflict era
Violence in rural Homs, Hama and coastal provinces flares as new authorities target “Assad regime remnants” in security sweeps
Experts urge a transitional justice process, modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, going forward
Updated 10 min 45 sec ago
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: While thousands across the Syrian Arab Republic celebrated the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, others were fearful of the retribution they would likely face for their ties to the ousted regime. For many, those fears are quickly realized.
The Syrian people endured immense suffering over the course of the nation’s 13-year civil war, with countless killed, displaced, or disappeared by the regime and its militia allies, fueling impatient calls for justice.
Body bags lie on a field after a mass grave was discovered in an agricultural land in Izra, in Syria's southern Daraa province, on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
As a result, areas of rural Homs and the Mediterranean coast with high densities of Alawites — the ethno-religious group from which the Assad family traced its roots and drew much of its support — have seen mounting instability.
Reports of sectarian killings began to emerge as the interim government carried out security sweeps, while armed men, reportedly seeking revenge against those they deemed responsible for the years of bloodshed, have taken the law into their own hands.
Karam Shaar, a senior fellow at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, believes the interim government in Damascus faces a significant challenge of balancing accountability with social cohesion and stability.
The new leaders “fully understand that pursuing accountability head-on at this point, given the fragile security situation, could lead to a resurgence of extremist groups, paramilitary militias, and territorial factions,” Shaar told Arab News.
In early December, as rebel forces led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham advanced into Homs before going on to topple the Assad regime, tens of thousands of Alawites fled the central province to the Syrian coast, fearing reprisals.
Camille Otrakji, a Syrian-Canadian analyst, says the exodus of Alawites to their heartland on the Mediterranean coast “has led many to question whether this phase constitutes a low-intensity ethnic cleansing project aimed at relocating Alawites exclusively to the coastal region.”
“While Christians in Aleppo and Alawites in the coastal region of Syria are less frequently subjected to human rights abuses, those in central Syria (Homs and Hama governorates) are the ones who bear the brunt of the punishment,” Otrakji told Arab News.
As fear of retribution and sectarian violence spread through the Alawite community and other ethnoreligious groups, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa pledged in late December that his administration would protect the country’s diverse sects and minority groups.
Syria's interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa visits locals at a camp sheltering people displaced by the country's civil war in the northwestern city of Idlib on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Syrian Presidency Telegram Page / AFP)
However, as of Feb. 7, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, has documented 128 retaliatory killings across 11 provinces since the start of 2025 alone — with Homs leading the toll, followed by Hama.
Alawites, a Muslim sect who constitute around 10 percent of Syria’s population, are at particular risk of collective punishment — including for those who opposed Assad.
During the 50-year rule of Bashar and his father Hafez, Alawites formed the backbone of the regime, with around 80 percent of them working for the state — many in intelligence, security, or the military, according to the Washington Institute.
After Assad’s ouster and the rebel coalition’s capture of Damascus in December, interim authorities moved to curb the spread of arms, urging former conscripts and soldiers to surrender their weapons.
Soldiers and police officers of the fallen Assad regime line up on December 17, 2024, to register at a center in Daraa created by victorious opposition forces to settle their status and surrender their weapons. (AFP)
However, many have chosen to hold on to these weapons — in many cases for self defense. In response, security forces launched an operation in Homs in January to capture “remnants of Assad’s militias.”
The operation followed clashes in Alawite neighborhoods, sparked by an old video that resurfaced in December, showing rebels burning the shrine of the Alawite sect’s founder.
Quoting a security official, state news agency SANA said on Jan. 2 that the security campaign targeted “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons.”
Fighters affiliated with Syria's new administration check people's identification at a makeshift checkpoint after closing a road leading to the Alawite-majority Mazzeh 86 neighbourhood in western Damascus on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
While security forces were conducting raids in rural Homs, members of the Alawite community shared videos on social media showing militants, reportedly linked to HTS, beating and abusing Alawites in Homs and in coastal areas while hurling sectarian insults.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that within a month of Assad’s ouster, at least 160 Alawites were killed in raids and sectarian attacks.
In a recent incident documented by the war monitor, “unidentified gunmen” opened fire on civilians at the Baniyas-Jabaleh junction in the coastal region, killing a former officer and a worker.
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration bayonets a portrait of toppled president Bashar al-Assad at the defunct Mezzeh military prison in Damascus on January 2, 2025. (AFP)
Similarly, in rural Homs, factions linked to the new administration reportedly raided the village of Al-Dabin, attacked a civilian home and killed a young man.
Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said that as social media and word of mouth spread reports of killings, robberies, and kidnappings, “lawlessness, particularly in the Alawite villages around Homs and Hama, is causing near hysteria within the community.”
“Many Alawites are demanding justice,” he told Arab News. “They understand that the Assad regime committed terrible atrocities, particularly in the prisons, but they fear that the wrong people are being killed in random attacks and revenge killings.”
An Alawite Syrian, who had fled to Lebanon, sits with a neighbor and family members in front of his severely damaged home, after returning to the Baba Amr neighbourhood in Homs, on Jan. 8, 2025. (AFP)
He added: “One of the primary reasons for animosity toward the new government of President Al-Sharaa within the Alawite community is the lawlessness now overtaking the coastal region.”
Shaar of the New Lines Institute says the perceived delay in tackling this lawlessness might be due to the need to first establish the state’s monopoly on the use of force during this transitional period.
“I think the caretaker government is prioritizing stabilizing security, consolidating power, and establishing a monopoly on force, as any state should, before addressing these violations,” he said.
Referring to the new authorities, he added: “I still don’t see their vision, and maybe we shouldn’t expect one this early. Perhaps it does take time.
“In that sense, it’s understandable for them to wait before developing a vision for accountability, given the magnitude and sheer scale of the violations that occurred during the conflict.”
However, the situation is likely to escalate as Alawites are pushed out of key state roles and public sector jobs under the new government’s plan to cut a third of its workforce. With lost livelihoods, hunger is already widespread in Alawite areas.
“Many Alawites have lost their jobs or fear being pushed out of their jobs as purges are being carried out in government ministries,” said Landis. “Of course, the military, police force, and intelligence services were packed with Alawites.”
Fighters affiliated with the interim government have allegedly carried out summary executions in Homs. In late January, Syrian authorities accused members of a “criminal group” of “posing as members of the security services” and abusing residents, according to SANA.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the new authorities have arrested “dozens of members of local armed groups” who participated in the security operations in Homs.
Their arrest came after 35 people, mostly Assad-era officers, were summarily executed within 72 hours, according to the war monitor.
These groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority … taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferation of arms and their ties to the new authorities,” it said.
In addition, the war monitor listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians” among the “unprecedented level of cruelty and violence.”
These crimes demand an urgent transitional justice process to help prevent further bloodshed and division. However, unless the various armed groups are integrated into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, the security situation will likely continue to escalate.
“The new government must get control of the many militias that are not directly under government control,” said Landis. “They must also build their police forces so that they can bring some accountability to the countryside and stop crime.”
He added: “Even more important than a proper police force is a justice system that can provide the equality and accountability that President Al-Sharaa has been so eloquent in proclaiming will define the new Syria.”
On Jan. 30, in his first state address as president, Al-Sharaa vowed to “pursue the criminals who shed Syrian blood and committed massacres and crimes,” in addition to working to form an inclusive transitional government.
As Syria’s new leader “seeks historical recognition as the architect of a transformed and improved Syria,” he “must demonstrate his ability to curtail the influence of his armed militias,” said analyst Otrakji.
Al-Sharaa “recognizes that establishing and maintaining favorable relations with influential global powers and moderate Arab nations is crucial for achieving success,” he said.
“These nations have expressed their hope that Syria under his leadership will provide a secure environment for its minorities and uphold their rights as equal citizens.”
Al-Sharaa’s main challenge, however, “is that tens of thousands of armed men wielding significant power in the new Syria are not necessarily motivated by the same goals as their leader,” said Otrakji.
“Their objectives vary widely. Some are driven by a desire to purge Syria of ‘heretic’ sects. Others aim to impose strict moral codes, including regulating women’s attire. Some seek to seize the property — whether homes or mobile phones — of Alawite villagers, while others revel in the daily opportunity to humiliate them.”
The international community warns that peace and lasting security in post-Assad Syria requires the adoption of transitional justice, strengthening the rule of law, and holding free, fair elections to form a legitimate government.
“It’s not easy to have a genuine accountability process that is fair and inclusive, but that also ignores their own violations,” said Syrian analyst Shaar, referring to the new authorities.
“Someone might say: ‘It’s good we’re talking about this, but tell me about the disappeared in HTS areas, or about extrajudicial killings.’ If you open that door, where do you stop?”
Although transitional justice would be a very complex process, it is likely the only path to stabilizing Syria.
“Transitional justice seeks to help societies recover from widespread abuse and systematic repression, prioritizing victims and their interests while ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable through a fair and transparent process — without it becoming a tool for revenge or perpetuating new injustices,” Harout Ekmanian, a public international lawyer at Foley Hoag LLP in New York, told Arab News.
“Post-conflict Syria has a range of transitional justice mechanisms it can implement,” Ekmanian added, citing criminal trials, truth commissions, security sector reforms, reparations, and memorial initiatives for victims.
Implementing these mechanisms successfully “requires the active leadership of the state, working in close collaboration with the legal community, human rights organizations, and victims or their representatives,” he said.
Ekmanian, who is originally from Aleppo, added: “Community awareness campaigns should accompany these efforts to educate the public on the concept of transitional justice and its role in fostering reconciliation and building a stable future.
“This would help manage public expectations. These campaigns should promote a discourse that encourages cooperation among all parties rather than fostering division or demonizing any group.”
The international community has called for the creation of a national transitional justice committee to document violations, offer psychological and social support to victims, and promote social reconciliation.
This committee could model the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a proven conflict resolution model that followed the end of apartheid, to help Syria confront its past and build a future of justice and accountability.
Representatives of Syrian civil society brainstorm in the courtyard of a traditional house in Old Damascus on January 6, 2025, on strategies to ensure their country does not return to authoritarianism. (AFP)
Ekmanian said such commissions investigate past human rights violations and recommend pathways to justice.
“However, they go a step further by actively fostering reconciliation between victims and perpetrators,” he said. “They often incorporate restorative justice elements, such as public apologies, amnesty provisions, and dialogue processes, to help heal societal divisions.”
Truth and reconciliation commissions “could play a crucial role in gathering the narratives of victims and society, helping to establish the truth about a range of mass abuses,” including “the atrocities committed in Assad’s prisons, the torture, the sieges and indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas, chemical massacres, corruption, and last but not least, the fate of thousands of forcibly disappeared individuals.
Pictures of 23 local Syrians who died in Saydnaya and other Assad-regime prisons are displayed during a memorial service for them in Jaramana in the Damascus countryside on the city's outskirts on December 21, 2024. (AFP)
“However, as with any transitional justice mechanism, the work of truth and reconciliation committees must be balanced with the need to maintain communal peace and stability,” he added.
The new government’s appointment of leaders from a single political, religious, and sectarian group has raised skepticism among Syrians about its ability to pursue an inclusive transition.
Moreover, a history of deep sectarian divides and vengeance across the region presents a significant challenge to a truth and reconciliation process.
Otrakji said: “Regrettably, the pervasive sentiment of revenge deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of the Middle East and the Mediterranean poses a significant challenge to the possibility of a South African-inspired truth and reconciliation process in healing the deep-seated wounds of Syria’s protracted history of conflict.”
Aid cuts could destabilize Daesh-linked camps in northeastern Syria: diplomats
The humanitarian workers were not authorized to speak to the media, and the Roj camp resident had an unauthorized phone used to talk to Reuters
Updated 15 February 2025
Reuters
DAMASCUS: Moves by the US administration to cut foreign aid funding risk destabilizing two camps in northeastern Syria holding tens of thousands of people accused of affiliation with the Daesh, aid officials, local authorities and diplomats say.
The seven sources said Washington’s funding freezes and staff changes had already disrupted some aid distribution and services in Al-Hol and Roj, which host people who fled cities where Daesh was making its last stand between 2017-2019.
They are “closed camps,” meaning residents were not detained or charged as Daesh extremists but cannot independently leave the camps because of suspicions that they are affiliated with or support the group.
Aid workers and camp officials — led by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led force that helps run a semi-autonomous zone in northeastern Syria — have long called for the repatriation of camp residents, among them thousands of foreigners including Westerners.
But the rapid changes to US funding streams have prompted contingency plans for the spread of disease, riots, or Daesh attempts to retrieve residents they see as unlawfully detained, two senior humanitarian sources and a Roj resident said, requesting anonymity.
The humanitarian workers were not authorized to speak to the media, and the Roj camp resident had an unauthorized phone used to talk to Reuters.
“If there’s no unfreezing then everything except the camp guards stop. We’re expecting mass rioting and breakout attempts.
Kurdish authorities in the northeast said last month they expected breakout attempts at detention centers holding Daesh fighters and have refused to hand control of them to the new transitional government in Damascus.
The anticipated violence adds to the complex security challenges in Syria, where Islamist rebels installed the transitional government after toppling Bashar Assad and are holding talks with authorities in the northeast to bring all security forces under Damascus’s control.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of camps and displaced persons in the autonomous administration of northeast Syria, said US-funded organizations had been crucial in “covering the existing gaps” in basic service provision in the camps.
But if funding halts altogether, Daesh affiliates “can benefit from these existing gaps and lack of support,” he said.
At least one of the organizations operating in the two camps, aid contractor Blumont, has received waivers allowing it to keep operating, said a Blumont official and Al-Hol director Jihan Hanan. The waiver would last the 90 days.
The organization has had to shutter other USAID-funded humanitarian and management services at about 100 unofficial “collective centers” for other displaced people, the Blumont official said.
Syria arrests alleged Daesh commander behind shrine attack plot: state media
Authorities arrested “Abu Al-Hareth Al-Iraqi, commander in the Daesh organization,” said SANA
The interior ministry at that time had posted pictures of four men it identified as members of an arrested Daesh cell
Updated 15 February 2025
AFP
DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic authorities have arrested an alleged Daesh commander accused of planning a foiled attack targeting a Shiite Muslim shrine near Damascus, state media reported Saturday.
Authorities arrested “Abu Al-Hareth Al-Iraqi, commander in the Daesh organization,” said state news agency SANA, citing an unidentified intelligence official and using an Arabic acronym for Daesh.
He was “behind the planning of a number of operations,” SANA reported, adding that “the cell that was thwarted in its plan to attack the Sayyida Zeinab shrine” was working under his direction.
Last month, Syrian authorities said they foiled an Daesh attempt to blow up the shrine, Syria’s most visited Shiite pilgrimage site, located south of Damascus.
The interior ministry at that time had posted pictures of four men it identified as members of an arrested Daesh cell.
It was the first time the new Damascus authorities said they had foiled an Daesh attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday that the man arrested is “an Iraqi national who was one of the second-tier commanders in Daesh and spent his recent years” in the Badia desert region.
Iran-backed guards used to be deployed at the gates of the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, but fled in December shortly before Sunni Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus, toppling president Bashar Assad.
Over the years, Shiite shrines have been a frequent target of attacks by Sunni extremists of the Daesh group, both in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Daesh seized large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in the early years of Syria’s civil war, declaring a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014.
US-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria territorially defeated its proto-state in 2019, but the militants have maintained a presence in the country’s vast desert.
