Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

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Updated 30 January 2025
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Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state

DAMASCUS: In less than two months, Syria’s Ahmed Al-Sharaa has risen from rebel leader to interim president, after his Islamist group led a lightning offensive that toppled Bashar Assad.
Sharaa was appointed Wednesday to lead Syria for an unspecified transitional period, and has been tasked with forming an interim legislature after the dissolution of the Assad era parliament and the suspension of the 2012 constitution.
The former jihadist has abandoned his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, trimmed his beard and donned a suit and tie to receive foreign dignitaries since ousting Assad from power on December 8.
The tall, sharp-eyed Sharaa has held a succession of interviews with foreign journalists, presenting himself as a patriot who wants to rebuild and reunite Syria, devastated and divided after almost 14 years of civil war.
Syria’s new authorities also announced Wednesday the dissolution of armed factions, including Sharaa’s own Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016, Sharaa has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader, and HTS has toned down its rhetoric, vowing to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
But Sharaa has yet to calm misgivings among some analysts and Western governments that still class HTS as a terrorist organization.
“He is a pragmatic radical,” Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam, told AFP.
“In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism,” Pierret said, referring to the period of the war when he sought to compete with the jihadist Daesh group.
“Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric.”
Born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, Sharaa is from a well-to-do Syrian family and was raised in Mazzeh, an upscale district of Damascus.
In 2021, he told US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights. He said his grandfather was among those forced to flee the territory after its capture by Israel in 1967.
According to the Middle East Eye news website, it was after the September 11, 2001 attacks that he was first drawn to jihadist thinking.
“It was as a result of this admiration for the 9/11 attackers that the first signs of jihadism began to surface in Jolani’s life, as he began attending secretive sermons and panel discussions in marginalized suburbs of Damascus,” the website said.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he left Syria to take part in the fight.
He joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for five years, preventing him from rising through the ranks of the jihadist organization.
In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad’s rule erupted in Syria, he returned home and founded Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Daesh group, and instead pledged his loyalty to Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Sharaa said in May 2015 that he, unlike Daesh, had no intention of launching attacks against the West.
He also proclaimed that should Assad be defeated, there would be no revenge attacks against the Alawite minority that the president’s clan stems from.
He cut ties with Al-Qaeda, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organization.
According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path toward becoming a credible statesman.
In January 2017, Sharaa imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist groups in northwestern Syria, thereby taking control of swathes of Idlib province that had been cleared of government troops.
In areas under its grip, HTS developed a civil administration and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, while crushing its rebel rivals.
Throughout this process, HTS faced accusations from residents and human rights groups of brutal abuses against those who dared dissent, which the United Nations has classed as war crimes.


Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war
Updated 18 February 2025
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Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war
  • The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks
  • The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother weeping for a teenaged daughter shot dead by a Turkish sniper and a father mourning a son killed by PKK militants are among countless families hoping that a new peace drive can end Turkiye’s four-decade-old Kurdish conflict.
Both live in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where tens of thousands of lives have been lost in violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed.

Fahriye Cukur (L) and Mustafa Cukur hold a portrait of their daughter Rozerin, who was killed in 2016 during fierce clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016, during an interview in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

At her home in the city of Diyarbakir, Fahriye Cukur, 63, cannot take her eyes off a picture on the wall of her daughter Rozerin in school uniform. She was killed during clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016.
The collapse of a truce in 2015 sparked a new round of the conflict when many government curfews were imposed, including in the city’s Sur district.
Cukur said her daughter — who was passionate about photography — had gone to Sur during a break in a curfew to collect exam papers from friends. But the authorities suddenly reduced the break from five hours to three and the fighting reignited.
“People were stuck there, including my daughter. She took refuge at the home of an elderly couple, but when she tried to leave, she was shot by a sniper,” her mother told AFP.
The family found out about the death through a news bulletin.

It took five months, several protests and a hunger strike for the grieving parents to get her body back.

A women walks next to the Four-Legged Minaret Mosque where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot dead at the historical Sur district in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Cukur said the authorities had mixed up their teenage daughter with a female PKK fighter, codenamed Roza, who had been hiding in the same district.
They claimed she had been trained in the mountains, but her mother told AFP: “My daughter was never engaged in political activism.
“She loved school, she wanted to become a psychiatrist and help her people,” she added, indicating the “TC” insignia — meaning “republic of Turkiye” — on her school uniform.
The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks.
Many families hope this will end the conflict and spare other families from the pain they live with.
“We can’t forget what happened but we have to hope. I have two more kids: how do I know the same thing won’t happen to them tomorrow?” she said.
Last month, the International Crisis Group said clashes between the militants and Turkish troops were largely confined to northern parts of Iraq and Syria, with violence on Turkish soil at its lowest level since 2015.
“At least we can breathe a bit now,” she said.
“I want the bloodshed to stop. I want a ceasefire. And I am not alone.”

In the nearby province of Mardin, Sehmuz Kaya, a 67-year-old Kurd, recalled how his son Vedat, a police officer, was kidnapped by PKK militants in eastern Turkiye in July 2015.
Vedat Kaya, wearing civilian clothes, was in a car with his brother and four others when militants blocked the road.
“They only kidnapped Vedat,” he told AFP, saying it was months before the family saw a PKK video of him in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq.
The family tried every possible channel, through the state and the main pro-Kurdish party, to secure his release.
But after six years, they received a devastating call from the authorities, who said he was one of the 13 “Gara martyrs.” The 13, all but one of whom were soldiers or police, had been killed by the PKK in the Gara region of northern Iraq.
“I was devastated,” he said, struggling for words, saying his son had been tortured before his death.
“They have no faith nor conscience. My son was just doing his job,” he said.
Pinned on the ceiling is a huge Turkish flag, and on the walls are photos of Vedat, whose name has been given to a nearby park.
Although he wants peace more than anything, he admitted he has little faith.
“They are not honest,” he snapped, referring to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party that is relaying messages from Ocalan to the government. He suspects they have ties to the PKK.
“The families of the martyrs are heartbroken. Enough is enough,” he said. “We support the process but we want something real.”
 

 


Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
  • Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.


Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan
Updated 17 February 2025
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Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he had arrived in Turkiye for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on prisoner exchanges and other matters.
“Official visit with the First Lady to Turkiye. Meetings with President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account.


 

 


In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco
Updated 17 February 2025
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In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco
  • Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara

LAAYOUNE: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati became on Monday the first French official to make a formal visit to the Western Sahara, a sign of Paris’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory.
“This is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Dati told AFP, using Morocco’s name for the area, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati described the visit as “historic.”
The United Nations considers Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
Dati, accompanied by Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, launched a French cultural mission in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city.
She promised to open the territory’s first French culture center to “benefit children in the region, but also teachers, schools, students and teacher trainers.”
In Dakhla, the Western Sahara’s second city some 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Laayoune, Dati said she is set to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema and audiovisual art.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining ties between Rabat and Paris.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Morocco’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
The turnabout marked by Macron’s statement drew a strong reaction from Algiers.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
Macron renewed French support for Morocco’s plan in October, pledging investments and a “strong and exceptional partnership.”
Also in October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” for the Western Sahara dispute.
 

 


Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
Updated 17 February 2025
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Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
  • “If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Hamas militants must surrender their arms and leave Gaza.
He was speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the next phase of the truce between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
Smotrich in a video statement said he “will demand a vote” by ministers on US President Donald Trump’s plan and that Israel must “issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas — immediately release all hostages, leave Gaza for other countries, and lay down your arms.”
“If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A strong opponent of stopping the war, he has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war is not resumed after the end of the first stage of the ceasefire.
Trump’s plan lacked detail but has triggered widespread outrage internationally for his call to resettle Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan under a US “takeover” of Gaza.
Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of the territory.
According to Israeli media, the security cabinet convened on Monday evening to discuss phase two of the fragile ceasefire which began on January 19.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
“It’s them or us. Either we crush Hamas, or God forbid, Hamas will crush us,” Smotrich said.
“I call on the prime minister to declare that once the war resumes after Phase One, Israel will, from the first day, seize 10 percent of Gaza’s territory, establish full sovereignty there, and immediately apply Israeli law,” he added.
“Furthermore, it must be announced that once combat resumes, all humanitarian aid will be completely halted.”
Smotrich further said that according to a plan currently in preparation “Gaza’s residents will be allowed to leave, but only in one direction — with no possibility of return.”
“The loss of territory is the only heavy price our enemies understand — the only thing that will make them realize we are serious,” Smotrich added.
Since the first phase of the truce began last month, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of 251 people seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.