DAMASCUS: An airstrike near a US base in southeastern Syria has killed at least eight pro-regime fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Monday.
Four Syrians, one Iranian national and three other non-Syrian fighters were killed in the strike carried out on Saturday, the Britain-based war monitor said.
At least 11 people were wounded in the attack, according to Observatory figures.
“A convoy of Iranian forces and allied militia was hit by airstrikes as it drove near Al-Tanf base,” the monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He could not confirm the strike had been conducted by the US-led coalition present in the region.
A coalition spokesman said the Al-Tanf base “received fire from unknown forces, with no damage and the coalition forces did not fire back.”
Several strikes against Syrian regime or allied forces have in the past been attributed to US forces, which were deployed with the declared goal of fighting Daesh.
The base, set up in 2016 near the borders with Iraq and Jordan, was also used for the training of so-called “vetted opposition” to the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Despite a 55-km deconfliction zone around the base, Al-Tanf is seen as a potential flashpoint between US and Iranian or Tehran-backed forces.
The presence of a US base in the arid border region has been a source of tension and its dismantling is often cited as a key demand by Damascus and its allies.
Beyond the battle against terrorists in their nearby desert hideouts, analysts say Washington sees the base as disrupting Iranian efforts to open a east-west land corridor from Tehran to Lebanon.
Airstrike near US base in southeastern Syria kills 8 pro-Assad fighters
Airstrike near US base in southeastern Syria kills 8 pro-Assad fighters
- Several strikes against Syrian regime or allied forces have in the past been attributed to US forces, which were deployed with the declared goal of fighting Daesh
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
