LONDON: A Syrian refugee seeking asylum in Britain has been told by the UK Home Office that he is safe to return to his war-torn country, The Guardian reported on Sunday.
The 25-year-old refugee sought sanctuary in the UK in May 2020 after fleeing mandatory enlistment into Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army in 2017. “He said that if he is forced back to Syria, he will be targeted as a draft evader, arrested, detained and killed,” the newspaper reported.
It would be the first time that the UK returns a refugee to Syria, which the UN Refugee Agency said in October was still “unsafe.”
The agency reiterated an appeal from Human Rights Watch that “all countries should protect Syrians from being returned to face violence and torture, and halt any forced returns to Syria.”
A refusal letter sent to the asylum seeker by the Home Office last month said: “I am not satisfied to a reasonable degree of likelihood that you have a well-founded fear of persecution.
“It is not accepted that you will face a risk of persecution or real risk of serious harm on return to the Syrian Arab Republic due to your imputed political opinion as a draft evader.”
His lawyers are now appealing the Home Office’s unprecedented decision.
The asylum seeker, who has not been named for his own protection, said: “I escaped from Syria in 2017 and I am looking for safety.
“I hope I will not be forced back to Syria. I am so tired of trying to find somewhere that I can be safe.”
UK tells Syrian asylum seeker ‘safe’ to return home
https://arab.news/8rjp4
UK tells Syrian asylum seeker ‘safe’ to return home
- The Home Office sent the Syrian asylum seeker a refusal letter in December
- His lawyers are now appealing the government’s unprecedented decision
Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company
- It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
WASHINGTON: An Iran-linked hacking group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a sweeping cyberattack on US medical technology giant Stryker, saying it had wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.
“Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it called “the brutal attack on the Minab school” and for “ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance.”
The group said it had shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”
It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Stryker is a global medical device giant with some 56,000 employees and $25.12 billion in 2025 revenues, making everything from orthopedic implants and surgical instruments to hospital beds and robotic surgery systems.
The Handala group later posted that it had also carried out an attack on Verifone, which specializes in electronic and point-of-sale payments.
The outages began shortly after 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Windows devices — including laptops and mobile phones connected to Stryker’s networks — were remotely wiped.
