JERUSALEM: A Syrian soldier was killed and five others were wounded in an Israeli attack near the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said. The Israeli military said it attacked targets in Syria shortly after an anti-aircraft missile was fired from the Arab country into northern Israel early Wednesday.
Israel said the Syrian rocket exploded in the air and was not intercepted by Israeli air defenses, but it activated warning sirens in northern Israel. There were no reports of injuries or damage there.
In a rare statement acknowledging attacks inside Syria, the Israeli army said it struck Syrian facilities used in targeting Israeli aircraft, including a radar and anti-aircraft batteries.
Syrian official news agency SANA reported that Israel fired surface-to-surface missiles in the vicinity of the capital city Damascus and some of them were brought down by air defenses. It said a Syrian soldier was killed in the attack, which caused material damage, and five soldiers were wounded.
Israel has made hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria over the past decade of the civil war in the Arab country, but its government rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it is targeting bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Hezbollah, which is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the country’s civil strife.
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Israel hits Syria, killing soldier after anti-aircraft fire
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Israel hits Syria, killing soldier after anti-aircraft fire
- An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment on the report that Israel had carried out a missile strike
In Sudan’s old port of Suakin, dreams of a tourism revival
- Inside the ruins of a mosque, a restoration crew is hard at work rebuilding this piece of Suakin, over a century after the city was abandoned
SUAKIN, Sudan: The mayor of Suakin dreams of a rebirth for his town, an ancient Red Sea port spared by the wars that have marked Sudan’s history but reduced to ruins by the ravages of time.
“It was called the ‘White City’,” for its unique buildings made of coral stone taken from the seabed, said mayor Abu Mohamed El-Amin Artega, who is also the leader of the Artega tribe, part of eastern Sudan’s Beja ethnic group.
Now the once-booming port and tourist draw languishes on the water, effectively forgotten for years as Sudan remains mired in a devastating war between the army and paramilitary forces.
But inside the ruins of a mosque, a restoration crew is hard at work rebuilding this piece of Suakin, over a century after the city was abandoned.
“Before the war, a lot of people came, a lot of tourists,” said Ahmed Bushra, an engineer with the association Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heritage from Conflict and Climate Change (SSLH).
“We hope in the future, when peace comes to Sudan, they will come and enjoy our beautiful historic buildings here,” he told AFP.
Architecture student Doha Abdelaziz Mohamed is part of the crew bringing the mosque back to life with funding from the British Council and support from UNESCO.
“When I came here, I was stunned by the architecture,” the 23-year-old said.
The builders “used techniques that are no longer employed today,” she told AFP. “We are here to keep our people’s heritage.”
Abandoned
The ancient port — set on an oval island nestled within a lagoon — served for centuries as a transit point for merchant caravans, Muslim and Christian pilgrims traveling to Makkah and Jerusalem, and the regional slave trade, according to the Rome-based heritage institute ICCROM.
It became a vibrant crossroads under the Ottoman Empire, said Artega, 55, and its population grew to around 25,000 as a construction boom took off.
“The streets were so crowded that, as our forefathers said, you could hardly move.”
Everything changed in 1905, when the British built a deeper commercial port 60 kilometers (37 miles) north, to accommodate increased maritime traffic with the opening of the Suez Canal.
“Merchants and residents moved to Port Sudan,” the mayor said, lamenting the decline of what he calls “Sudan’s great treasure.”
But his Artega tribe, which has administered the city since the sixth century with powers “passed from father to son,” refused to leave.
His ancestor, he said, scolded the British: “You found a port as prosperous as a fine hen — you took its eggs, plucked its feathers and now you spit its bones back at us.”
As proof of the Artega’s influence, he keeps at home what he says are swords and uniforms gifted to his ancestors by Queen Victoria during the British colonial period.
The rise of Port Sudan spelled disaster for Suakin, whose grand public buildings and elegant coral townhouses were left to decay, slowly eaten away by the humid winds and summer heat.
But the 1990s brought new hope, with the opening of a new passenger port linking Suakin to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Today, the Sudanese transport company Tarco operates daily crossings, carrying around 200 passengers per trip from the modern port of Suakin, within sight of the ancient city and its impoverished environs.
Lease to Turkiye
The city’s optimism grew in 2017 when then-president Omar Al-Bashir granted the old port to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under a 99-year lease for touristic development.
A Turkish company restored the old governor’s palace, customs house and two mosques, but the project stalled in 2019 after Bashir fell from power in the face of mass protests.
Then, in April 2023, the cruise passengers and scuba divers who once stopped in Suakin completely vanished when fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A rusting cargo ship now lies stranded on a sandbank in the blue lagoon, where only a handful of fishing boats float around.
But Bushra, from SSLH, remains optimistic. He hopes to see the mosque, which houses the tomb of a Sufi sheikh, host a traditional music festival when the renovation is complete, “in five months.”
“When we finish the restoration, the tourists can come here,” he said.
“It was called the ‘White City’,” for its unique buildings made of coral stone taken from the seabed, said mayor Abu Mohamed El-Amin Artega, who is also the leader of the Artega tribe, part of eastern Sudan’s Beja ethnic group.
Now the once-booming port and tourist draw languishes on the water, effectively forgotten for years as Sudan remains mired in a devastating war between the army and paramilitary forces.
But inside the ruins of a mosque, a restoration crew is hard at work rebuilding this piece of Suakin, over a century after the city was abandoned.
“Before the war, a lot of people came, a lot of tourists,” said Ahmed Bushra, an engineer with the association Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heritage from Conflict and Climate Change (SSLH).
“We hope in the future, when peace comes to Sudan, they will come and enjoy our beautiful historic buildings here,” he told AFP.
Architecture student Doha Abdelaziz Mohamed is part of the crew bringing the mosque back to life with funding from the British Council and support from UNESCO.
“When I came here, I was stunned by the architecture,” the 23-year-old said.
The builders “used techniques that are no longer employed today,” she told AFP. “We are here to keep our people’s heritage.”
Abandoned
The ancient port — set on an oval island nestled within a lagoon — served for centuries as a transit point for merchant caravans, Muslim and Christian pilgrims traveling to Makkah and Jerusalem, and the regional slave trade, according to the Rome-based heritage institute ICCROM.
It became a vibrant crossroads under the Ottoman Empire, said Artega, 55, and its population grew to around 25,000 as a construction boom took off.
“The streets were so crowded that, as our forefathers said, you could hardly move.”
Everything changed in 1905, when the British built a deeper commercial port 60 kilometers (37 miles) north, to accommodate increased maritime traffic with the opening of the Suez Canal.
“Merchants and residents moved to Port Sudan,” the mayor said, lamenting the decline of what he calls “Sudan’s great treasure.”
But his Artega tribe, which has administered the city since the sixth century with powers “passed from father to son,” refused to leave.
His ancestor, he said, scolded the British: “You found a port as prosperous as a fine hen — you took its eggs, plucked its feathers and now you spit its bones back at us.”
As proof of the Artega’s influence, he keeps at home what he says are swords and uniforms gifted to his ancestors by Queen Victoria during the British colonial period.
The rise of Port Sudan spelled disaster for Suakin, whose grand public buildings and elegant coral townhouses were left to decay, slowly eaten away by the humid winds and summer heat.
But the 1990s brought new hope, with the opening of a new passenger port linking Suakin to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Today, the Sudanese transport company Tarco operates daily crossings, carrying around 200 passengers per trip from the modern port of Suakin, within sight of the ancient city and its impoverished environs.
Lease to Turkiye
The city’s optimism grew in 2017 when then-president Omar Al-Bashir granted the old port to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under a 99-year lease for touristic development.
A Turkish company restored the old governor’s palace, customs house and two mosques, but the project stalled in 2019 after Bashir fell from power in the face of mass protests.
Then, in April 2023, the cruise passengers and scuba divers who once stopped in Suakin completely vanished when fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A rusting cargo ship now lies stranded on a sandbank in the blue lagoon, where only a handful of fishing boats float around.
But Bushra, from SSLH, remains optimistic. He hopes to see the mosque, which houses the tomb of a Sufi sheikh, host a traditional music festival when the renovation is complete, “in five months.”
“When we finish the restoration, the tourists can come here,” he said.
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