IDLIB, Syria: A US drone strike in northwestern Syria killed a Yemeni leader of a local militant group affiliated to Al-Qaeda, the US military and a Syrian war monitor said.
The strike, carried out on Monday just before midnight (2100 GMT) on the eastern edge of the city of Idlib, took out a man described as a leader of the Hurras Al-Deen group.
“Abu Hamzah Al-Yemeni was traveling alone on a motorcycle at the time of the strike,” US Central Command said in a statement, adding that an “initial review indicates no civilian casualties.”
The US is “highly confident” that the strike, carried out from a drone, killed Abu Hamzah Al-Yemeni, a US official with knowledge of the operation told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, confirmed on Tuesday that Yemeni was killed in the attack, saying it was the second such attempt to neutralize him after a similar strike last year.
An AFP correspondent in Idlib said that members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a rival militant group that dominates the area, gathered at the scene of the strike shortly after it happened and took away Yemeni’s charred remains.
HTS, whose leadership includes many ex-members of Al-Qaeda’s former Syria franchise, has tried to cast itself as a credible political force in the Idlib region.
Since a 2020 cease-fire agreement reached by Moscow and Turkey, the main foreign broker in northern Syria, HTS has come under pressure to crack down on the myriad of other militant factions still present in the Idlib region.
Monday’s strike was the second US operation in June to target a senior militant in Syria.
US forces captured Hani Ahmed Al-Kurdi, a leader of the Daesh group, on June 16 during a raid in Aleppo province.
They also killed Daesh leader Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi during an operation in Atme, a region of Idlib province, on February 3.
Hurras Al-Deen is a relatively small but powerful armed group led by Al-Qaeda loyalists.
It is estimated to have 2,000 to 2,500 fighters in rebel-held Syria, according to the UN.
US drone strike kills militant leader in Syria
https://arab.news/cz57w
US drone strike kills militant leader in Syria
- The strike took out a man described as a leader of the Hurras Al-Deen group
- Hurras Al-Deen is a relatively small but powerful armed group led by Al-Qaeda loyalists
’No one to back us’: Arab bus drivers in Israel grapple with racist attacks
- “People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: What began as an ordinary shift for Jerusalem bus driver Fakhri Khatib ended hours later in tragedy.
A chaotic spiral of events, symptomatic of a surge in racist violence targeting Arab bus drivers in Israel, led to the death of a teenager, Khatib’s arrest and calls for him to be charged with aggravated murder.
His case is an extreme one, but it sheds light on a trend bus drivers have been grappling with for years, with a union counting scores of assaults in Jerusalem alone and advocates lamenting what they describe as an anaemic police response.
One evening in early January, Khatib found his bus surrounded as he drove near the route of a protest by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
“People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem.
“They were cursing at me and spitting on me, I became very afraid,” he told AFP.
Khatib said he called the police, fearing for his life after seeing soaring numbers of attacks against bus drivers in recent months.
But when no police arrived after a few minutes, Khatib decided to drive off to escape the crowd, unaware that 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal was holding onto his front bumper.
The Jewish teenager was killed in the incident and Khatib arrested.
Police initially sought charges of aggravated murder but later downgraded them to negligent homicide.
Khatib was released from house arrest in mid-January and is awaiting the final charge.
- Breaking windows -
Drivers say the violence has spiralled since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023 and continued despite the ceasefire, accusing the state of not doing enough to stamp it out or hold perpetrators to account.
The issue predominantly affects Palestinians from annexed east Jerusalem and the country’s Arab minority, Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel after its creation in 1948 and who make up about a fifth of the population.
Many bus drivers in cities such as Jerusalem and Haifa are Palestinian.
There are no official figures tracking racist attacks against bus drivers in Israel.
But according to the union Koach LaOvdim, or Power to the Workers, which represents around 5,000 of Israel’s roughly 20,000 bus drivers, last year saw a 30 percent increase in attacks.
In Jerusalem alone, Koach LaOvdim recorded 100 cases of physical assault in which a driver had to be evacuated for medical care.
Verbal incidents, the union said, were too numerous to count.
Drivers told AFP that football matches were often flashpoints for attacks — the most notorious being those of the Beitar Jerusalem club, some of whose fans have a reputation for anti-Arab violence.
The situation got so bad at the end of last year that the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots group Standing Together organized a “protective presence” on buses, a tactic normally used to deter settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
One evening in early February, a handful of progressive activists boarded buses outside Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium to document instances of violence and defuse the situation if necessary.
“We can see that it escalates sometimes toward breaking windows or hurting the bus drivers,” activist Elyashiv Newman told AFP.
Outside the stadium, an AFP journalist saw young football fans kicking, hitting and shouting at a bus.
One driver, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for whipping up the violence.
“We have no one to back us, only God.”
- ‘Crossing a red line’ -
“What hurts us is not only the racism, but the police handling of this matter,” said Mohamed Hresh, a 39-year-old Arab-Israeli bus driver who is also a leader within Koach LaOvdim.
He condemned a lack of arrests despite video evidence of assaults, and the fact that authorities dropped the vast majority of cases without charging anyone.
Israeli police did not respond to AFP requests for comment on the matter.
In early February, the transport ministry launched a pilot bus security unit in several cities including Jerusalem, where rapid-response motorcycle teams will work in coordination with police.
Transport Minister Miri Regev said the move came as violence on public transport was “crossing a red line” in the country.
Micha Vaknin, 50, a Jewish bus driver and also a leader within Koach LaOvdim, welcomed the move as a first step.
For him and his colleague Hresh, solidarity among Jewish and Arab drivers in the face of rising division was crucial for change.
“We will have to stay together,” Vaknin said, “not be torn apart.”
