BEIRUT: US-backed Kurdish-led fighters in northeastern Syria launched an operation Wednesday against suspected Daesh militants in the area in retaliation for an attack by the extremist group there last month, according to a statement.
Syrian Democratic Forces said they raided “dozens of potential points and hideouts” in the city Raqqa — formerly held by the Daesh group — and the surrounding area, and arrested dozens of suspected Daesh members. The US-led coalition forces provided air cover and drone surveillance during the operation, the statement added.
The operation was in response to an Daesh attack on Raqqa in late December that killed six members of the Kurdish-led forces. The SDF also announced formation of a “joint operations room” backed by the international coalition aimed at targeting IS cells.
The Kurdish-led forces in Syria regularly carry out joint anti-Daesh patrols with the US-led coalition . The patrols were temporarily halted late last year when Turkiye launched a campaign of airstrikes against Kurdish groups in Syria in retaliation for a deadly November explosion in Istanbul. Ankara blamed Kurdish groups for the attack, an allegation the groups deny.
The SDF said that according to its intelligence, Daesh “is attempting to reorganize the terrorist cells and appointing new leaders” as well as “issuing instructions to move from individual to group terrorist attacks on the prisons” holding Daesh members.
More than 42,400 foreign fighters and some 23,200 Syrians accused of Daesh ties — and their families — are held in camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, according to a Human Rights Watch report last month. The report detailed dire conditions in the detention facilities and called for repatriation of the detained foreign nationals — most of them women and children — by their countries.
Western countries have repatriated an increasing number of their citizens from northeastern Syria, including most recently France, which returned a group of 32 minors and 15 women on Tuesday.
Kurdish forces seize dozens of suspected Daesh members in Syria
https://arab.news/8qdnn
Kurdish forces seize dozens of suspected Daesh members in Syria
- Syrian Democratic Forces said they raided “dozens of potential points and hideouts” in the city Raqqa
WEF panel told grassroots aid workers keep Sudan afloat even as conflict puts them at risk
- Speakers warned that without urgent action to protect humanitarian access and support local responders, Sudan’s crisis will continue to deepen and destabilize the wider region
LONDON: Grassroots Sudanese aid groups are filling critical humanitarian gaps left by limited international access, but their volunteers are facing hunger, arrest and deadly risks as the conflict enters its fourth year, speakers warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
More than 20 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, while more than 11 million have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. As fighting continues and access for international agencies tightens, community-led networks have become a primary lifeline for civilians across the country.
“We need to strengthen local capacity and support community-led solutions like Emergency Response Rooms and mutual aid groups, with a more localized and decolonized humanitarian response,” said Hanin Ahmed, a Sudanese activist and Emergency Response Room leader.
Ahmed described how volunteers were delivering food, medical support and protection services in areas that international organizations struggled to reach. However, she warned that these efforts came at immense personal cost.
Volunteers are often displaced themselves, facing food insecurity, arrest, kidnapping, and in some cases, killing by the warring parties. Famine, she said, was no longer confined to traditionally affected regions.
“There is famine not only in Darfur, but also in Khartoum, the capital,” Ahmed told the panel, pointing to widespread unemployment, disease outbreaks, and rising cases of gender-based violence across multiple states.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Ahmed emphasized that Sudanese communities retained both the willingness and capacity to recover if adequately supported.
“Sudanese people are willing to resolve this war if supported,” she said.
Panelists stressed that hunger in Sudan was not driven by a lack of aid, but by deliberate barriers to its delivery.
“The story of Sudan’s war is a story of impunity,” said David Miliband, president and chief executive officer of the International Rescue Committee.
“To tackle impunity, we need to challenge restrictions on humanitarian access, end sieges, and address the profiteering that fuels the conflict,” he added.
Miliband said that while humanitarian funding remained critically low, access constraints were the primary factor preventing life-saving assistance from reaching civilians. Only 28 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan had been funded, he said, compounding the effects of obstruction on the ground.
Meanwhile, where assistance was available, needs continued to outstrip capacity. Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described visiting refugee-hosting areas along Sudan’s borders, where people arrived after experiencing extreme violence, deprivation and trauma.
“Ten liters of water per person per day is far below emergency standards,” Salih said.
“Only 16 percent of those who need mental health support are receiving it, and only one in three families in need of shelter actually have access,” he added.
Salih stressed that statistics failed to capture the scale of human suffering. “Behind every number is a human life,” he said, recounting testimonies of abuse, rape and killings from refugees who had crossed the border only hours earlier.
As humanitarian systems inside Sudan continue to falter, the consequences are increasingly felt beyond its borders.
Neighboring countries including Chad, Kenya, Egypt and Uganda are hosting large numbers of Sudanese refugees despite limited infrastructure and resources.
“What starts in Sudan does not stay in Sudan,” Miliband said. “This is a crisis with regional implications.”
While host governments have kept borders open and adopted inclusive policies that allow refugees access to services and livelihoods, panelists warned that generosity alone could not sustain the response without stronger international support.
The discussion in Davos highlighted that Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was shaped not by a lack of solutions, but by who is allowed to deliver aid, where, and under what conditions.
