DAMASCUS: Students returned to classrooms in Syria on Sunday after the country’s new rulers ordered schools reopened in a potent sign of some normalcy a week after militants swept into the capital in the dramatic overthrow of President Bashar Assad.
The country’s new de facto leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, faces a massive challenge to rebuild Syria after 13 years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities were bombed to ruins, the economy was gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps outside Syria.
Officials said most schools were opening around the country on Sunday, which is the first day of the working week in most Arab countries. However some parents were not sending their children to class due to uncertainty over the situation.
Pupils waited cheerfully in the courtyard of a boys’ high school in Damascus on Sunday morning and applauded as the school secretary, Raed Nasser, hung the flag adopted by the new authorities.
“Everything is good. We are fully equipped. We worked two, three days in order to equip the school with the needed services for the students’ safe return to school,” Nasser said, adding the Jawdat Al-Hashemi school had not been damaged.
In one classroom, a student pasted the new flag on a wall.
“I am optimistic and very happy,” said student Salah Al-Din Diab. “I used to walk in the street scared that I would get drafted to military service. I used to be afraid when I reach a checkpoint.”
As Syria starts trying to rebuild, its neighbors and other foreign powers are still working out a new stance on the country, a week after the collapse of the Assad government that was backed by Iran and Russia.
Sharaa — better known by his militant nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Golani — leads the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that swept Assad from power last week. HTS is a group formerly allied with Al-Qaeda that is designated a terrorist organization by many governments, and is also under United Nations sanctions.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said on Sunday he hoped for a swift end to the sanctions to help facilitate economic recovery.
“We will hopefully see a quick end to sanctions so that we can see really rallying around building up Syria,” Pedersen said as he arrived in Damascus to meet Syria’s caretaker government and other officials.
Top diplomats from the United States, Turkiye, the European Union and Arab nations met in Jordan on Saturday and agreed that a new government in Syria should respect minority rights, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Syrian authorities reopen schools, a week after upheaval that overthrew Assad
https://arab.news/g34mx
Syrian authorities reopen schools, a week after upheaval that overthrew Assad
- Officials said most schools were opening around the country on Sunday, which is the first day of the working week in most Arab countries
- However some parents were not sending their children to class due to uncertainty over the situation
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
