DAMASCUS: Intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government thwarted a plan by the Daesh group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, state media reported Saturday.
State news agency SANA reported, citing an unnamed official in the General Intelligence Service, that members of the Daesh cell planning the attack were arrested. It quoted the official as saying that the intelligence service is “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums.”
Sayyida Zeinab has been the site of past attacks on Shiite pilgrims by Daesh— which takes an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and considers Shiites to be infidels.
In 2023, a motorcycle planted with explosives detonated in Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least six people and wounding dozens a day before the Shiite holy day of Ashoura,
The announcement that the attack had been thwarted appeared to be another attempt by the country’s new leaders to reassure religious minorities, including those seen as having been supporters of the former government of Bashar Assad.
Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, was allied with Iran and with the Shiite Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as well as Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, the former insurgent group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month and is now the de facto ruling party in the country, is a Sunni Islamist group that formerly had ties with Al-Qaeda.
The group later split from Al-Qaeda, and HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa has preached religious coexistence since assuming power in Damascus.
Also Saturday, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati arrived in Damascus to meet with Al-Sharaa.
Relations between the two countries had been strained under Assad, with Lebanon’s political factions deeply divided between those supporting and opposing Assad’s rule.
Mikati told journalists following his meeting with Al-Sharaa that the two countries will form a committee to work on demarcation of the border, which has never been officially defined.
Mikati also said they will work together to combat smuggling on the porous frontier.
“Some of the matters on the border need to be fully controlled, especially at illegal border points, to stop any smuggling operation between Lebanon and Syria,” he said.
One particularly knotty issue is the area known as Chebaa Farms, which is currently controlled by Israel as part of the Golan Heights it captured from Syria in 1967 and subsequently annexed. Most of the international community regards the area as occupied.
Beirut and Damascus say Chebaa Farms belong to Lebanon. The United Nations says the area is part of Syria and that Damascus and Israel should negotiate its fate. The fact that the Lebanon-Syria border was never clearly demarcated has complicated the issue.
In response to a question about demarcation of that area, Al-Sharaa did not give a clear answer.
“I think it is too early to talk about all the details of border demarcation,” he said. “There are so many problems in the Syrian reality. We can’t solve it all at once.”
Al-Sharaa said he hopes, meanwhile, that issues at the official border crossing will soon be resolved. Lebanese citizens, who had previously crossed easily into Syria without needing a visa, are currently barred from entry.
“We seek to have social ties between us that increase and not decrease, so any border obstacles between us should be eliminated in the future, but this is a detailed matter for customs officials,” Al-Sharaa said.
Syrian intelligence agency says it thwarted a planned Daesh attack on a Shiite shrine
https://arab.news/cvuj3
Syrian intelligence agency says it thwarted a planned Daesh attack on a Shiite shrine
- SANA reported, citing an unnamed official in the General Intelligence Service, that members of the Daesh cell planning the attack were arrested
- The intelligence service is “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums”
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
