US officials, Syria experts urge Biden administration to resist any Assad normalization process

The letter came amid a growing sense among many that Assad is slowly being welcomed back into the fold by other leaders, regionally and globally. (Reuters/File Photo)
The letter came amid a growing sense among many that Assad is slowly being welcomed back into the fold by other leaders, regionally and globally. (Reuters/File Photo)
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Updated 28 March 2023

US officials, Syria experts urge Biden administration to resist any Assad normalization process

The letter came amid a growing sense among many that Assad is slowly being welcomed back into the fold by other leaders
  • Charles Lister, coordinator of the joint letter, said the official US message is ‘We will never normalize and we discourage normalization,’ but this is not the same as ‘Don’t you dare normalize’
  • The letter also highlighted the need for a formal ceasefire in Syria, which the signatories said would allow for a more efficient and coordinated aid effort and could ignite a political process

LONDON: A group of American former officials and experts on Syria have written to US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging their administration to push back against any efforts to normalize the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The signatories to the letter include former US special envoys to Syria Frederic Hof, James Jeffrey and Joel Rayburn; Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the former chief of US Central Command; John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the CIA; and William Roebuck, the former US deputy special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh.

The missive outlines their concerns about Biden’s strategy for Syria, where a brutal civil war raging since 2011 has left half a million people dead and millions displaced in one of the world’s worst refugee crises.

“Unconditional regime normalization is not inevitable,” according to the authors of the letter. “Opposing regime normalization in word only is not enough, as tacitly allowing it is short-sighted and damaging to any hope for regional security and stability.”

Biden has previously indicated that the US will not normalize the Syrian regime and will not encourage its partners or other nations to do so. It comes amid a growing sense among many that Assad is slowly being welcomed back into the fold by other leaders, regionally and globally.

“(The US) message is, ‘We will never normalize and we discourage normalization,’” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at Middle East Institute and coordinator of the letter. “None of that is, ‘Don’t you dare normalize with the regime.’”

The letter also highlighted the need for a formal ceasefire in Syria, which the authors said would allow for a more efficient and coordinated aid effort and could ignite a political process. Any normalization of the Assad regime, they added, would erode the “international community’s capacity to shape a political process aimed at meaningfully resolving the crisis.”

They continued: “None of the issues that caused the Syria conflict have been resolved, most notably Assad regime atrocities, and inability or refusal to reform.

“Many of the conflict’s symptoms are worsening, from human suffering, industrial-scale drug trafficking, refugee flows, terrorism, geopolitical conflict and ethnic and sectarian hostilities.

“The Biden administration’s foreign-policy priorities of great-power competition, international and Middle East stability, human rights, humanitarianism, or combating food insecurity are insufficiently advanced through the current Syria policy.”

Lister said that regional moves to normalize relations with the Assad regime are inevitable because the US and its allies have been lackluster and are “nowhere to be seen” when it comes to the Syria crisis. If the West is not willing to push for accountability and justice over Assad’s atrocities, he asked, “why should regional states?”

The letter also includes a number of recommendations, including an alternative strategy for humanitarian aid to the Syrian people in the aftermath of the Feb. 6 earthquakes that hit the north of the country and neighboring Turkiye, and increased pressure on the governments of other countries to repatriate the thousands of their citizens who fought alongside Daesh and are now detained, with their families, in Syrian camps.

Prominent Emirati professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said he believes the regional approach to Syria, while differing from the US and European policy, will ultimately win out through a process of re-engagement with Damascus.

He said a rapprochement could benefit the region because “more Arab presence probably will translate into less Iranian presence” in the corridors of power in Damascus, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported.


Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital

Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital
Updated 57 min 22 sec ago

Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital

Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital
  • ICRC said the children aged between 1 and 15 had been taken to a safer location in Wad Madani, about 200 kilometres southeast of Khartoum
  • An ICRC spokesperson said the number of evacuated children had risen to 300 by Thursday morning

CAIRO: About 300 children have been evacuated from an orphanage in Sudan’s capital Khartoum where dozens of orphans were found last month to have died since mid-April due to nearby fighting between rival military factions.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated the evacuation late on Wednesday, said the children aged between 1 and 15 had been taken to a safer location in Wad Madani, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of Khartoum.
The ICRC said in its initial statement that 280 children and 70 caretakers had been evacuated, and an ICRC spokesperson said the number of evacuated children had risen to 300 by Thursday morning.
That number was confirmed by Siddig Frini, general manager at the Khartoum state ministry of social development, which oversees care centers.
The evacuation offered “a ray of light in the midst of the ongoing conflict in Sudan,” said Mandeep O’Brien, the representative in Sudan for UN children’s agency UNICEF.
On May 29, Reuters reported that at least 50 children had died – dozens of them babies – at the state-run orphanage, known as Mygoma, since the start of the conflict in Khartoum on April 15.
An orphanage official and doctor who works there said the deaths were mainly caused by malnourishment, dehydration and infections as most staff were kept away by the fighting.
Hadhreen, a volunteer group that has been helping at the orphanage, said on Wednesday it had confirmed the deaths of 71 children at the orphanage since the conflict started.
No official death toll has been issued. The orphanage was home to about 400 young children before the conflict began.
Frini declined to provide figures on the death toll. The director of the orphanage and the health ministry couldn’t immediately be reached.
“Many millions of children remain at risk across Sudan,” UNICEF’s O’Brien said in a statement. “Their lives and their futures are being endangered by this conflict every day.”


Tunisia army helicopter missing: defense ministry

Tunisia army helicopter missing: defense ministry
Updated 08 June 2023

Tunisia army helicopter missing: defense ministry

Tunisia army helicopter missing: defense ministry
  • The Tunisian military has lost a number of aircraft on training or reconnaissance missions in recent years

Tunis: A Tunisian army helicopter with four people on board is missing and feared crashed hours after vanishing from radar screens, the defense ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry has learnt that “communications have been lost with a helicopter which was making a night flight in the Cape Serrat area yesterday (Wednesday) evening,” it said in a statement.
“Land, sea and air resources have been mobilized in coordination with the interior ministry to carry out searches to locate the aircraft and establish the fate of its crew of four.”
The Tunisian military has lost a number of aircraft on training or reconnaissance missions in recent years.
In October 2021, three soldiers were killed when an army helicopter crashed during a night exercise in the southern province of Gabes.
The findings of an official investigation into that accident have still not been released.


Fighting rages at Sudan military site facility

Fighting rages at Sudan military site facility
Updated 08 June 2023

Fighting rages at Sudan military site facility

Fighting rages at Sudan military site facility
  • Sudan has been embroiled in a deadly conflict since mid-April, when fighting erupted between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo

KHARTOUM: Sudanese army soldiers and paramilitaries fought for control of a military facility Thursday in Khartoum where a fire raged at an oil and gas facility, witnesses said.
The battles came a day after the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced in a statement they had wrestled “full control” of the Yarmouk weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex.
Witnesses from southern Khartoum said they heard the “sound of gunfire and clashes” around the complex, the most important military industrial facility in the country.
The RSF claimed that soldiers had fled the site, leaving behind large quantities of military equipment and vehicles.
The paramilitaries also posted videos online purportedly showing their fighters inside the facility, celebrating. Weapons, including machine guns, and large quantities of ammunition could be seen in the background.
Sudan has been embroiled in a deadly conflict since mid-April, when fighting erupted between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo — commonly known as Hemeti — who commands the RSF.
Violence has spread across the country, most notably in the western region of Darfur, which is home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population and has never recovered from a devastating two-decade war that left hundreds of thousands dead and more than two million displaced.
The fire at the Al-SHajjara oil and gas facility near Yarmouk broke out overnight Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear what started the fire but residents said they heard a loud explosion at the facility, where fierce fighting has been underway for the past couple of days.
Plumes of smoke still rose from the site on Thursday morning and could be seen from as far as 10 kilometers away.
Since fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15, more than 1,800 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Nearly two million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to the latest UN figures, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Talks mediated by Saudi Arabia and the United States broke down, and multiple cease-fires have failed to take hold.
Last week, Washington slapped sanctions on the warring generals accusing both sides for the “appalling bloodshed” after the latest truce collapsed and the army pulled out of cease-fire talks altogether.
In October 2012, Sudan accused Israel of being behind a blast at the Yarmouk facility, leading to speculation that Iranian weapons were stored or manufactured there.
Israel at that time refused to comment on Sudan’s accusation.


Blinken: US to give $150m in aid for Syria, Iraq at Saudi conference on combating Daesh group

Blinken: US to give $150m in aid for Syria, Iraq at Saudi conference on combating Daesh group
Updated 08 June 2023

Blinken: US to give $150m in aid for Syria, Iraq at Saudi conference on combating Daesh group

Blinken: US to give $150m in aid for Syria, Iraq at Saudi conference on combating Daesh group
  • Secretary of State says US pledge is part of new funding amounting to more than $600 million

DUBAI: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the US would provide nearly $150 million in aid for areas in Syria and Iraq that were liberated from the Daesh extremist group.
He spoke at a ministerial conference hosted by Saudi Arabia on combating the group, which no longer controls any territory — but whose affiliates still carry out attacks across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh includes more than 80 countries and continues to coordinate action against the extremist group, which at its height controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq. Blinken said the US pledge is part of new funding amounting to more than $600 million.
“Poor security and humanitarian conditions. Lack of economic opportunity. These are the fuel for the kind of desperation on which Daesh feeds and recruits,” he said, using a common acronym for the extremist group. “So we have to stay committed to our stabilization goals.”
Blinken co-hosted the conference as part of a two-day visit to the Kingdom in which he met with senior Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Blinken also attended a meeting of Gulf foreign ministers.
The Saudis have launched wide-ranging diplomatic efforts to wind down their war in Yemen, resolve a crisis with Qatar, restore relations with archrival Iran and welcome Syria’s President Bashar Assad back into the Arab League after a 12-year boycott.


Iran’s president to visit three Latin American countries next week

Iran’s president to visit three Latin American countries next week
Updated 08 June 2023

Iran’s president to visit three Latin American countries next week

Iran’s president to visit three Latin American countries next week
  • The state news agency said Raisi will leave Tehran on June 11

MEXICO CITY: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela next week, Iran’s state news agency IRNA announced on Wednesday, adding that the upcoming tour stemmed from invites from the presidents of each of the Latin American nations.
IRNA said documents to expand bilateral cooperation will be signed between Iran and the three countries during Raisi’s visit, mentioning economic, political and scientific issues, but without going into further detail.
The state news agency said Raisi will leave Tehran on June 11.
The three-country tour will give Raisi face time with three regional allies, each of whom lead leftists governments that have been accused by critics of human rights violations.
Iran and Venezuela are both members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

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