Iranian president pledges deeper ties with Moscow, state media says

In this imaged released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Masoud Pezeshkian, right, meets secretary of Russia's Security Council Sergei Shoigu at his office in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP)
In this imaged released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Masoud Pezeshkian, right, meets secretary of Russia's Security Council Sergei Shoigu at his office in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 18 September 2024
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Iranian president pledges deeper ties with Moscow, state media says

Iranian president pledges deeper ties with Moscow, state media says
  • The United States views Moscow’s growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine

MOSCOW: Iran’s president committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions on Tuesday, state media reported, amid US worries that Tehran is supplying Moscow missiles to hit Ukraine.
Russia’s top security official Sergei Shoigu arrived in the Iranian capital days after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. More than two and a half years into its conflict with Ukraine, Moscow has been seeking to develop ties with the two nations, both hostile to the United States.
“My government will seriously follow ongoing cooperation and measures to upgrade the level of relations between the two countries,” the state IRNA news agency quoted Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as telling Shoigu, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
“Relations between Tehran and Moscow will develop in a permanent, continuous and lasting way. Deepening and strengthening relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia will reduce the impact of sanctions.”
The United States views Moscow’s growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine.
Iran has denied sending ballistic missiles to Russia. Moscow has said only that Iran is Russia’s partner in all possible areas.
Shoigu’s trips are taking place at a crucial moment in the war, as Kyiv presses the United States and its allies to let it use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets such as airfields deep inside Russian territory.
President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western countries would be fighting Russia directly if they gave the green light, and that Moscow would respond.
The Nour news agency, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Shoigu met his Iranian opposite number, Ali Akbar Ahmadian. There was no immediate information on the outcome of the meeting.
Russia has repeatedly said it is close to signing a major agreement with Iran to seal a strategic partnership between the two countries.
Shoigu was Russian defense minister until May, when he was appointed secretary of the Security Council that brings together President Vladimir Putin’s military and intelligence chiefs and other senior officials.
Apart from meeting North Korea’s Kim last week, he also held talks in St. Petersburg with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

 

 


Israel’s defense minister announces ‘special situation’ after Israeli attack on Iran

Israel’s defense minister announces ‘special situation’ after Israeli attack on Iran
Updated 12 sec ago
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Israel’s defense minister announces ‘special situation’ after Israeli attack on Iran

Israel’s defense minister announces ‘special situation’ after Israeli attack on Iran

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister announces ‘special situation’ after Israeli attack on Iran.


US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria

US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria
Updated 56 min 48 sec ago
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US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria

US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria

WASHINGTON: The US military announced Thursday that a recent airstrike had killed an Daesh group official in northwest Syria.
In a post to social media, US Central Command  said its forces “conducted a precision airstrike in northwest Syria killing Rakhim Boev, a Syria-based Daesh official,” using another name for Daesh.
The post on X said Boev was “involved in planning external operations threatening US citizens, our partners, and civilians.”
The accompanying image depicts an SUV vehicle with a bashed-in windshield and roof.
AFP previously reported that two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday, on a car and a motorcycle, in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government.
A call to CENTCOM seeking confirmation that the incidents are related was not immediately returned.
The twin drone strikes in the Idlib region mirror the US-led coalition’s past strikes on jihadists in the area.
During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh.


Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total

Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total
Updated 12 June 2025
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Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total

Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total
  • UN believes 1.5m from abroad and 2m internally displaced will be home by the end of 2025

GENEVA: Refugees returning to Syria have cut the global total of displaced people from a record peak at the end of 2024, the UN said on Thursday.

More than 500,000 have returned from abroad and 1.2 million internally displaced people have gone back to their home areas since Bashar Assad was deposed in December. The UN refugee agency estimates 1.5 million from abroad and 2 million internally displaced will return by the end of 2025.
Worldwide, a record 123.2 million were forcibly displaced by last December, but the total had fallen to 122.1 million by the end of April. The main drivers of displacement were conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine.

“We are living in a time of intense volatility ... with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said. “We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”


Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’ of sovereignty after Israeli incursion

Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’  of sovereignty after Israeli incursion
Updated 12 June 2025
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Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’ of sovereignty after Israeli incursion

Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’  of sovereignty after Israeli incursion
  • One person killed and 7 captured during the pre-dawn operation in Beit Jin, Interior Ministry says

DAMASCUS: Syria’s Interior Ministry condemned an Israeli incursion in southern Syria, saying Israeli forces killed one person and abducted seven others, calling it a “blatant violation” of the country’s sovereignty.

“We affirm that these repeated provocations constitute a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that “these practices cannot lead the region to stability and will only result in further tension and turmoil.”
The Israeli military said those detained during the pre-dawn raid on Beit Jin were suspected of planning attacks against Israel, and that weapons also were found in the area. 
They were taken back to Israel for questioning, the military said.
One person was killed and seven captured in the operation, Syria’s Interior Ministry said, while the father of the young man killed said he had a history of mental illness.
Since the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in early December, Israeli forces have moved into several areas in southern Syria and conducted hundreds of airstrikes throughout the country, destroying much of the assets of the Syrian army.
Local broadcaster Syria TV described Thursday’s raid as being carried out by about 100 Israeli troops who stormed Beit Jin, near the border with Lebanon, and called out the names of several people targeted for arrest through loudspeakers.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said such incursions spike tensions in the region. 
“Such repeated provocative acts are a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
Village official Walid Okasha said that Israeli troops had entered the outskirts of Beit Jin in recent months, but that this was the first time they entered the center of the village. 
He added that Thursday’s operation came four days after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the village, inflicting casualties.
“They came targeting specific people,” said Okasha, who denied that Hamas members were in the village.
He said the seven people taken to Israel were all Syrians and that two of them were members of the country’s new security forces. 
He said the man who was killed suffered from mental illness.
Ahmad Hammadi identified the victim as his son and told the AP that he had a history of schizophrenia. 
He said his son was shot dead in front of his home, and that he had no links to Hamas. 
He said two of the captured men were his nephews. Hussein Safadi said his two sons, Ahmad, 32, and Mohammed, 34, were captured, adding that his younger son, who raises goats, had lived in Lebanon for years until recently. 
He said his younger son was a member of the armed opposition against Assad and recently joined the security forces of the new authorities. As for why Israeli forces seized his sons, “we don’t know the reasons,” Safadi said.
During a visit to France last month, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that his country is holding indirect talks with Israel to prevent hostilities from getting out of control.


Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis

Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis
Updated 12 June 2025
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Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis

Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis
  • Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported

RABAT: Egypt blocked activists planning to take part in a march to Gaza, halting their attempt to reach the border and challenge Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory before it could begin.
Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported.
To draw attention to the humanitarian crisis afflicting people in Gaza, marchers have for months planned to trek about 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) from the city of Arish to Egypt’s border with the enclave on Sunday to “create international moral and media pressure” to open the crossing at Rafah and lift a blockade that has prevented aid from entering.
Saif Abu Keshek, one of the activists organizing the march, said that about 200 activists — mostly Algerians and Moroccans — were detained or deported.
But those arriving to the Cairo International Airport on Thursday afternoon were allowed into Egypt, the Spain-based activist added. Organizers have not received approval from Egyptian authorities for Sunday’s march and were evaluating how to proceed, he said.
An Egyptian official on Thursday said more than three dozen activists, mostly carrying European passports, were deported upon their arrival at the Cairo International Airport in the past two days.

The official said the activists aimed to travel to Northern Sinai “without obtaining required authorizations.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.