US announces ‘immigration reprieve’ due to Lebanon conflict

Passengers queue at the check-in counters at Beirut-Rafic Al Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon October 17, 2024. (Reuters)
Passengers queue at the check-in counters at Beirut-Rafic Al Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon October 17, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 17 October 2024
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US announces ‘immigration reprieve’ due to Lebanon conflict

Passengers queue at the check-in counters at Beirut-Rafic Al Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon October 17, 2024.
  • So-called Temporary Protected Status designation will provide an “immigration reprieve” to eligible Lebanese due to the “ongoing armed conflict”

WASHINGTON: Washington will allow some Lebanese nationals to temporarily remain in the United States and apply for work authorization due to unsafe conditions in their home country, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.
The so-called Temporary Protected Status designation will provide an “immigration reprieve” to eligible Lebanese due to the “ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Lebanon,” the department said in a statement.
Those who are approved “will be able to remain in the country while the United States is in discussions to achieve a diplomatic resolution for lasting stability and security across the Israel-Lebanon border,” it added.
Hezbollah began low-intensity attacks on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
The Lebanon conflict has rapidly escalated in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out extensive strikes at both the border and further inside the country and launching ground operations inside its neighbor to the north.
The United Nations recently said one quarter of Lebanese territory was under Israeli military displacement orders, while the International Organization for Migration has said at least 690,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.


With Assad ousted, a new era starts in Syria as the world watches

With Assad ousted, a new era starts in Syria as the world watches
Updated 20 sec ago
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With Assad ousted, a new era starts in Syria as the world watches

With Assad ousted, a new era starts in Syria as the world watches
  • Syria wakes up to first morning without Assad
DAMASCUS: Syrians awakened on Monday to a hopeful if uncertain future, after rebels seized the capital Damascus and President Bashar Assad fled to Russia, following 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule.
The lightning advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Al-Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, marked one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations. Assad’s fall wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world.
Moscow gave asylum to Assad and his family, Russian media reported and Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, said on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
International governments welcomed the end of the Assads’ autocratic government, as they sought to take stock of a new-look Middle East.
US President Joe Biden said Syria is in a period of risk and uncertainty, and it is the first time in years that neither Russia, Iran nor the Hezbollah militant organization held an influential role there.
HTS is still designated as a terrorist group by the US, Turkiye and the United Nations, although it has spent years trying to soften its image to reassure international governments and minority groups within Syria.
Assad’s overthrow limits Iran’s ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It could also allow millions of refugees scattered for more than a decade in camps across Turkiye, Lebanon and Jordan to finally return home.

Now to rebuild
The rebels face a monumental task of rebuilding and running a country after a war that left hundreds of thousands dead, cities pounded to dust and an economy hollowed by global sanctions. Syria will need billions of dollars in aid.
“A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” said Ahmed Al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the head of HTS.
Speaking to a huge crowd on Sunday at Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque, a place of enormous religious significance, Golani said with hard work Syria would be “a beacon for the Islamic nation.”
Assad’s prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, told Sky New Arabia he would be willing to meet with Golani and was ready to provide documents and assistance for the transfer of power. He said he had no answer to the fate of the Syrian army.
“It is a question left to the brothers who will take over the management of the country’s affairs, what concerns us today is the continuation of services for Syrians,” he said.
The Assad police state was known as one of the harshest in the Middle East with hundreds of thousands of political prisoners held in horrifying conditions.
On Sunday, elated but often confused inmates poured out of jails. Reunited families wept in joy. Newly freed prisoners were filmed running through the Damascus streets holding up their hands to show how many years they had been in prison.
The White Helmets rescue organization said it had dispatched emergency teams to search for hidden underground cells still believed to hold detainees.
With a curfew declared by the rebels, Damascus was calm after dawn on Monday, with shops closed and streets in the city largely empty.
The majority of people seen were rebels, dressed in fatigues and carrying weapons, while many cars had license plates from the northwestern province of Idlib, where the rebel offensive was launched 12 days ago.
Near downtown, a single bookseller could be seen carefully laying novels out on a ledge.
The rebel coalition said it was working to complete the transfer of power to a transitional governing body with executive powers, referring to building “a Syria together.”
Golani is a Sunni Muslim, which is the majority in Syria, but the country is home to a wide range of religious sects, including Christians and Assad’s fellow Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

World stunned
The pace of events stunned world capitals and prompted an outpouring of celebrations from Syrian diaspora. In Sydney, people paraded in cars while waving Syrian flags, danced in the streets and set off fireworks.
It also raised concerns about more regional instability on top of the Gaza war, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and tensions between Israel and Iran.
The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes targeting known Islamic State camps and operatives in central Syria on Sunday.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Sunday he spoke with Turkish Minister of National Defense Yasar Guler, emphasising the importance of protecting civilians and that the United States is watching closely.
During Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad, his forces and their Russian allies bombed cities to rubble. The refugee crisis across the Middle East was one of the biggest of modern times and caused a political reckoning in Europe when a million people arrived in 2015.
In recent years, Turkiye had backed some rebels in a small redoubt in the northwest and along its border. The United States, which has about 900 troops in Syria, backed a Kurdish-led alliance that fought Daesh terrorists from 2014-2017.

Israel PM says ordered military to ‘seize’ Syria buffer zone

Israel PM says ordered military to ‘seize’ Syria buffer zone
Updated 09 December 2024
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Israel PM says ordered military to ‘seize’ Syria buffer zone

Israel PM says ordered military to ‘seize’ Syria buffer zone
  • Netanyahu says 50-year-old ‘disengagement agreement’ between Israel, Syria has collapsed and ‘Syrian forces have abandoned positions’
  • On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a troop deployment there, citing ‘the possible entry of armed individuals into the buffer zone’

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he had ordered the Israeli military to “seize” a demilitarised buffer zone on the border with Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad in Damascus.
The Israeli premier said a 50-year-old “disengagement agreement” between the two countries had collapsed and “Syrian forces have abandoned their positions.”
As a result, he said, “I directed the IDF (military) yesterday to seize the buffer zone and the commanding positions nearby. We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border.”
The announcement, which Netanyahu made while visiting the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights which abut the buffer zone, came after the military said it had deployed forces to the area.
Israel had already said the day before, as opposition forces swiftly advanced across Syria, that its soldiers entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone to assist peacekeepers in repelling an attack.
On Sunday, the army announced a troop deployment there, citing “the possible entry of armed individuals into the buffer zone.”
“Following the recent events in Syria... the IDF (military) has deployed forces in the buffer zone and in several other places necessary for its defense, to ensure the safety of the communities of the Golan Heights and the citizens of Israel,” a military statement said.
Israeli forces “will continue to operate as long as necessary in order to preserve the buffer zone and defend Israel,” it added.
The statement stressed that the Israeli military “is not interfering with the internal events in Syria.”
Since the opposition coalition, led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, began its renewed offensive against government forces on November 27, Syrian government forces have left positions near the Israeli-held Golan, according to a war monitor.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Saturday that Syrian army forces had withdrawn from positions in Quneitra province, which includes part of the Golan Heights.
Most of the plateau has been occupied since 1967 by Israel, which later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
In 1974, the buffer zone was established, separating the Israeli-held and Syrian territories, with UN peacekeepers stationed there since.
A UN Peacekeeping spokesperson said on Saturday that UNDOF personnel had observed “unidentified armed individuals in the area of separation, including approximately 20 who went into one of the mission’s positions in the northern part of the area of separation.”
The Israeli army said it was “assisting the UN forces in repelling the attack.”
The UN spokesperson said that “peacekeepers continue to carry out their mandated activities on the Golan.”
On Sunday, Lebanese media outlets reported an Israeli strike on Quneitra targeting an arms depot. The Israeli military declined to comment.
In a separate statement, the Israeli military said schools in the northern Golan Heights, in an area covering four Druze towns, would move to online teaching, also declaring a “closed military zone” in agricultural lands in the area.
Early in Syria’s war, which began in 2011 following the repression of anti-government protests, opposition forces had taken over parts of Quneitra province.
In August 2014, opposition forces attacked UNDOF and took more than 40 Fijian peacekeepers hostage, holding them captive for almost two weeks.
 


Morocco produces Africa’s first mpox tests as the continent tries to rely less on imports

Morocco produces Africa’s first mpox tests as the continent tries to rely less on imports
Updated 09 December 2024
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Morocco produces Africa’s first mpox tests as the continent tries to rely less on imports

Morocco produces Africa’s first mpox tests as the continent tries to rely less on imports
  • Morocco has reported three mpox cases, though most have been in central Africa
  • Moroccan startup Moldiag began developing mpox tests after the World Health Organization declared the virus a global emergency in August

TAMESNA: After African countries struggled to get testing kits during the COVID-19 pandemic, officials vowed to make the continent less dependent on imported medical supplies. Now, in a first for Africa, a Moroccan company is filling orders for mpox tests as an outbreak continues.
Moroccan startup Moldiag began developing mpox tests after the World Health Organization declared the virus a global emergency in August. Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported more than 59,000 mpox cases and 1,164 deaths in 20 countries this year.
The WHO has also announced a plan to provide mpox tests, vaccines and treatments to the most vulnerable people in the world’s poorest countries, after facing criticism for moving too slowly on vaccines. It recommends all suspected mpox cases be tested.
But in some far-flung areas of the mpox outbreak, tests have to be delivered to distant labs for processing. Most of Congo’s 26 provinces don’t have such facilities. And some areas have no tests. In eastern Congo’s South Kivu province, doctors are still diagnosing patients by taking temperatures and looking for visible symptoms.
That makes it difficult to tell how the virus is spreading, health officials say.
“This is a major problem,” said Musole Robert, medical director of the Kavumu Referral Hospital, one of the few treating mpox patients in eastern Congo. “The main issue remains the laboratory, which is not adequately equipped.”
Mpox primarily spreads through close skin-to-skin contact with infected people or their soiled clothes or bedsheets. It often causes visible skin lesions. A health worker swabs the rash and sends the sample to a lab. Mpox testing is critical because many symptoms resemble diseases like chicken pox or measles.
When mpox cases were found in some Western countries like the United States in 2022, some companies began developing rapid test kits that don’t require lab processing. But they shelved those efforts when the virus was largely contained.
Then outbreaks emerged again in Africa. Scientists are concerned by the spread of a new version of the disease that might be more easily transmitted among people.
Morocco has reported three mpox cases, though most have been in central Africa.
At his factory in Morocco, Moldiag founder and chief scientific officer Abdeladim Moumen said the tests they make — sold for $5 each — can help to remedy shortages affordably.
The company last month began accepting orders from Burundi, Uganda and Congo and has also sold them to Senegal and Nigeria as well.
“It’s rather easy to send tests from an African nation to another one rather than waiting for tests to come in from China or Europe,” Moumen said.
Moldiag was founded out of Morocco’s Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation and Research, a university-affiliated nonprofit whose research has received funding from the European Commission and Morocco’s government. The startup previously developed similar genetic tests for COVID-19 and tuberculosis.
Moldiag won approval to distribute its mpox tests from the Africa CDC in November. But it hasn’t submitted paperwork to be considered for expedited approval from the WHO, which during this outbreak has approved three mpox tests and is considering five others. Each is made in North America, Europe or Asia.
The Africa CDC’s acting director for laboratory diagnostics and systems, Yenew Tebeje, said the organization created a process to accelerate approval of tests like Moldiag’s because the WHO’s approval process can take months or years and “be a limiting factor for access to diagnostics.”
Historically, international institutions have not always ensured medical supplies like tests are quickly made available for crises in Africa, Tebeje added.
Only mpox tests that require laboratory processing have been approved by the WHO and Africa CDC, which has expressed the need for rapid tests that don’t need to be sent to labs.
Moldiag and other companies are working to develop rapid tests and pursue approval.
Moldiag’s $5 price for the current tests aligns with recommendations from both the WHO’s target product standards and demands of health advocates who have criticized the cost of other tests. The nonprofit Public Citizen last month called on Cepheid — one of the WHO’s three approved mpox test manufacturers — to reduce its price from about $20 to $5, citing a Doctors Without Borders analysis showing genetic tests can be produced for less.
Africa-based manufacturing fulfills a primary objective that African Union member states agreed on after the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed global disparities and unequal access to medical supplies, including vaccines, tests and antiviral medications.
In 2022, shaken by the pandemic, African leaders called for action to address those disparities plaguing the continent’s over 1.4 billion people, who experience the highest incidence of public health emergencies.
Moumen said experts were waking up to the fact that it makes more sense for tests to come from regions where outbreaks are taking place so manufacturers can tailor production to address issues close to home.
“They want African tests for Africa,” he said.


How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster

How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster
Updated 09 December 2024
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How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster

How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster
  • Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkiye “knew something was coming”

ISTANBUL/DAMASCUS: After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar Assad’s grip on power when, about six months ago, they communicated to Turkiye plans for a major offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two sources with knowledge of the planning said. Launched barely two weeks ago, the operation’s speedy success in achieving its initial goal — seizing Syria’s second city, Aleppo — took almost everybody by surprise. From there, in a little more than a week, the rebel alliance reached Damascus and on Sunday put an end to five decades of Assad family rule. The lightning advance relied on an almost perfect alignment of stars for the forces opposed to Assad: his army was demoralized and exhausted; his main allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, were severely weakened by conflict with Israel; and his other key military supporter, Russia, was distracted and losing interest.
There was no way the rebels could go ahead without first notifying Turkiye, which has been a main backer of the Syrian opposition from the war’s earliest days, said the sources, a diplomat in the region and a member of the Syrian opposition.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rebels told Turkiye about attack plan six months ago

• Operation helped by Assad’s weakened allies and demoralized army

• Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Syria aided rebels, impacting Iranian influence

• Turkiye emerges as strong player in Syria

Turkiye has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to take part, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) — though it considers the main faction in the alliance, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), to be a terror group. The rebels’ bold plan was the brainchild of HTS and its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the diplomat said.
Because of his former ties to Al-Qaeda, Golani is designated as a terrorist by Washington, Europe and Turkiye. However, over the past decade, HTS, previously known as the Nusra Front, has tried to moderate its image, while running a quasi-state centered on Idlib, where, experts say, it levied taxes on commercial activities and the population.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which struck a deal with Russia in 2020 to de-escalate fighting in northwestern Syria, has long opposed such a major rebel offensive, fearing it would lead to a new wave of refugees crossing its border.
However, the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara’s stance toward Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a political solution to the military stalemate, which has left Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups with an array of foreign backers.
The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkiye details of the planning, after Ankara’s attempts to engage Assad had failed.
The message was: “That other path hasn’t worked for years — so try ours. You don’t have to do anything, just don’t intervene.” Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the communications. Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had had “limited” planning together ahead of the operation and agreed to “achieve cooperation and not clash with each other.” He added that Turkiye’s military saw what the armed groups were doing and discussing.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkiye “knew something was coming.”
However, Turkiye’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability.
Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministries did not respond directly to Reuters questions about an HTS-Ankara understanding about the Aleppo operation. In reply to questions about Turkiye’s awareness of battlefield preparations, a Turkish official told Reuters that the HTS “does not receive orders or direction from us (and) does not coordinate its operations with us either.”
The official said that “in that sense” it would not be correct to say that the operation in Aleppo was carried out with Turkiye’s approval or green light. Turkish intelligence agency MIT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters was unable to reach a representative for HTS.

VULNERABLE
The rebels struck when Assad was at his most vulnerable.
Distracted by wars elsewhere, his military allies Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah failed to mobilize the kind of decisive firepower that had propped him up for years.
Syria’s weak armed forces were unable to resist. A regime source told Reuters that tanks and planes were left with no fuel because of corruption and looting — an illustration of just how hollowed out the Syrian state had become.
Over the past two years morale had severely eroded in the army, said the source, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a Middle-East focused think-tank, said the HTS-led coalition was stronger and more coherent than any previous rebel force during the war, “and a lot of that is Abu Mohammed Al-Golani’s doing.” But, he said, the regime’s weakness was the deciding factor.
“After they lost Aleppo like that, regime forces never recovered and the more the rebels advanced, the weaker Assad’s army got,” he said.
The pace of the rebel advances, with Hama being captured on Dec. 5 and Homs falling on or around Sunday at the same time government forces lost Damascus, exceeded expectations.
“There was a window of opportunity but no one expected the regime to crumble this fast. Everyone expected some fight,” said Bassam Al-Kuwatli, president of the Syrian Liberal Party, a small opposition group, who is based outside Syria.
A US official said on condition of anonymity that while Washington had been aware of Turkiye’s overall support for the rebels, it was not informed of any tacit Turkish approval for the Aleppo offensive. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Turkiye’s role.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said that Russia’s abandonment of Assad led to his downfall, adding that Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday noted his country’s role in weakening Hezbollah, which sources told Reuters withdrew its remaining troops from Syria on Saturday.

GAZA FALLOUT
Sources familiar with Hezbollah deployments said the Iran-backed group, which propped up Assad early in the war, had already withdrawn many of its elite fighters from Syria over the last year to support the group as it waged hostilities with Israel — a conflict that spilled over from the Gaza war. Israel dealt Hezbollah heavy blows, particularly after launching an offensive in September, killing the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and many of its commanders and fighters. The rebel offensive in Syria began the same day as a ceasefire came into effect in the Lebanon conflict on Nov. 27. The sources familiar with Hezbollah said it did not want to engage in big battles in Syria as the group focused on starting a long road to recovery from the heavy blows.
For the rebel alliance, the withdrawal of Hezbollah presented a valuable opportunity. “We just wanted a fair fight between us and the regime,” the Syrian opposition source said.
Assad’s fall marks a major blow to Iranian influence in the Middle East, coming so swiftly after the killing of Nasrallah and the damage done by Israel to Hezbollah.
Turkiye, on the other hand, now appears to be Syria’s most powerful external player, with troops on the ground and access to the rebel leaders.
In addition to securing the return of Syrian refugees, Turkiye’s objectives include curbing the power of Syrian Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northeast Syria and are backed by the United States. Ankara deems them to be terrorists.
As part of the initial offensive, the Turkiye-backed SNA seized swathes of territory, including the city of Tel Refaat, from US-backed Kurdish forces. On Sunday, a Turkish security source said the rebels entered the northern city of Manbij after pushing the Kurds back again.
“Turkiye is the biggest outside winner here. Erdogan turned out to be on the right — or at least winning — side of history here because his proxies in Syria won the day,” said Birol Baskan, Turkiye-based political scientist and former non-resident scholar at Middle East Institute.

 


Monitor says Israel hit arms depots in Syria’s east

Monitor says Israel hit arms depots in Syria’s east
Updated 09 December 2024
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Monitor says Israel hit arms depots in Syria’s east

Monitor says Israel hit arms depots in Syria’s east

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Israel launched strikes on weapons depots in the country’s east on Sunday, a war monitor said, after rebels toppled Bashar Assad’s government earlier Sunday.
“Israel has conducted air strikes on weapon depots and positions that belonged to the defunct regime and Iran-backed groups in the eastern Deir Ezzor province,” Rami Abdel Rahman who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. He reported “increased Israeli strikes” on such targets since President Bashar Assad fled the country as rebels seized the capital.