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The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal appears to have ended up in Syria - even as Damascus remains a close ally of Moscow, satellite images show.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Syrian government is moving to close a detention camp that held tens of thousands of people including family members of suspected Islamic State fighters, after unrest threatened its grip on the facility just weeks after taking it over. Responsibility for the al-Hol detention camp changed hands in January, when the Syrian government launched an offensive that routed the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led militia that had controlled it along with much of northeastern Syria.

attacks in Syria during the Eid el-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan. According to a report by AP, Eid could begin in Syria on Sunday, depending on the sighting of the new moon. Syrian authorities have said they arrested several militant cells in recent weeks. These groups were allegedly planning attacks in different parts of the country. Since Islamist insurgents from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) removed President Bashar Assad from power in December, Syria's security situation has been unstable. The US State Department issued a travel warning, saying possible attacks could target embassies, international organisations, and Syrian government buildings in Damascus. Although the Islamic State group was largely defeated in Syria in 2019, its sleeper cells are still active. They have claimed responsibility for multiple attacks, mainly in the northeast, which is controlled by US-backed Kurdish-led fighters.

Syria kept a central role for Islamic law in a constitutional declaration issued on Thursday which guarantees women's rights and freedom of expression during a five-year transitional period, according to a summary read on TV. The declaration is designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period being led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a Sunni Islamist who spearheaded a lightning offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad from power in December. Islamic jurisprudence will be «the main source» of legislation, according to the summary read out during the signing ceremony. That seemed to differ from the previous constitution which called it «a main source» of legislation. «We have kept Islamic jurisprudence as the primary source of legislation among sources of legislation,» said the summary, read out by a member of the committee which drafted the declaration. Sharaa had appointed the panel less than two weeks ago. Sharaa, who has promised to run Syria in an inclusive way, has been grappling with the biggest test of his leadership in the wake of a wave of sectarian killing in the coastal region, blamed on fighters aligned with his government.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Days before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia said the Syrian rebels advancing on Damascus were terrorists. Now, with those rebels in power, Moscow senses an opportunity to both expand its economic footprint in Syria and hold on to its military bases there.

Bond villain lair in the rugged heights overlooking Damascus, the all-seeing eye of a notorious Syrian military unit gazed down on a city it bled dry. Many of the bases of the elite Fourth Division formerly run by toppled president Bashar al-Assad's feared younger brother Maher now lie looted. But papers left strewn behind reveal how the man they called «The Master» and his cronies wallowed in immense wealth while some of their foot soldiers struggled to feed their families and even begged on the streets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Israel’s demand for the demilitarization of southern Syria near its border presents a severe challenge for the country’s new rulers, who three months ago brought down the Assad family’s regime.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. JOBAR, Syria—Only one patch of this Damascus suburb remains mostly intact and operational again: the cemetery. Majid Ajouz and his uncle went back to washing bodies and burying them here after the regime of Bashar al-Assad collapsed in December and former residents started visiting this ancient neighborhood.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the organization that overthrew Syria’s Assad regime, has “assumed the presidency of the country in the transitional phase," according to a statement last week from the military command of the current government in Damascus. The announcement formalizes the government that has existed since Mr.

Damascus on Tuesday for the first such visit to Syria since the fall of former President Bashar Assad.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union foreign policy chief, said the foreign ministers would convene in Brussels on January 27 in an effort to decide how the 27-nation bloc would relax sanctions on Syria. After 13 years of civil war, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in a lightning offensive by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a month ago. The group has since set up a caretaker government in Damascus. Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditional on the new Syrian administration's approach to governing, which must include «different groups» and women and «no radicalisation», Kallas said, without elaborating. «If we see the developments going to the right direction, we are ready to do the next steps...If we see that it's not going to the right direction, then we can also move back on this.»

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The greatest gift from Benjamin Netanyahu to Joe Biden was making the departing American president’s Middle East legacy seem much better than it is. And he did it by ignoring Mr.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—The Biden administration plans to announce Monday it is easing restrictions on humanitarian aid for Syria, a move to speed delivery of basic supplies without lifting sanctions that restrict other assistance to the new government in Damascus. The decision underscores the White House’s wariness about removing the broad sanctions on Syria until the direction taken by its new leaders, led by a group the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A planned overhaul of Syria’s education curriculum is spurring concerns about the new government’s assurances that it will rebuild an inclusive society, and leading some to question whether it will seek to impose a conservative Islamic worldview. The changes, listed in a series of documents released this week by the education ministry, include everything from dropping all references to former dictator Bashar al-Assad to changing religious references and removing the theory of evolution from school textbooks.

Syria said Monday the country's new authorities were «very receptive» to its request for cooperation during a just-concluded visit to Damascus, and it is preparing to deploy. The visit led by Robert Petit, head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria, was the first since the organisation was established by the UN General Assembly in 2016.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Europe and the U.S. are trying to navigate an awkward choice in Syria: work with Islamists long designated as terrorists in the West or risk ceding influence to the countries that will.

A report by CNN's Clarissa Ward about a freed Syrian prisoner provided some dramatic scenes, but the network has since found that it apparently wasn't all that it appeared

A statement attributed to «President Bashar al-Assad» and released on the Syrian presidency's Telegram channel on Monday stated that the country «fell into the hands of terrorism.» However, it is pertinent to note that the statement has not been independently verified, according to Al Jazeera. Al-Assad has not made any media appearances since he was granted asylum with his family by Russia.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. THERE WAS joy and horror and anguish all at once. Many of the detainees freed from Saidnaya, the most notorious prison in Syria, were husks: skeletal frames, vacant stares.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Monday told Syria that it is under obligations to comply with rules to safeguard and destroy dangerous substances, such as chlorine gas, after rebels entered the capital, Damascus, over the weekend. «Chemical weapons have been used in Syria on multiple occasions and victims deserve that perpetrators that we identified be brought to justice and held accountable for what they did and that investigations continue,» Fernando Arias Gonzalez, the OPCW secretary general, said in his opening remarks.

US President- elect Donald Trump have recently mocked the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media while referring to him as the ‘Governor of the Great State of Canada’, reported NBC News. According to NBC News, this certain comment was actually followed by a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau eventually discussed regarding potential tariffs on Canadian imports. At the same time, Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff unless Canada addresses issues related to illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Also Read: What is Israel up to in Syria? Its tanks are just 24 kilometres southwest of Damascus