Syria Financial News

Bashar Assad escalated into clashes that a war monitor estimates have killed more than 1,000 people over four days. The attack Thursday near the port city of Latakia reopened the wounds of the country's 13-year civil war and sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since December, when insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, overthrew Assad. The counteroffensive against the Assad loyalists in the largely Alawite coastal region brought havoc to several cities and towns. Rights groups reported dozens of revenge killings resulting from Sunni militants targeting the minority Islamic sect, regardless of whether they were involved in the insurgency.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When Yeats wrote his celebrated poem The Second Coming in 1919, the lines “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” caught the world’s attention, recovering as it was from the wanton violence of World War I. What inspired the poet is contested, but his words are as relevant today as they were a century ago. The senseless Iran war is taking the core of global certainties apart, with much of the globally accepted compact coming unstuck.

LPG) at about 62%. Fertilizer imports account for roughly 30% of consumption.That headline number masks wide variation across nutrients.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The U.S. military has deployed scores of combat aircraft across the Middle East and will soon have a second aircraft carrier within range of Iran if President Trump gives the order to strike.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Syria’s possible descent into another civil war, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, the United Arab Emirates’ failed offensive in Yemen, final U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and the slow transition from war to peace in Gaza may appear to be disconnected events in a fractious region.

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.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As President Trump ponders a second military strike on Iran, the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is evolving.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. With a swift offensive against a Kurdish-led militia last weekend, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa proved himself once again to be a bold military tactician and a gambler willing to risk his relationship with the U.S. to achieve his aims.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The U.S. is rushing to move captured Islamic State fighters out of northeast Syria amid fears that tensions between pro-government forces and a Kurdish-led militia could lead to a security breakdown and the escape of thousands of militants.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. THE LAST time Iran was convulsed by nationwide protests, in 2022, the Arab world was transfixed. The Islamic Republic had spent decades building a network of powerful allies that came to dominate the region.

Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Qatar in September, the United States began pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza. But with or without one, Israel will continue to pursue expansive goals, redrawing borders in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and southwestern Syria in ways that could further fracture its neighbors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SYDNEY—In the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on a Jewish community at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, images of a man tackling one of the shooters—potentially preventing even more deaths—transfixed the world. But footage from the scene showed there were other instances of heroism that day: A retired mechanic rushed one of the attackers and grabbed his weapon.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A POLITICIAN promised to open his poor country for foreign investment and wean it off aid, while Tony Blair nodded sagely. Standard fare for Davos—except that two months earlier the politician, Asaad al-Shaibani (pictured), was a member of a jihadist group blacklisted by the UN.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. With Myanmar devastated by an earthquake that has claimed more than 1,600 lives, India has initiated efforts to assist it in relief and rescue missions. Under Operation Brahma, two naval ships with relief supplies were despatched.

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.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prides himself on strong relations with President Trump, but Mr. Trump’s second term is posing serious dilemmas for the young Saudi leader, known as MBS.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. TEN years and a lifetime ago, Binyamin Netanyahu offered a stark vision of the future. Israel’s prime minister told a parliamentary committee that there could never be peace with the Palestinians.

conflicts in the Indo-Mediterranean. In Afghanistan the Taliban has completely taken over the country and has launched a diplomatic offensive to gain international acceptance. However, they have disenfranchised the female population banning women from working and studying. Female Afghan citizens find themselves locked in their houses, at the mercy of a regime which gives them no rights, not to mention religious minorities who have left the country. It is not much better in Pakistan, Afghan refugees are being deported to the clutches of the Taliban in the middle of a harsh winter, as the world is distracted from the conflicts of the day. Violence against minority Hindu’s, Christians andAhmadiyya’s is on the rise as Pakistan veers from one political crisis to another. Similar horrifying stories are being told after a regime change in Bangladesh recently saw Nobel Laureate Mohamed Yunus replace elected leader Shiekh Hasina in Dhaka. Hindus, Buddhists, Christians are being singled out and targeted, their businesses destroyed, their leaders arrested on trumped up charges. From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, the story repeats itself in Syria where Muslim brotherhood inspired HTS replaced the gruesome Assad regime. Minorities including Kurds, Alawites, Shi’a don’t accept the new regime’s impositions finding themselves dealing with a new government that they fear will be more brutal than the one it replaced. Apart from religious and ethnic minorities it is the vulnerable groups, the women and children that suffer the most from these radical groups seizing power.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it instructed the army to respond forcefully against dozens of targets in Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah is based. Israel's army said six rockets were fired toward Metula, a town along the border with Lebanon. Three crossed into Israel and were intercepted. The army said it «cannot confirm the identity of the organisation that fired the rockets.» It said it struck Hezbollah command centres and dozens of rocket launchers. An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese village of Touline killed five people, including a child, and wounded 10 others, including two children, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported. Another Israeli strike Saturday night hit a garage in the coastal city of Tyre, the NNA reported, with one person killed and seven wounded. It was the first attack on the city since the ceasefire took effect November 27. And a strike on Hawsh al-Sayed Ali village along the border with Syria wounded five people, according to the NNA.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been killed in Iraq in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with U.S.-led coalition forces, the Iraqi prime minister announced Friday. «The Iraqis continue their impressive victories over the forces of darkness and terrorism,» Prime Minister Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Abdallah Maki Mosleh al-Rifai, or "Abu Khadija," was «deputy caliph» of the militant group and as «one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world,» the statement said. On his Truth Social platform Friday night, U.S. President Donald Trump said: «Today the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed. He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters» in coordination with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government. «PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!» Trump posted.

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.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that it's important not to «get ahead» of the question of responding to the 30-day ceasefire proposal. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting «detailed information» about it from the US and suggested Russia must get that before it can take a position. The Russian missiles killed four Syrian men between the ages of 18 and 24 on a ship docked at the southern port of Odesa late Tuesday, where it was loading Ukrainian wheat for Algeria, Infrastructure Minister Oleksii Kuleba said. Another missile killed a woman in Kryvih Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown in central Ukraine, authorities said. The American help is vital for Ukraine's shorthanded and weary army, which is having a tough time keeping Russia's bigger military force at bay. But for Moscow, more American aid spells potentially more difficulty in achieving its war aims and likely will be a tough sell in Moscow for Washington's peace efforts.