attacks

On Friday, Israel killed at least 13 people, including two children, in the Damascus countryside town of Beit Jinn.

The latest air raids came after locals tried to repel an Israeli military incursion into Beit Jinn, leading to clashes.

Israel claimed it was going after members of the Jamaa al-Islamiya, Lebanon’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, rubbishing the Israeli claim, the group said it was not active outside Lebanon.

Here’s everything you need to know about the attack in Beit Jinn and the context behind it.

What happened?

The Israeli army’s 55th Reserve Brigade raided Beit Jinn in the early hours of Friday morning, ostensibly to take three Syrians who live there, claiming they were members of Jamaa al-Islamiya and that they posed a “danger to Israel”.

However, the incursion did not go to plan. Locals resisted, and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the resulting clashes, three of them seriously, according to the Israeli army.

Israel then sent in its warplanes.

“We were asleep when we were woken up at three in the morning by gunfire,” Iyad Daher, a wounded resident, told the AFP news agency from al-Mouwasat Hospital in Damascus.

“We went outside to see what was happening and saw the Israeli army in the village, soldiers and tanks,” Daher said. “Then they withdrew, the air force came – and the shells started falling.”

This was the deadliest of Israel’s more than 1,000 strikes on Syria since the fall of the Assad regime

Why were Israeli forces in Syria?

This was not the first time Israel raided Syrian territory.

Israeli officials and government-aligned media say Israel can no longer respect its enemies’ borders or allow “hostile” groups along its borders after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel has sought to use force in other countries to create buffer zones around itself, in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon.

Since the fall of the Assad regime last December, Israel has launched frequent air raids across Syria and ground incursions in its south. It set up numerous checkpoints in Syria and detained and disappeared Syrian citizens from Syrian territory, holding them illegally in Israel.

It invaded the buffer zone that separated the two countries since they signed the 1974 disengagement agreement, setting up outposts around Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon in English).

The new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, said it would abide by the 1974 agreement.

Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. A demilitarised zone was later established, but when President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, and his army was in shambles, Israel invaded to take outposts on Syrian-controlled land.

What did the Syrian government say?

That the attack is a war crime.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, condemning “the criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime.”

What is Israel claiming?

Israel’s public broadcaster said the operation was an “arrest raid” targeting Jamaa al-Islamiya members.

An Israeli army spokesperson said three people linked to the group were “arrested”.

Israel claims the group is operating in southern Syria to “recruit terrorists” and plays a role in what it calls the “northern front” – Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reported from Syria that Israel has yet to offer any proof of the claim that the people it was after were involved with the group.

What is Jamaa al-Islamiya?

The group is the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was founded in 1956 and has a stable presence in Lebanon, though it has never been as popular as some of its regional counterparts.

It has one member of parliament and was historically aligned with the Future Movement, founded by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

However, the group moved closer to Iran and Hezbollah politically in recent years. Its armed wing, the Fajr Forces, took part in some operations against Israel in 2023-24.

After Israel’s claims that it was involved in southern Syria, the group released a statement on Friday stating that it was “surprised” Israeli media had involved it in what happened in Beit Jinn.

Denouncing the attack, it said it conducts “no activities outside Lebanon”.

The group added that it has abided by and committed to the ceasefire agreement from November 2024 between Lebanon and Israel.

Has Israel claimed it was attacking this group before?

Yes.

In March 2024, Israel attacked al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon, killing seven emergency relief volunteers.

It claimed the attack targeted a member of the group, calling him a “significant terrorist”.

However, the alleged target was never named, the director of the Lebanese Emergency and Relief Corps’ Ambulance Association told Al Jazeera.

Nov. 28 (UPI) — The Israeli Defense Forces launched an attack on Beit Jinn in southern Syria, which killed 13 residents, including two children, and seriously wounded some Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli military described the event as an “exchange of fire” in Beit Jinn, where three of its soldiers were seriously injured. It also said it arrested three people associated with Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanon-based militant group.

The Washington Post reported that, according to their families, there were two girls, ages 4 and 17, and a 10-year-old boy killed.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it a “criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime,” Al Jazeera reported.

Syrian civil defense said they weren’t able to enter the city to rescue the wounded because the IDF continues to target any movement.

Since the civil war in Syria overturned the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Israeli military seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and in Syria. It has also launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria, including in Damascus. Human Rights Watch has declared some operations war crimes.

Earlier this month, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in the White House, and Trump paused all sanctions against the country for six months. But so far, Al-Sharaa has refused to normalize relations with Israel.

Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan escalated on Tuesday after the Taliban accused Pakistani forces of air strikes in eastern Afghanistan that killed nine children and a woman. Islamabad has not commented. The bombardments follow a series of recent attacks in Pakistan, which Islamabad attributes to militants operating from Afghan soil. Last month saw the deadliest confrontation between the two neighbors since the Taliban seized power in 2021, with dozens killed in air strikes and ground clashes along the 2,600 km (1,600-mile) border.

Accusations and Counter-Accusations

Pakistan claims that militants, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are based in Afghanistan and launch attacks into its territory. Recent high-profile attacks include a suicide bombing in Islamabad that killed 12 civilians and bombings targeting paramilitary forces in Peshawar and Waziristan.

The Taliban administration denies sheltering Pakistani militants and says it does not permit Afghan soil to be used for attacks against other nations. A ceasefire signed in Doha in October collapsed after Kabul refused to provide written guarantees against militant activities, leaving Pakistan frustrated.

Who Are the Pakistani Taliban (TTP)?

Formed in 2007, the TTP is a jihadist organization based primarily in northwest Pakistan, drawing ideological inspiration from al-Qaeda. While historically allied with the Afghan Taliban, the TTP has carried out major attacks on markets, schools, military bases, and security forces in Pakistan. Despite repeated military campaigns, Pakistan has struggled to eliminate the group completely.

After the Taliban Took Power in Afghanistan

Initially welcomed by Pakistan in 2021, the Taliban’s return to power has not reduced cross-border threats. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of harboring TTP fighters and Baloch insurgents seeking independence in western Pakistan. Pakistan also alleges that India is supporting these groups through Afghanistan a claim New Delhi denies.

Implications for the Region and the World

The renewed Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions threaten regional stability in South Asia. Persistent cross-border militancy could destabilize both nations, strain relations with neighboring India, and potentially create a vacuum for other extremist groups. Global powers, including the U.S., China, and the EU, face challenges in balancing security cooperation, counterterrorism efforts, and humanitarian concerns in a region critical for trade, energy routes, and counterterrorism strategy.

Analysis

This situation highlights how state fragility and ungoverned spaces fuel persistent conflict. Pakistan’s security concerns are genuine, but unilateral strikes risk escalating violence and civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Taliban in Kabul faces the difficult task of balancing governance, legitimacy, and regional diplomacy while being accused of harboring militants. Globally, the crisis underscores the fragility of peace in border regions where militant groups exploit political and geographic fault lines, showing that even well-intentioned interventions can have unintended consequences if not coordinated carefully.

With information from Reuters.

Russian forces have launched a drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, killing at least one person, as officials from Ukraine and the United States sought to rework a plan proposed by Washington to end the war.

In a statement on Tuesday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said the overnight attack on Kyiv damaged residential buildings in the Pecherskyi and Dniprovskyi districts.

“In Kyiv, as a result of a night attack, two people were killed, six were injured, and 18 people were rescued, including three children,” the service said.

Another attack on Brovarsky, Bila Tserkva and Vyshgorod districts, hours later, wounded a 14-year-old child, it added.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

The attack followed talks between US and Ukrainian representatives in Switzerland’s Geneva to thrash out Washington’s so-called 28-point plan, which Kyiv and its European allies saw as a Kremlin wish list.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly address late on Monday, said the talks in Geneva mean the “list of the necessary steps to end the war can become doable”.

But he said there remained “sensitive issues” that he will discuss with US President Donald Trump

“After Geneva, there are fewer points – no longer 28 – and many of the right elements have been taken into account in this framework. There is still work for all of us to do together – it is very challenging – to finalise the document, and we must do everything with dignity,” he said.

“Ukraine will never be an obstacle to peace – this is our principle, a shared principle, and millions of Ukrainians are counting on, and deserve, a dignified peace,” he added.

No Trump-Zelenskyy meeting scheduled

Trump, too, hinted at new progress.

“Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” the US president wrote earlier on Monday on his Truth Social platform.

At the White House, spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said there were a couple of points of disagreement remaining, but “we’re confident that we’ll be able to work through those.”

She said Trump wanted a deal as quickly as possible, but there was no meeting currently scheduled between the US president and Zelenskyy.

Trump, who returned to office this year pledging to end the war quickly, has reoriented US policy from staunch support for Kyiv towards accepting some of Russia’s justifications for its 2022 invasion.

US policy towards the war has been inconsistent. Trump’s hastily arranged Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in August led to worries that Washington was prepared to accept many Russian demands, but ultimately resulted in more US pressure on Russia.

The latest, 28-point peace proposal again caught many in the US government, Kyiv and Europe off-guard and prompted new concerns that the Trump administration might be willing to push Ukraine to sign a peace deal heavily tilted towards Moscow.

The plan would require Kyiv to cede more territory, accept curbs on its military and bar it from ever joining NATO, conditions Kyiv has long rejected as tantamount to surrender.

It would also do nothing to allay broader European fears of further Russian aggression.

Ukraine’s European allies drew up a counter-proposal which, according to the Reuters news agency, would halt fighting at the present front lines, leaving discussions of territory for later, and include a NATO-style US security guarantee for Ukraine.

A new version of a draft worked on in Geneva has not been published.

Kremlin slams EU proposal

An adviser to Zelenskyy who attended the talks in Geneva told The Associated Press news agency they managed to discuss almost all the plan’s points, and one unresolved issue is that of territory, which can only be decided at the head-of-state level.

Oleksandr Bevz also said the US showed “great openness and understanding” that security guarantees are the cornerstone of any agreement for Ukraine.

He said the US would continue working on the plan, and then the leaders of Ukraine and the US would meet. After that, the plan would be presented to Russia.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking to reporters, welcomed the “interim result” of the Geneva talks, saying the US proposal “has now been modified in significant parts”, without details.

Merz added that Moscow must now become engaged in the process.

“The next step must be that Russia must come to the table,” he said in Angola, where he was attending a summit between African and European Union countries. “This is a laborious process. It will move forward at most in smaller steps this week. I do not expect there to be a breakthrough this week.”

The Kremlin said it had yet to see the revised peace plan.

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov added there was no plan for US and Russian delegations to meet this week, but the Russian side remained “open for such contacts”.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the plan the Kremlin had received before the Geneva talks had many provisions that “seem quite acceptable” to Moscow. But he described European proposals “floating around” as “completely unconstructive”.

Countries supporting Kyiv – part of the “coalition of the willing” – are meanwhile due to hold a video call on Tuesday following the Geneva talks.

Turkiye also said it hopes to build bridges between Russia and Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said he spoke to Putin by telephone and told him Ankara will contribute to any diplomatic effort to facilitate direct contact between Russia and Ukraine.

Erdogan “stated that Turkiye will continue its efforts for the termination of the Russia-Ukraine war with a fair and lasting peace”, his office said.

Nigeria is in the news again due to recent attacks by armed groups, involving the kidnapping of many students from schools and an assault on a church service. These events have increased pressure on the Nigerian government, especially after U. S. President Donald Trump hinted at possible military action owing to the reported persecution of Christians in the country.

The attacks lack clear responsibility claims, but they resemble those by gangs seeking ransom. These armed groups, referred to as bandits, use intimidation and violence, abducting victims and escaping into forests. Recently, 25 students were taken from a Muslim girls’ school in Kebbi state, marking the first mass school kidnapping since a larger incident in March 2024. Additionally, another 64 individuals were kidnapped from Zamfara state, and two people were killed during an attack on a church in Kwara state, where 38 worshippers were also abducted with a ransom demand made. On Friday, more students were kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic school in Niger state, with reports indicating 52 students taken.

Experts believe these attacks are financially motivated, particularly targeting schools due to weak security. Kidnappers find it easier to demand ransoms from parents willing to pay to get their children back. The northwest of Nigeria is especially plagued by insecurity, with armed groups operating in remote areas. Meanwhile, in the northeast, extremist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP have caused significant humanitarian crises, resulting in over 2 million displaced persons and many deaths.

Tension in Nigeria also arises from ethnic and religious conflicts, especially in the central regions where the Christian and Muslim populations clash over various issues. Despite claims of specific persecution against Christians, some argue that the situation is more complex and that Muslims also suffer violence. The Nigerian government rejects assertions of complicity in religious violence by security forces.

The U. S. is considering actions to pressure Nigeria into better protecting religious freedoms. Nigeria’s military leads the counter-efforts against these armed groups, with traditional leaders also engaging in peace negotiations. However, attacks continue amid reports of increasing violence, with thousands of civilian deaths this year alone. President Tinubu has dispatched officials to oversee rescue efforts for kidnapped schoolgirls.

With information from Reuters

A series of artillery, air attacks hit near Rafah, Khan Younis in the south, and Deir el-Balah in the centre, as well as Gaza City.

Nov. 21 (UPI) — Students and teachers were injured during a grizzly bear attack in Canada, and authorities are warning locals to stay indoors until they can find the bear.

The attack happened Thursday in the Bella Coola Valley of the Nuxalk Nation in British Columbia. The CBC reported that two people were critically injured, two were seriously hurt and others were treated at the scene.

The group were from the Acwsalcta School, about 435 miles northwest of Vancouver.

A male teacher “got the whole brunt of it” and some children got sprayed with bear spray as the adults tried to scare the bear away, parent Veronica Schooner told the Canadian Press, Canada’s state news agency.

Schooner’s 10-year-old son was part of the group, but wasn’t attacked.

“He said that bear ran so close to him, but it was going after somebody else,” she said, noting that “he even felt its fur.”

“Officers are armed” the Nation said on Facebook. “Remain indoors and off the highway.” The Facebook page also told people not to walk anywhere and take the bus, which is free to ride.

The Nation’s officials have temporarily shut the school and are offering counselling services.

Marjayoun district, Lebanon – In his southern Lebanese hometown of Hula, a few metres away from the border with Israel, Khairallah Yaacoub walks through his olive grove. Khairallah is harvesting the olives, even though there aren’t many this year.

The orchard, which once contained 200 olive trees and dozens of other fruit-bearing trees, is now largely destroyed. After a ceasefire was declared between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024, ending a one-year war, the Israeli army entered the area, bulldozed the land, and uprooted trees across border areas, including Hula – 56,000 olive trees according to Lebanon’s Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain indefinitely in a “buffer zone” in the border region.

Israeli forces are not currently stationed in what remains of Khairallah’s farm, but the grove is fully exposed to Israeli positions in Menora, on the other side of the border. That makes the olive farmer’s every movement visible to the Israeli army, and is why he has been so afraid to venture to his trees before today.

Harvesting under fire

“This was the place where my brothers and I lived our lives,” said Khairallah, as he walked next to the olive trees that he said were more than 40 years old. “We spent long hours here ploughing, planting, and harvesting. But the [Israeli] occupation army has destroyed everything.”

Khairallah now has 10 olive trees left, but their yield is small for several reasons, most notably the lack of rainfall and the fact that he and his brothers had to abandon the orchard when war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8, 2023. Khairallah’s aim now is to begin the process of restoring and replanting his olive grove, the main source of livelihood for the 55-year-old and his four brothers.

The farm in Hula, which lies in the district of Marjayoun, once provided them with not just olives, but olive oil, and various other fruits. They also kept 20 cows on the land, all of which have died due to the war.

But with the presence of the Israelis nearby, getting things back to a semblance of what they once were is not easy, and involves taking a lot of risks.

“Last year, we couldn’t come to the grove and didn’t harvest the olives,” Khairallah said. “[Now,] the Israeli army might send me a warning through a drone or fire a stun grenade to scare me off, and if I don’t withdraw, I could be directly shelled.”

Systematic destruction

Like Khairallah, Hussein Daher is also a farmer in Marjayoun, but in the town of Blida, about five kilometres (3.1 miles) away from Hula.

Hussein owns several dunams of olive trees right on Lebanon’s border with Israel. Some of his olive trees, centuries old and inherited from his ancestors, were also uprooted. As for the ones still standing, Hussein has been unable to harvest them because of Israeli attacks.

Hussein described what he says was one such attack as he tried to reach one of his groves.

“An Israeli drone appeared above me. I raised my hands to indicate that I am a farmer, but it came closer again,” said Hussein. “I moved to another spot, and minutes later, it returned to the same place I had been standing and dropped a bomb; if I hadn’t moved, it would have killed me.”

The United Nations reported last month that Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the beginning of the ceasefire had killed more than 270 people.

The dangers mean that some farmers have still not returned. But many, like Hussein, have no choice. The farmer emphasised that olive harvest seasons were an economic lifeline to him and to most other farmers.

And they now have to attempt to recoup some of the losses they have had to sustain over the last two years.

According to an April study by the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 814 hectares (2,011 acres) of olive groves were destroyed, with losses in the sector alone estimated at $236m, a significant proportion of the total $586m losses in the wider agricultural sector.

“We used to produce hundreds of containers of olive oil; today, we produce nothing,” said Hussein, who has a family of eight to provide for. “Some farmers used to produce more than 200 containers of olive oil per season, worth roughly $20,000. These families depended on olive farming, honey production, and agriculture, but now everything was destroyed.”

Abandoned

The troubles facing the olive farmers have had a knock-on effect for the olive press owners who turn the harvested olives into Lebanon’s prized olive oil.

At one olive press in Aitaroun, also in southern Lebanon, the owner, Ahmad Ibrahim, told Al Jazeera that he had only produced one truckload of olive oil this year, compared with the 15 to 20 truckloads his presses make in a typical year.

“Some villages, like Yaroun, used to bring large quantities of olives, but this year none came,” Ahmad said. “The occupation destroyed vast areas of their orchards and prevented farmers from reaching the remaining ones by shooting at them and keeping them away.”

Ahmad, in his 70s and a father of five, established this olive press in 2001. He emphasised that the decline in agriculture, particularly olive cultivation in southern Lebanon, would significantly affect local communities.

Many of those areas are still scarred from the fighting, and the weapons used by Israel could still be affecting the olive trees and other crops being grown in southern Lebanon.

Hussein points to Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus, a poisonous substance that burns whatever it lands on, saying the chemical has affected plant growth.

Experts have previously told Al Jazeera that Israel’s use of white phosphorus, which Israel says it uses to create smokescreens on battlefields, is part of the attempt to create a buffer zone along the border.

But if Lebanese farmers are going to push back against the buffer zone plan, and bring the border region alive again, they’ll need support from authorities both in Lebanon and internationally – support they say has not been forthcoming.

“Unfortunately, no one has compensated us, neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor anyone else,” said Khairallah, the farmer from Hula. “My losses aren’t just in the orchard that was bulldozed, but also in the farm and the house. My home, located in the middle of the town, was heavily damaged.”

The Lebanese government has said that it aims to support the districts affected by the war, and has backed NGO-led efforts to help farmers.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Agriculture Minister Hani said that the government had begun to compensate farmers – up to $2,500 – and plant 200,000 olive seedlings. He also outlined restoration projects and the use of the country’s farmers registry to help the agricultural sector.

“Through the registry, farmers will be able to obtain loans, assistance, and social and health support,” Hani said. “Olives and olive oil are of great and fundamental value, and are a top priority for the Ministry of Agriculture.”

But Khairallah, Hussein, and Ahmad have yet to see that help from the government, indicating that it will take some time to scale up recovery operations.

That absence of support, Hussein said, will eventually force the farmers to pack up and leave, abandoning a tradition hundreds of years old.

“If a farmer does not plant, he cannot survive,” Hussein said. “Unfortunately, the government says it cannot help, while international organisations and donors, like the European Union and the World Bank, promised support, but we haven’t seen anything yet.”

Israel continues to attack Lebanon on a near-daily basis in violation of a yearlong ceasefire with Hezbollah.

At least 13 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

The drone strike hit a car on Tuesday in the car park of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported.

At least four people were wounded in the attack, the ministry said, adding that “ambulances are still transporting more wounded to nearby hospitals.”

Israel said it struck members of the Palestinian armed group Hamas who were operating in a training compound in the refugee camp.

“When we say we will not tolerate any threat on our northern border, this means all terrorist groups operating in the region,” the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement. “We will continue to act forcefully against Hamas’s attempts to establish a foothold in Lebanon and eliminate its elements that threaten our security.”

Hamas denied Israel’s claim, calling it a “fabrication” and stressing the group doesn’t have training facilities in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

“The Zionist bombardment was a barbaric aggression against our innocent Palestinian people as well as Lebanon’s sovereignty,” it said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanon said Israeli strikes on cars elsewhere in the country’s south killed two people.

Israel has killed several officials from Palestinian factions including Hamas in Lebanon since it launched its war on Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 69,483 Palestinians and wounded 170,706. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

A day after Israel launched its war on Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets towards Israel, which responded with shelling and air strikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in a conflict that Israel escalated into a full-blown war in late September 2024.

Israel’s war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. In Israel, 127 people were killed, including 80 soldiers.

The war halted in late November 2024 with a United States-brokered ceasefire, but since then, Israel has carried out dozens of air attacks on Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its capabilities.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and about 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.

“There are daily violations of the ceasefire by Israel in Lebanon, and it would be unfair at this stage to pin the blame on the Lebanese government,” Lebanese political analyst Karim Emile Bitar told Al Jazeera. “The Lebanese government went above and beyond what was required … and took a historic decision to ask the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah.”

However, Bitar said, Israel has not lived up to its end of the bargain. Under the terms of the ceasefire signed on November 27, 2024, Israel was meant to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon by January 26, a deadline it missed.

Israeli air raids have taken place in southern Gaza as well as Gaza City; one young Palestinian killed in occupied West Bank raid.

The old walls of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, South West Nigeria, shook at 9:30 a.m. on June 5, 2022. It was Pentecost Sunday, and the priest’s burning of incense hung in the air. The choir was mid-hymn when the first explosion fractured the rhythm.

Eyewitnesses recalled two men stationed by the doors, firing automatic rifles into the congregation. When the smoke cleared, over 40 worshippers lay dead — children, ushers, and the parish catechist among them. HumAngle spoke to families of the victims, including Akinyemi Emmanuel, whose wife was killed, and Christopher, whose older brother was also a casualty.

The massacre made global headlines, but beyond the horror lay a familiar pattern — the tactics, the timing, and the grim echoes of earlier carnage: Madalla’s St. Theresa’s Church (2011), Kano’s Central Mosque (2014), Kaduna’s Murtala Square (2014),  and Mubi’s Madina Mosque (2017).

The data of devastation

HumAngle’s field researchers verified 20 major attacks on places of worship across Nigeria between 2011 and 2025. Each incident was cross-checked against ACLED, CFR’s Nigeria Security Tracker, official statements, and humanitarian field reports.

“Every line of data is a broken family,” said a researcher who assisted in the compilation. “We tracked events, but what we found was grief mapped onto geography.”

Key Figures

From 2011 to 2015, churches bore the brunt — Boko Haram’s campaign against the state and society, often weaponising sectarian imagery. Between 2016 and 2021, mosques and Islamic gatherings became targets as extremists purged dissenting clerics. By 2022, the pattern shifted again — terrorists and militias attacked worshippers of both faiths for ransom or reprisal.

Early years of fire (2000–2010): Shari’a, riots, and mob rule

The roots of Nigeria’s religious bloodshed date back to pre-independence; however, this report will examine only the events from 2000 to 2025. In the year 2000 when 12 northern states reintroduced Shari’a law. What began as a demand for moral order soon morphed into violent attacks against non-Muslims.

By 2001, the tension had already turned deadly. Over 100 people were killed in Kano, according to The Guardian (UK), after riotous Muslim youths attacked the minority Christian population in the city. Human Rights Watch later documented the carnage of reprisal that took place in Jos, with similar riots in Kaduna.

Shari’a’s reintroduction became both symbol and signal — a moral protest against state failure but also a green light for mob justice.

The spiral continued. In 2002, Kaduna was a flashpoint again. The infamous Miss World Contest riots, triggered by a controversial ThisDay article deemed blasphemous against Islam. The riots left at least 200 dead.

As the years passed, intolerance became routine. In 2006, a Bauchi-based teacher, Florence Chukwu, was lynched for allegedly confiscating a Qur’an from a student. A year later in Gombe, another teacher, Christiana Oluwasesin, met the same fate. Then, in 2007, Kano’s Tudun Wada suburb witnessed the killing of dozens of Christians after a student was accused of alleged blasphemy.  

Two decades later, the script remained tragically familiar. In May 2022, a Christian student, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, at Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto State (a Muslim-majority state), was accused of blasphemy, then stoned, beaten and set on fire by a mob of Muslim students.

Even Muslims have not been spared from mob attacks due to alleged blasphemy against Islam. In 2008, a 50-year-old man was beaten to death in Kano, while Ahmad Usman, a Muslim vigilante, was burnt alive in Abuja in 2022.

In 2023, Usman Buda, a butcher in Sokoto, was stoned to death by his peers. In 2025, food vendor Ammaye met a similar fate in Niger State after an argument over religious differences.

From Pandogari to Sokoto, Facebook posts, WhatsApp messages, and street rumours have become digital triggers for extra-judicial deaths.

Nigeria’s decade of supposedly holy violence took a new form with Boko Haram’s rise. The insurgency’s ideological war turned places of worship into battlefields  as they circulated videos of beheading of Christians and the Muslims they accused of spying for the Nigerian state.

The Madalla Christmas massacre — 2011

On Christmas morning, a suicide bomber detonated a car outside St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State, killing at least 40. Boko Haram claimed responsibility, vowing more attacks against Christians “for government sins”.

Attack on COCIN Headquarters in Jos — Feb 2012

A year later, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) headquarters in Jos during Sunday service, killing at least three worshippers and injuring dozens. The blast destroyed parts of the church and nearby buildings.

Suicide Bomb Attack at St Finbar’s Jos — March 2012

Barely a month after the attack, a car bomber targeted St. Finbar’s Church in the Rayfield area of Jos during Mass. The explosion killed 14 people and wounded over 20, causing extensive damage to the church premises.

Silencing the critics — 2011–2014

In Biu, Borno State, Shaykh Ibrahim Burkui was assassinated in June 2011 for criticising Boko Haram. His death, along with that of Ibrahim Gomari in Maiduguri and Shaykh Albani Zaria in 2014, underscored the extension of the group’s wrath to Muslims who opposed its doctrine.

Kano Central Mosque bloodbath — 2014

On Nov. 28, 2014, twin suicide blasts struck Kano’s Central Mosque. As worshippers fled, gunmen opened fire. About 80 died. Boko Haram attacked Sunni Muslims loyal to the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who had condemned extremism.

Eid of Ashes — Damaturu 2015

A 10-year-old girl walked into an Eid prayer ground in Yobe and detonated explosives, killing 50. A morning of celebration turned into a funeral for hundreds of people.

Mutations of terror (2016–2021)

AAfter the insurgency’s initial high tide receded, violence splintered into ideological and economic strands.

• 2016 (Molai-Umarari, Borno): Two female suicide bombers killed 24 during dawn prayers.
• 2017 (Mubi, Adamawa): A teenage bomber killed 50 in a mosque.
• 2017 (Ozubulu, Anambra): Gunmen killed 12 during a Mass — incident later linked to a local feud.
• 2018 (Mubi, Adamawa): 86 worshippers were killed after two suicide bombers detonated explosives in a mosque during an afternoon prayer. 
• 2021 (Mazakuka, Niger): Terrorists killed at least 18 worshippers at a local mosque during Fajr prayers.
• 2021 (Yasore, Katsina): 10  killed in evening prayers.
• 2021 (Okene, Kogi): Three people were abducted from a Living Faith Church during a prayer meeting. They were later released. 
• 2021 (Fadan Kagoma, Kaduna): Terrorists attacked and kidnapped three seminarians at Christ the King Major Seminary. Michael Nnadi, one of the captives, was later killed, while the others were released.

“The violence metastasised,” said Olawale Ayeni, an analyst in Abuja. “What began as jihadist warfare became an economy of fear — raids, ransoms, and retaliations.”

The new normal (2022–2025): Terrorism meets belief

Owo, Ondo State — June 2022

On Pentecost Sunday, attackers detonated explosives and opened fire at St. Francis Xavier Church, killing 41 and injuring 70. Initially attributed to ISWAP, investigations revealed financial links to northwestern terrorist networks.

Kafin Koro, Niger State — January 2023

Isaac Achi, a Catholic priest, was burnt to death in the early hours of the morning at the presbytery of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Kafin Koro, in Niger State. The residence was also reduced to ashes. Achi was the parish priest in charge of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, when it was attacked in 2011.

Kajuru, Kaduna State – September 2024

Gunmen invaded two churches in Bakinpah-Maro during service, killing three and abducting several others. Videos later surfaced showing captives reciting prayers under duress.

Bushe, Sokoto – February 2025 

Terrorists invaded a mosque in Bushe Community of Sabon Birni LGA, Sokoro State. They kidnapped the Imam and 10 other worshippers during the dawn prayer. 

Marnona Mosque Attack, Sokoto – August 2025

On Sunday, Aug.  12, terrorists stormed a mosque in Marnona village in Wurno LGA of Sokoto State, killing one worshipper and abducting several others. 

Unguwan Mantau, Katsina — August 2025

During early morning prayers, terrorists opened fire inside a mosque, killing 27. Survivors said the attackers accused locals of tipping off soldiers.

Gidan Turbe, Zamfara State – September 2025

Terrorists stormed a mosque in Gidan Turbe of Tsafe LGA, Zamfara State, and abducted 40 worshippers during a dawn prayer. Reports indicated that the attack happened barely 24 hours after a peace deal with the gunmen terrorising the village. 

In recent years, the distinction between ideology and economics has become increasingly blurred.  Many southerners who are predominantly Christians living in the north are business owners; oftentimes, they are attacked, not for their beliefs but for their wealth.

Documented discrimination against Igbo Muslims

While the north burned, intolerance also took other forms in the country’s southeastern region. Minority Muslim residents, including Igbo indigenes, who practice Islam, face periodic attacks and persistent discrimination, such as institutional exclusion and social ostracism. 

In Nsukka, Enugu State, mobs razed two mosques between Oct.  31, 2020 and Nov.  2, 2020, looting Muslim-owned shops after a local dispute spiralled. Though the state later rebuilt and returned the mosques to the Muslim community in 2021, the incident exposed how fragile interfaith coexistence remains. 

Around the same period, in Afikpo, Ebonyi State, an Islamic school reportedly received threats of invasion, prompting nationwide Muslim organisations to condemn what they described as “a wave of attacks on Muslims in the South East”.

Beyond physical violence, Igbo Muslims speak of systemic discrimination in both public and social spheres. The Chief Imam of Imo State, Sheikh Suleiman Njoku, in March 2024, lamented how Muslim indigenes are stigmatised – denied marriage prospects, labelled traitors, and treated as outsiders in their ancestral communities.

Similar accounts featured in a 2021 Premium Times report, where Igbo Muslims detailed how even acquiring land to build mosques or express faith publicly invites suspicion and resistance. 

Their testimonies mirror those of Christian minorities in majority-Muslim northern states, where churches are denied land ownership, leading to social alienation. There are also allegations of these minorities being denied state-of-origin certification. 

This reciprocal intolerance across regions highlights a broader national crisis in which faith identity, rather than shared citizenship, continues to shape belonging, opportunity, and trust among Nigerians.

School segregation

In northern Nigeria, school segregation along religious lines has deeply eroded interfaith tolerance and national cohesion. Historically, Christian mission schools, Islamic schools and public institutions evolved in isolation, reflecting entrenched religious divisions rather than shared civic identity. 

In many states, such as Kano, Kaduna, and Sokoto, Christian students often face discrimination or limited access to education in public schools dominated by Muslim administrators. Research shows that separate religious instruction – Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) for Christians and Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) for Muslims —.has created parallel moral universes with little mutual understanding. This separation sustains mistrust and heightens communal suspicion.

The Deborah Samuel case in 2022, where a Christian student was lynched in Sokoto over alleged blasphemy, exemplifies how intolerance fostered from childhood schooling silos can erupt violently in adulthood. Studies by the EU Asylum Agency highlight that exclusion from inclusive schooling deprives youth of empathy across faiths, embedding prejudice into the social fabric. When children never learn together, they rarely learn tolerance. Unless education in northern Nigeria becomes deliberately integrative through mixed enrollment, pluralist curricula and interfaith engagement, religious segregation will continue to reproduce the fear, inequality and division that weaken Nigeria’s fragile unity.

Mass school abductions

Over the past 12 years, Nigeria has witnessed a series of mass school abductions that expose the evolving tactics of both terrorists and armed groups. Notably, on April 14,  2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, sparking the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign. 

Years later, in February and March 2021, a wave of similar attacks swept across the north: 279 girls were taken from Government Girls’ Science Secondary School, Jangebe (Zamfara); 27 students and staff were kidnapped from Government Science College, Kagara (Niger); and 39 students were seized from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka (Kaduna). 

The cycle continued in March 2024, when gunmen abducted about 287 pupils from a school in Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State — one of the most significant of such incidents in recent years.

These abductions mark a clear shift from Boko Haram’s ideology-driven kidnappings to the ransom-motivated tactics of armed groups operating across the North West and North East. Christianity and Islam were affected by these abductions, and adherents have endured rape and psychological struggles following their ordeals. 

Among these tragedies, Leah Sharibu’s story remains one of the most haunting. 

On Feb. 19, 2018, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram offshoot, abducted 110 schoolgirls from Government Girls’  Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State. While most were later freed, Leah was held back for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam. Now in her seventh year of captivity, she has become a symbol of religious persecution and the wider suffering of abducted girls. Her story underscores how Nigeria’s school kidnapping crisis intersects with issues of faith, gender  and insurgency.

In contrast, Lillian Daniel’s ordeal highlights the hundreds of lesser-known victims whose abductions pass with minimal notice. The 20-year-old zoology student of the University of Maiduguri, originally from Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, was kidnapped on Jan. 9,  2020, while travelling along the Benisheikh–Jakana–Maiduguri road.

Her abductors were ISWAP terrorists who disguised themselves as security personnel. Another passenger was released, but Lillian remains missing. Her case, briefly reported but soon forgotten, reflects the anonymity of many victims caught in transit through conflict zones.

In summary, Leah Sharibu embodies the now globally recognised face of Nigeria’s school abduction crisis, shaped by ideology and prolonged captivity. At the same time, Lillian Daniel represents its hidden dimension — solitary, underreported, and tragically routine. Together, their stories reveal the spectacle and the silence of Nigeria’s enduring tragedy of school abductions.

When clergy became premium kidnapping targets.

Each ransom funds further raids. Analysts estimate that up to 15 per cent of ransom payments flow back into logistics for insurgents in Zamfara and Katsina.

Faith and identity: The shari’a factor revisited

The Shari’a revival was more than a legal reform; it was a reclamation of identity amid state collapse. Many Muslims saw it as a return to the moral order of the Sokoto Caliphate; others viewed it as the spark of two decades of religious strife.

Public institutions that once integrated faiths became segregated. Teachers and traders were attacked or expelled. The divide deepened, from classrooms to markets.

Shari’a, in principle, reserves blasphemy trials for qualified jurists. But in practice, mobs assumed divine authority, executing citizens in the name of faith. Many Christians and a few Muslims became victims of this street theocracy.

The justice vacuum

Out of the 20 worship-site attacks recorded, only one — Owo 2022 — reached federal arraignment. Fourteen remain unprosecuted; five are stalled as “unknown gunmen” cases.  

On the  Kano Central Mosque attack, no suspect has faced trial, while the Madalla bombing file remains “under review”.

“Justice in Nigeria moves slower than grief,” said a human rights lawyer in Abuja. “When the killers are never named, the dead are never remembered.”

Impunity has become policy. Each unsolved massacre guarantees the next.

A geography of grief

Nigeria’s worship-site attacks reveal a tragic spatial logic:

• North East (Borno, Yobe, Adamawa): Insurgent bombings, suicide IEDs, and procession attacks.
• North West (Katsina, Zamfara, Niger): Terrorists storming mosques during fajr prayers.
• North Central (Benue, Plateau, Kaduna): Reprisal killings and clergy kidnappings.
• South (Ondo, Anambra): Rare, symbolic assaults for national impact.

These are not frontlines of faith but fault lines of governance — places where the state’s absence defines daily life. 

At a mosque in Konduga, the imam now carries a walkie-talkie. In a church in Makurdi, ushers rehearse evacuation drills. Security has become as sacred as scripture. Concrete barriers line entrances. Metal detectors hum where choirs once sang. Pastors rotate parishes weekly to confuse abductors.

“When we gather,” said a priest in southern Kaduna, “someone must always watch the door. It used to be an usher. Now it’s a man with a rifle.”

Multiple faces of mob justice, one failure of the state

Mob justice in Nigeria takes many forms. In the north, a whisper of blasphemy or even sexual orientation can summon a crowd to lynch anyone to death. In the south, a cry of “Ole” (thief) or even an allegation of witchcraft can become a death sentence, with tyres and fire replacing the courtroom and the judge. 

The motives differ, but the barbarity does not.

Accused of robbing point of sale (PoS) machine operators, for instance, three women were burnt to death along the Aba-Owerri road in Aba, Abia State, on July 3, 2022. In March of this year, 16 hunters travelling from Rivers State capital Port Harcourt to Kano State were tied to used tyres and set ablaze in Uromi, Edo State, on suspicion of kidnapping.

What unites these episodes is a simple truth: they are crimes, yet their prosecutions are rare. That gap between law and practice isn’t a cultural quirk; its Local Security Equals High Fatality Rates. 

Across faiths, executioners signal that citizens expect neither safety nor fairness from the state. Each unpunished lynching teaches the next crowd that there will be no price to pay.

Lessons in numbers

From 15 years of blood and rebuilding, four insights emerge:

1. Predictable Patterns: Attacks cluster around worship hours and feast days.
2. Declining Ideology: Ransom and revenge now outweigh religion.
3. Governance Gaps: Weak local security equals high fatality rates — across faiths.
4. Institutionalised Impunity: No justice, no deterrence.

Policy paralysis

Successive Nigerian administrations have treated worship-site attacks as isolated tragedies, not system failures. Troops arrive shortly after each attack. Condolences flow. Then silence.

“There is no single desk in Abuja tracking attacks on religious sites,” admitted a senior intelligence official. “The data is fragmented, politicised, and rarely analysed.”

Without institutional memory, the nation is condemned to repetition.

Reconstructing faith’s refuge

HumAngle analysts recommend modest, achievable reforms:

• Architectural retrofits: Two outward exits for every 150 congregants; Eid checkpoints relocated from dense zones.
• Safety training: Rotating volunteer marshals during peak services.
• Clergy protection: GPS-tracked parish vehicles and secure communications.
• Public case tracker: Government–media collaboration to document investigations and trials.

Each measure is a step toward rehumanising worship in a country where prayer itself is perilous.

Faith beyond fear

In Konduga, survivors of a 2013 mosque attack still gather under a patched tarpaulin. In Owo, St. Francis Church has reopened — some survivors sit by the very pews where they once fell to the ground.

“They wanted to destroy faith,” said Sister Agatha, who lost her niece in Owo. “But faith is the only thing that made us rebuild.”

Nigeria’s crisis of worship-site violence is neither a Christian nor a Muslim story. It is a national failure of protection and justice.

When a mosque burns in Borno and a church is bombed in Ondo, the message is the same: extremism recognises no creed. The silence that follows — the absence of trials, the forgetting of names — has become a form of complicity.

Faith in Nigeria today is more than belief. It is resistance — quiet, fearful, and defiant. From Madalla to Owo, from Kano to Katsina, the faithful still gather. Each whispered prayer in a bullet-scarred hall is an act of remembrance and a testament to resilience.

To remember both streams of suffering in one chronicle is to reject the propaganda of division. It is to insist that faith, stripped of politics, can still illuminate what violence seeks to obscure: our shared humanity.

Data collection by Abdussamad Ahmad Yusuf

Parisians marked ten years since the deadly November 2015 attacks that upended French society, reflecting on the 132 people lost.

PARIS — Salim Toorabally’s mental scars from the Paris terror attacks 10 years ago have not healed with time and the images of that night at Stade de France remain indelible.

The November 2015 attacks began at France’s national stadium and spread across the city in assaults that killed 132 people and injured more than 400. One person died and least 14 were injured outside Stade de France that night, but casualties there could have been far heavier without Toorabally’s vigilance.

It was Toorabally who stopped Bilal Hadfi — one of the three terrorist bombers who targeted the national stadium when France’s soccer team played Germany — from getting inside.

Toorabally was praised for his actions, by then-President François Hollande, by the Interior Ministry and also by the general public. Yet his own suffering, unrelenting since that night, went unnoticed.

“I was seen more as a hero than as a victim,” Toorabally told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “But this part of being a victim is equally inside me.”

Later on Thursday, France played Ukraine in a World Cup qualifier at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, where a commemoration was planned and Toorabally was invited by the French Football Federation.

“I will be there but with a heavy heart,” he said. “Ten years have passed like it was yesterday we were attacked.”

Stopping the bomber

Toorabally was positioned at Gate L as a stadium security agent.

Hadfi tried to enter but was stopped by Toorabally when he spotted him trying to tailgate another fan through the turnstile.

“A young man showed up. He was sticking close behind someone, moving forward without showing his ticket. So I said to him, ‘Sir, where are you going? Show me your ticket.’ But he just kept going, he wasn’t listening to me,” Toorabally told the AP. “So I put my arm out, put my arm in front of him so he couldn’t go inside, and then he said to me, ‘I have to get in, I have to get in.’ It made me suspicious.”

Toorabally kept an eye on the 20-year-old Hadfi, who was now standing back a few yards away.

“He positioned himself right in front of me, he was watching me work and I alerted [fellow security agents] over the radio: ‘Be careful at every gate, there’s a young man dressed in black with a young face, very childlike, who is trying to get in. Do not let him in,’” Toorabally recalled. ”He stood in front of me for about 10 minutes, watching me work, and that’s when I got really scared. I was worried he’d go back in, that I wouldn’t see him. I watched him intently, he stared at me intently and suddenly he disappeared in the crowd, he slipped away.”

Toorabally’s warning worked. Hadfi was denied entry elsewhere, before later detonating his explosive vest.

The explosions

There were two explosions close together during the first half of the match; the first ones around 9:20 p.m. near Gate D, and a third explosion approaching 10 p.m. close to a fast food outlet.

Toorabally vividly remembers them.

“I could feel the floor shaking,” he said. “There was a burning smell rising into the air, different to the smell of [smoke] flares.”

He also tended to a wounded man that night.

“I took charge of him, I lay the individual down. He had like these bolts [pieces of metal] lodged in his thigh,” said Toorabally, who still speaks to the man today. “I looked at my hands, there was blood. I didn’t have gloves on, and there were pieces of flesh in my hands.”

Keeping fans in the dark

Toorabally said he and other security agents were told not to inform spectators of the attack, to prevent a potential situation where 80,000 people tried leaving at the same time.

“The supporters inside couldn’t know the Stade de France had been attacked otherwise it would have caused enormous panic,” Toorabally explained. “At halftime some fans came up to us and asked, ‘What happened? Was there a gas explosion at the restaurants in front of the stadium?’ We didn’t answer them so as not to cause panic.”

After the game the stadium announcer told spectators which exit gates to use and many went home by train, including Toorabally.

Traumatic images

Five days after the attack he was called to a police station to help identify Hadfi as one of the bombers. Toorabally was given no forewarning of what he was about to see.

“They showed me a photo, his [Hadfi’s] head was separated from his body. The forensic police [officer] was holding his head,” Toorabally said. “I formally recognized him. It was indeed the man who had been in front of me, who had stood there, who had been alive and was now lifeless.”

Hadfi’s face remains imprinted on Toorabally’s mind.

“The image is very violent, someone’s head separated from his body. Then there’s the explosion, the odor of burning and my hand filled with human flesh. These images have stayed in my mind for 10 years.”

Toorabally‘s wage that night was 40 euros ($46). “I suffer from post-traumatic stress, it is very severe, very violent.”

Horrific memories can appear at any moment.

“I could be with you and talking with you and then all of sudden my mind goes back there,” Toorabally said. “This is something very, very difficult to deal with. It handicaps you.”

Talking helps

Toorabally talks to a psychiatrist and says it helps to tell people about what happened. But at the time of the attacks and in the months afterward he received no psychological support.

“That’s how traumatism sets in,” Toorabally said. “The proof being it stayed 10 years.”

He dealt with his mental anguish alone, having potentially saved hundreds of lives.

“Every time I go back to the Stade de France, I can’t help thinking about it,” Hollande told L’Équipe newspaper. “I realize what could have happened if an attack had taken place inside the stadium, or if panic had gripped the crowd.”

Former France midfielder Blaise Matuidi called Toorabally “more than a hero” and added “if the terrorists had entered, what would have happened? Just talking about it gives me chills.”

Pugmire writes for the Associated Press.

Recent Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have reignited fears of more conflict along the border.

Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah positions to stop the group from rebuilding its military capabilities.

Israeli forces are also bombing Gaza, violating a recently agreed to ceasefire, and have launched more than 1,000 air strikes in Syria since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Next week, US President Donald Trump will host Ahmed al-Sharaa, the first Syrian president to visit the White House.

So, how will that meeting impact regional sovereignty?

And can Israel sustain its near-daily attacks across the Middle East under the guise of security?

Presenter: Cyril Vanier

Guests:

Nabeel Khoury – non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC

Heiko Wimmen – project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the International Crisis Group

Harlan Ullman – senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and chairman of the Killowen Group, a strategic advisory firm

Reporting from Washington — President Trump, as he often does, had a few things to say.

After admitting that he had been lonely over the holidays, Trump took advantage of his first public appearance of the new year Wednesday to air lingering grievances, make multiple false claims and reinforce recent decisions that have rattled financial markets and his party’s leaders.

As he held forth for more than 90 minutes before a small pool of reporters and photographers, members of his Cabinet, ostensibly called to the White House for a meeting, sat quietly around a long conference table.

Trump defended his decision last month to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and sharply cut the deployment to Afghanistan, moves that disturbed Republican allies in Congress and prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. In doing so, he contradicted his own recent claim that the U.S. had achieved its objectives of total victory over Islamic State militants in Syria.

“Syria was lost long ago,” he said.

“Look, we don’t want Syria,” he continued. “We’re talking about sand and death. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about vast wealth. We’re talking about sand and death,” he said, seemingly contrasting the war-wracked country with Iraq and its vast oil reserves.

Iran “can do what they want there, frankly,” he added, a comment likely to unnerve officials in Israel, who have worried that a U.S. withdrawal from its positions in eastern Syria would allow Iran to expand its influence there.

“It’s not my fault,” he said. “I didn’t put us there.”

Trump offered little further clarity on the U.S. withdrawal from Syria, which he initially said would take place in 30 days, saying now that the pullout will “take place over a period of time.”

Later, in a long riff about Afghanistan, Trump seemed to endorse Moscow’s 1979 invasion of the country — an act that the U.S. viewed as an attempt to spread communism and waged a long, covert operation to combat during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia,” Trump said, making a case to leave the policing of hot spots in the Mideast and Central Asia to countries in the region. “They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight.”

The Soviet Union eventually was bankrupted by its Afghan war, Trump added. “Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.”

Historians generally agree that the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of much of Afghanistan was one of several factors that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the country never went bankrupt.

For years, Republicans have credited President Reagan with bringing an end to the Soviet Union by his aggressive increase in U.S. military spending.

Trump’s comments stood in stark contrast to the view Mattis espoused in the resignation letter he presented last month after failing to convince the president to hold off on withdrawing from Syria.

“We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances,” Mattis wrote.

Mattis’ comments clearly stung Trump, who responded last month with criticism of his former Pentagon chief. On Wednesday, he stepped that up, claiming that he fired Mattis.

“What’s he done for me? How had he done in Afghanistan? Not too good,” Trump said. “As you know, President Obama fired him, and essentially so did I.”

Obama did not fire Mattis, although the general did retire several months early in 2013 from his position as the head of the military’s Central Command after dissenting from Obama administration policy decisions.

Tuesday was Mattis’ final day at the Pentagon. Trump, in a fit of pique after the resignation letter became public, had moved up Mattis’ termination date

In addition to his foreign policy comments, Trump also downplayed December’s stock market losses, which erased all positive gains for the year, as “a little glitch” and asserted — wrongly — that there are “probably 30-35 million” immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates that as of 2016, there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country, a number that has declined in recent years.

Trump repeated his call for Democrats to agree to $5.6 billion in funding for a border wall, and expressed surprise not to have received overtures from them over the holidays to negotiate an end to the government shutdown.

“I was in the White House all by myself for six or seven days,” he said. “It was very lonely. My family was down in Florida. I said, ‘Stay there and enjoy yourself.’ I felt I should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security.”

Trump, who met later in the day with congressional leaders away from TV cameras, has already dismissed a funding proposal from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi that includes $1.3 billion in border security funding.

While leaving the door open to a compromise, Trump continued to argue for the importance of a wall, pointing to other examples of barriers. He incorrectly asserted that Obama’s Washington residence is surrounded by a 10-foot wall and cited the Vatican, which he said “has the biggest wall of them all.”

“When they say the wall is immoral, then you better do something about the Vatican,” he said. “Walls work.”

As Trump spoke, a “Game of Thrones”-style movie poster teasing Iran sanctions — “SANCTIONS ARE COMING,” it read — lay unfurled across the table directly in front of him. But he made no remarks on the subject.

He did, however, comment on Sen.-elect Mitt Romney of Utah, who wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday that he was troubled by Trump’s “deep descent in December” and that his deficit in “presidential leadership in qualities of character … has been most glaring.”

“I wish Mitt could be more of a team player,” Trump said. “And if he’s not, that’s OK too.”

Seeming to warn Romney about the fate that lies ahead for Republican lawmakers who vocally criticize him and his presidency, Trump boasted that he “got rid of” former Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, both of whom opted not to seek new terms last year.

Accusing both men of seeking publicity in taking stands against him, Trump suggested that Flake would be seeking a job as a paid cable news contributor — or perhaps in another profession that Trump himself once plied.

“Jeff Flake is now selling real estate or whatever he’s doing,” he said dismissively.

The latest from Washington »

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@EliStokols

US president says Gaza ceasefire ‘working out very well’ despite deadly Israeli attacks and severe aid restrictions.

Southern Gaza witnesses raids, intensive artillery shelling as Israel continues its attacks, violating the ceasefire.