Syria

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.

Israel has carried out its deadliest incursion into southern Syria since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. At least 13 people were killed in Beit Jinn. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reports Syrian officials reject Israel’s narrative and accuse it of violating international law.

Video shows funeral processions in Syria’s Beit Jinn, after Israeli raids and missile strikes killed at least 13 people. Violent clashes erupted after Israel claimed it entered the village to arrest members of the Jama’a Islamiya militant group.

At least 12 Syrians killed in Israeli attacks after two unarmed Palestinians murdered in occupied West Bank’s Jenin.

In 2017, Al Jazeera broadcast a documentary by Clover Films that sought to highlight the true origins of the Syrian civil war. By that year, international sympathy for the rebel cause had diminished dramatically as Western media adopted the accepted mainstream position that groups such as al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and even ISIL (ISIS) had been behind the revolution. (ISIL didn’t even exist at the time of the uprising.) The Boy Who Started the Syrian War would change the narrative.

Now, with the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime along with its army and militia, the Shabiha, it’s time to meet once again with the surviving characters from the original film. One of those is Mouawiya Syasneh, who had laid down his school satchel and picked up a gun to fight with the Free Syrian Army.

United States President Donald Trump “looks at Saudi Arabia like a piggy bank or an ATM machine” and that’s why the recent Saudi-US summit focused on deals instead of strategic regional issues, such as Sudan, Palestine, Iran and Syria, argues political scientist Gregory Gause, professor emeritus of international affairs at Texas A&M University.

Gause tells host Steve Clemons that if Riyadh can seal a deal to house a joint AI data centre, “that’s the best guarantee of US security.”

He adds that China may be Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer but the US is Riyadh’s “preferred partner on security, AI, economics and defence cooperation”.

Jubata al-Khashab, Quneitra, Syria – When Syrians gather to record Israeli incursions, soldiers point their guns at them.

Israeli military incursions have become more brazen, more frequent and more violent since Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syria following the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Across Quneitra province, the Israeli military’s tanks have established checkpoints and patrols, even setting up gates. They stop and search civilians, and some are abducted.

Khadija Arnous’s husband and brother-in-law are among those taken from their home in July. Her brother-in-law was released from Sednaya prison, and now he is in Israeli custody.

At 3am (00:00 GMT) one day, Israeli soldiers ordered both men to leave the house and blindfolded them.

“We’ve had no news about them since,” Arnous told Al Jazeera, covering her face for fear of reprisal. “We contacted the Red Cross, but to no avail.”

“I have four children – my husband was the sole provider. I urge the government to find a solution for us. Why are the Israelis coming and taking whoever they want?”

Described by Israel as security operations, Syrian authorities and human rights groups refer to such incidents as abductions or unlawful arrests. As many as 40 people have reportedly been detained in recent weeks.

Israel first seized territory in the Golan Heights following the 1967 war. But after the fall of al-Assad, it claimed its 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria was void and has widened its occupation in Syria by some 400sq km (155sq miles).

Mohammad Mazen Mriwed, an elder from Jubata al-Khashab village, told Al Jazeera that people are living in fear of Israeli incursions and can no longer work their land.

“Since the fall of the regime, many are no longer building or cultivating,” he said. “We don’t know how the government will respond, but true relief will come only when the occupation ends.”

In addition to taking Syrians, Israeli forces are also fortifying their positions with large berms and watchtowers. Sanad, Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, has verified the establishment of nine new Israeli military camps in Syria since December 2024.

Local elders estimate 1,700 acres (688 hectares) of land seized by Israeli forces includes orchards, fields and grazing lands.

Israeli forces have flattened entire areas, uprooting trees believed to be hundreds of years old, to build more military presence on Syrian soil, villagers and shepherds say.

Mohammad Makkiyah went too close to a watchtower and was shot by an Israeli sniper. He says the first shot missed his head, but as he ran from a volley of fire, a bullet hit his leg.

In a nearby house, Hussain Bakr’s son and brother were taken five months ago.

“We complained to the UN and the Red Cross, who told us that they will ask the Israelis, but there is no response,” Bakr told Al Jazeera. “They are innocent, taken for no reason.”

Residents say interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa should remember his own family’s displacement when Israel occupied the Golan Heights. The president has previously said his grandfather was forced to flee the area in 1967.

Government representatives say they are trying for solutions through diplomacy.

But until the missing come home, words offer little solace.

“The situation is painful for the families and for us as a government,” Jamal Numairi, a People’s Assembly member from Quneitra, told Al Jazeera. “To the families, I say: the government will spare no effort to resolve the issue. I consider them kidnapped, not as prisoners.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials visited southern Syrian territory, where Israel expanded its occupation after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last year.

Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights since December’s ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has denounced a trip by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials to the country’s south, where they visited troops deployed to Syrian territory they’ve occupied for months.

Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syrian territory as the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad was overrun by rebel forces in December.

“My government strongly condemns this provocative tour, which epitomises Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people,” Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“We renew our call on the UN and this council to take firm and immediate action to halt these violations, ensure their non-reoccurrence, end the occupation and enforce relevant resolutions, particularly the 1974 disengagement agreement” that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Since the overthrow of al-Assad, Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights separating Israeli and Syrian forces.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials’ “very public visit” as “concerning, to say the least”.

Dujarric noted that UN Resolution 2799, recently passed by the Security Council, “called for the full sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity of Syria”.

Israel has previously said the 1974 agreement has been void since al-Assad fled, and it has breached Syrian sovereignty with air strikes, ground infiltration operations, reconnaissance overflights, the establishment of checkpoints, and the arrest and disappearance of Syrian citizens.

Syria has not reciprocated the attacks.

‘Zero signs of aggression’

During the Security Council meeting, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, did not directly address Netanyahu’s visit but instead lectured Syria’s ambassador.

“Show us that Syria is moving away from extremism and radicalism, that the protection of Christians and Jews is not an afterthought but a priority. Show us that the militias are restrained and justice is real and the cycle of indiscriminate killings has ended,” Danon said.

Olabi responded: “The proving, Mr Ambassador, tends to be on your shoulders. You have struck Syria more than 1,000 times, and we have responded with requests for diplomacy … and responded with zero signs of aggression towards Israel. … We have engaged constructively. and we still await for you to do the same.”

Netanyahu was accompanied to Syrian territory by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Defence Minister Israel Katz, army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the head of the Shin Bet security service, David Zini

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned “in the strongest terms the illegal visit, … considering it a serious violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

This month, Israel’s army renewed its incursions into Syria, setting up a military checkpoint in the southern province of Quneitra.

In September, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Israel had conducted more than 1,000 air strikes and more than 400 ground incursions in Syria since al-Assad was overthrown, describing the actions as “very dangerous”.

Reporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo noted Syria and Israel continue to negotiate a security pact that analysts said could be finalised before the end of the year.

“The testy exchange between the two ambassadors likely won’t derail that. But it does show how little trust there is between both countries – and how Netanyahu and his government continue to try to provoke Damascus,” Elizondo said.

The attacks in March killed thousands, many from the Alawite religious minority.

Syria has launched the trial of the first of hundreds of suspects for their role in deadly clashes earlier this year that killed hundreds in the country’s coastal provinces.

Syrian state media reported on Tuesday that 14 people were brought before Aleppo’s Palace of Justice following a months-long, government-led investigation.

Hundreds of people from the Alawite religious minority, to which ousted President Bashar al-Assad belonged, were killed in the massacres in March.

The violence erupted after attacks on the new government’s security forces by armed groups aligned with the deposed autocrat. Counterattacks soon spiralled out of control to target civilians in the coastal regions that host the Alawite population.

Seven of the defendants in the court on Tuesday were al-Assad loyalists, while the other seven were members of the new government’s security forces.

Charges against the suspects could include sedition, inciting civil war, attacking security forces, murder, looting and leading armed gangs, according to state media.

The seven accused from government forces are being prosecuted for “premeditated murder”.

The public and the international community have put pressure on the country’s new rulers to commit to judicial reform.

“The court is sovereign and independent,” said Judge Zakaria Bakkar as the trial opened.

The proceedings are important for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of forces that formerly had links to al-Qaeda, who since coming to power in December has scrambled to step out from diplomatic isolation. He is working to convince the United States to drop more of its crippling sanctions against Syria and to boost trade to rebuild the war-torn country.

However, despite initial reports by the state media that charges could quickly be brought against the defendants, the judge adjourned the session and rescheduled the next hearing for December.

The National Commission of Inquiry said in July that it had verified serious violations leading to the deaths of at least 1,426 people, most of them civilians, and identified 298 suspects.

It claimed 238 members of the security forces and army had been killed in attacks attributed to al-Assad’s supporters. The authorities then sent reinforcements to the region, with the commission estimating their number at 200,000 fighters.

The commission said there was no evidence that Syria’s new military leaders had ordered attacks on the Alawite community.

A United Nations probe, however, found that violence targeting civilians by government-aligned factions had been “widespread and systematic.”

A UN commission said that during the violence, homes in Alawite-majority areas were raided and civilians were asked “whether they were Sunni or Alawite.”

It said: ”Alawite men and boys were then taken away to be executed.”

Syria’s Asaad al-Shaibani meets with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi as Damascus pushes to bolster international ties.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has pledged to deepen collaboration on “counterterrorism” with China on his first visit to Beijing since the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad last year.

Al-Shaibani and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi agreed on Monday that they would work together on combating “terrorism” and on security matters, with the top Syrian diplomat promising that Damascus would not allow its territory to be used for any actions against Chinese interests, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.

China, a former backer of al-Assad, said that it hoped Syria would take “effective measures” to fulfil its commitment, “thereby removing security obstacles to the stable development of China-Syria relations”, according to a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement.

The fate of the Uighur fighters who had gone to Syria after war erupted in 2011 to fight al-Assad’s forces, with many joining the Uighur-dominated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) based in Idlib province, was expected to be on al-Shaibani’s agenda in Beijing.

A source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates in Damascus denied a report by news agency AFP that cited unidentified sources as saying the Syrian government planned to hand over 400 fighters who had fled persecution in China “in batches”.

The “report regarding the Syrian government’s intention to hand over fighters to China is without foundation”, said the source in a brief statement to SANA.

During the meeting in Beijing, al-Shaibani also gave his country’s support for the one China principle, establishing formal diplomatic ties with the Chinese government, rather than with Taiwan, as the sole legal representative of the territory.

Wang, for his part, stated that China viewed the Golan Heights as Syrian territory. Israel occupied a portion of the territory in 1967 and subsequently annexed it in violation of international law.

Since al-Assad’s fall in December 2024, Israel has been expanding its occupation into southern Syria, including a United Nations-monitored buffer zone established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement.

On Monday, Damascus and Beijing expressed interest in expanding collaboration on economic development, Syria’s reconstruction, and raising living standards, highlighting the role of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum as a basis for bilateral collaboration, said SANA.

Al-Shaibani’s visit to China comes as Damascus pushes to rebuild its diplomatic ties around the world, with some stunning successes, including securing sanction relief from the West and major Gulf investments, giving the country a much-needed economic lifeline.

Earlier this month, President Ahmed al-Sharaa became the first-ever Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946. Syria also joined a US-led international coalition to fight ISIL (ISIS).

In October, al-Sharaa told Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow that he sought to “restore and redefine ties” between the two countries.

However, there was no mention after that meeting of whether Moscow would hand over al-Assad, who fled to Russia after his government fell due to an offensive by armed opposition groups led by al-Sharaa.

Since the collapse of the al-Assad government, Russia has retained a presence at its air and naval bases on the Syrian coast. Moscow was one of al-Assad’s top backers and provided air support for government forces during the war.

But al-Shraa’s government appears to be prepared to forge relations with allies of the former regime, as highlighted by al-Shaibani’s talks in Beijing on Monday.

Chief investigator declines to say how many arrested; some were identified by videos on social media.

Syria has arrested members of the country’s security and military services as part of a probe into sectarian violence in the southern province of Suwayda earlier this year that left hundreds dead.

Judge Hatem Naasan, head of a committee investigating the eruption of violence in Suwayda in July, said that members of security services and the military “who were proven to have committed violations” based on findings and videos posted online had been detained.

“Videos posted on social media clearly showed faces, and they were detained by the authorities concerned,” Naasan said, adding that security personnel were detained by the Interior Ministry while members of the military are being held by the Defence Ministry.

Videos that surfaced online had shown armed men killing Druze civilians kneeling in public squares and shaving the moustaches off elderly men in an act of humiliation.

Naasan did not specify how many arrests were made. Nor did he announce a death toll, saying this would come in the final report that is expected by the end of the year.

He acknowledged that “some foreign fighters randomly and individually entered the city of Suwayda”, saying that some had been detained and questioned. He stated that none of them were members of the Syrian armed or security forces.

Fighting broke out in the Druze-majority province after a Druze truck driver was abducted on a public highway, drawing in Bedouin tribal fighters from other parts of the country.

Government forces were deployed to restore order, but were accused of siding with the Bedouins. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters.

A ceasefire was established after a week of violence.

Claiming that it was protecting the Druze, Israel also intervened, launching dozens of air attacks on government forces in Suwayda and even striking the Syrian Ministry of Defence headquarters in the centre of the capital Damascus.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes around the country since the end of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty in December, mainly targeting, it says, assets of the Syrian army, but also carrying out incursions.

After the acts of violence in July, many in Suwayda now want some form of autonomy in a federal system. A smaller group is calling for total partition.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has been painstakingly trying to usher Syria back into the international fold, with notable successes. In September, he was the first Syrian leader to address the United Nations General Assembly in six decades, and he was invited to the White House on Monday for a second meeting with United States President Donald Trump.

Al-Sharaa, who wants to unify his war-ravaged nation and end its decades of international isolation, was the first-ever Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.

Both the US and European Union have dropped sanctions against Syria, and major Gulf Arab investment is giving the war-devastated nation a critical economic lifeline.

But al-Sharaa’s quest for national unity after a 14-year ruinous civil war still faces major internal and external challenges ahead.

The BBC is in turmoil. A leaked dossier exposing a misedited speech of United States President Donald Trump and other editorial concerns has triggered resignations at the top – and a $1bn lawsuit threat from the US leader. Why the leak surfaced now, and who steps in next, are still open questions. Most importantly, will the BBC be able to recover from this moment?

Contributors:
Ben de Pear – Former editor, Channel 4 News
Jane Martinson – Professor, University of London
Karishma Patel – Former newsreader, BBC
Tom Mills – Author, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service

On our radar

This week, Ahmed al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president ever to set foot in the White House. A landmark diplomatic trip filled with photo ops and political theatre, marking his transition from a US-designated terrorist to an ally. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

AI slop tsunami: Is the internet now a junkyard?

Elettra Scrivo explores how social media platforms are rapidly changing with the surge of AI content. Low-quality, mass-produced, artificially generated content, otherwise known as AI slop, is designed to trigger the algorithms and generate revenue for Big Tech companies.

Featuring:
Drew Harwell – Technology reporter, The Washington Post
Mark Lawrence Garilao – AI video content creator
Myojung Chung – Associate professor, Northeastern University

Conditions at Syrian al-Hol and al-Roj camps are “inhuman, dangerous, and degrading”, independent report says, urging UK to comply with international obligations.

The United Kingdom government should voluntarily facilitate the return of former repentant ISIL (ISIS) member Shamima Begum and others living in Syrian camps and deprived of British nationality, a new report has urged.

The Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice said the current stance of the government towards nationals and former nationals detained in Syrian camps was “increasingly untenable” as they were living under “inhuman” conditions.

“The government should facilitate voluntary repatriation for British nationals, including those deprived of British nationality,” it asserted.

“A coherent, humane, and security-conscious repatriation strategy would strengthen compliance with international obligations and promote long-term public safety and social stability.”

Begum’s case lies at the heart of the UK policy of revoking the citizenship of nationals who joined armed groups in Syria. She left London in 2015 as a minor, at the age of 15, with two school friends, and later married an ISIL fighter. Begum gave birth to three children, all of whom died in infancy.

In 2019, the UK government revoked her citizenship soon after she was discovered in a detention camp in Syria.

Since then, she has challenged the decision, which was turned down by an appeals court in February 2024. Born in the UK to Bangladeshi parents, Begum does not hold Bangladeshi citizenship.

She had admitted that she joined the organisation knowing it was proscribed as a “terror” group, and has said she was “ashamed” and regretted joining the group.

Conditions at camps ‘dangerous’

Citing the United Nations, the report described conditions at the camps, including the infamous al-Hol and al-Roj camps, as “inhuman, dangerous, and degrading”.

“Many detainees, especially women and children, are victims of coercion, trafficking, or exploitation, even if some have been involved in terrorism-related activity,” it added.

According to the commission, between 55-72 UK-linked individuals remain in the camps and other detention centres, including 30-40 children.

The report said the UK’s “reluctance” to repatriate its citizens, including those stripped of their citizenship, made it an “outlier” among “comparable jurisdictions” and could prove to be “counterproductive to long-term security interests”.

“Pressure from the US government, which has called for all states to take back their nationals, the change in the Syrian regime, and as other states repatriate, the prospect of what was referred to as ‘Europe’s Guantanamo’ becoming ‘Britain’s Guantanamo’, may force the government to begin returns,” the report pointed out.

A year ago, the United States was offering a $10m reward for the arrest of the commander of a Syrian armed group, previously linked to al-Qaeda.

Yet on Monday, President Donald Trump hosted him at the White House.

As Syria’s leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has positioned his country as a regional player – formally joining the global coalition against ISIL (ISIS).

Trump has also suggested he wants al-Sharaa to join the Abraham Accords.

However, the Israeli military is carrying out air strikes on Syria.

So, how might the new US-Syria relationship reshape power dynamics in the Middle East?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Haid Haid — Senior non-resident fellow at Arab Reform Initiative

Robert Ford — Former US ambassador to Syria

Rob Geist Pinfold — Lecturer in International Security at King’s College London

WASHINGTON — President Trump hosted Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday, welcoming his once-pariah state into a U.S.-led global coalition to fight the Islamic State group.

Al-Sharaa arrived at the White House around 11:30 a.m. and shortly after began his Oval Office meeting, which remained closed to the press. The Syrian president entered the building through West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, rather than on the West Wing driveway normally used for foreign leaders’ arrivals. He left the White House about two hours later and greeted a throng of supporters gathered outside before getting into his motorcade.

“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful because that’s part of the Middle East,” Trump told reporters later Monday. The U.S. president said of Al-Sharaa that “I have confidence that he’ll be able to do the job.”

Syria’s foreign ministry, in a statement, described the meeting as “friendly and constructive.”

Trump “affirmed the readiness of the United States to provide the support that the Syrian leadership needs to ensure the success of the reconstruction and development process,” the statement said.

It added that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had then met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who arrived in Washington on Monday, and that they agreed to proceed with implementing an agreement reached in March between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to integrate the SDF into the new Syrian army. Implementation of the deal has repeatedly stalled amid tensions between the two sides. It was unclear what concrete steps were agreed upon in Monday’s meeting.

The statement said the “American side also affirmed its support for reaching a security agreement with Israel,” but it did not say how Syria had responded.

Al-Sharaa’s visit was the first to the White House by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and comes after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the decades the country was ruled by the Assad family. Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad last December and was named the country’s interim leader in January.

Trump and Al-Sharaa — who once had ties to Al Qaeda and had a $10-million U.S. bounty on his head — first met in May in Saudi Arabia. At the time, the U.S. president described Al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past, very strong past. Fighter.” It was the first official encounter between the U.S. and Syria since 2000, when then-President Clinton met with Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar Assad.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday’s visit is “part of the president’s efforts in diplomacy to meet with anyone around the world in the pursuit of peace.”

One official with knowledge of the administration’s plans said Syria’s entry into the global coalition fighting Islamic State will allow it to work more closely with U.S. forces, although the new Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast had already been fighting the group.

Before Al-Sharaa’s arrival in the U.S., the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions on the Syrian president and other government officials in a move that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, said was a strong sign that Syria is in a new era since the fall of Assad.

Al-Sharaa came to the meeting with his own priorities. He wants a permanent repeal of sanctions that punished Syria for widespread allegations of human rights abuses by Assad’s government and security forces. While the Caesar Act sanctions are currently waived by Trump, a permanent repeal would require Congress to act.

One option is a proposal from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that would end the sanctions without any conditions. The other was drafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a hawkish Trump ally who wants to set conditions for a sanctions repeal that would be reviewed every six months.

But advocates argue that any repeal with conditions would prevent companies from investing in Syria because they would fear potentially being sanctioned. Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to a “hanging shadow that paralyzes any initiatives for our country.”

The Treasury Department said Monday that the Caesar Act waiver was extended for another 180 days.

Kim writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Abby Sewell in Beirut and Fatima Hussein and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

Visit comes as Syria announces launching a ‘large-scale operation’ targeting ISIL cells across the country.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in the United States for an official visit, according to state media, during which Washington hopes to enlist Damascus in its global coalition against ISIL, or ISIS.

Al-Sharaa’s arrival in the US capital came late on Saturday as Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced launching a “large-scale security operation” across the country, targeting ISIL cells.

Al-Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. Al-Sharaa, who had met Trump for the first time in Riyadh in May, was removed from a US “terrorist” sanctions list on Friday.

US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that al-Sharaa would “hopefully” sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against ISIL.

Washington is also preparing to establish a military presence at an airbase in Damascus to help enable a security pact that the US is brokering between Syria and Israel, according to the Reuters and AFP news agencies.

For his part, al-Sharaa is expected to seek funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of brutal civil war. The World Bank has estimated that the cost of reconstruction could take at least $216bn, a figure that it described as a “conservative best estimate”.

Al-Sharaa once led Syria’s offshoot of al-Qaeda, but his anti-Assad group broke away from the network a decade ago and later clashed with ISIL. Al-Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July.

Al-Sharaa’s trip to Washington, DC, comes after his landmark visit to the United Nations in September, his first time on US soil, where he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.

On Thursday, the US led a vote by the UN Security Council to remove sanctions against him.

In Damascus on Saturday, state media reported that Syrian security forces had carried out 61 raids across the country targeting ISIL cells.

A spokesperson for the Syrian Interior Ministry said at least 71 people were arrested, while explosives and weapons were seized.

Syria’s SANA news agency, citing the ministry, said the operations were carried out in the Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs and Damascus countrysides, and that the campaign was part of “ongoing nation efforts to combat terrorism and protect public safety”.

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 »

[email protected]

@EliStokols