Syria

His release comes after journalist Mousa al-Omar dropped a complaint over online criticism.

British Syrian activist Hassan Akkad has been released from a prison in Damascus after four days detention for alleged criticism of public figures.

Akkad was taken into custody from a cafe in the al-Maliki neighbourhood of Damascus on Wednesday at about 9:45pm local time (18:45 GMT), a statement by his organisation said on Friday.

Akkad is the founder of the “Give Us the Money That You Owe!” campaign, which tracks large financial commitments made by public figures during a donation drive to fund Syria’s reconstruction.

His detention followed a legal complaint filed by Syrian journalist and presenter Mousa al-Omar in relation to “Hassan’s social media activities and public comments” after Akkad criticised al-Omar for allegedly failing to deliver on his financial pledges during the donations campaign.

Public Prosecutor Judge Hossam Khattab confirmed last week that Akkad had been detained due to warrants issued against him for failing to present himself to the Cybercrime Control Division in relation to al-Omar’s complaint. Khattab also said other plaintiffs had filed cases against Akkad for slander and defamation.

The activist’s release on Sunday came after al-Omar told Al Jazeera that he had instructed his lawyer to withdraw the complaint against Akkad, and said that everything pledged to the campaign had been paid.

On Sunday, al-Omar again posted on X that he had withdrawn the complaint against Akkad.

“My legal representative dropped the right and the lawsuit against my brother Hassan this morning and pardoned him for the sake of Almighty God … I was saddened by what he brought upon himself, and I wish him success in his social media activities and I will always be a supporter of him,” he wrote in Arabic.

Akkad, who is also a filmmaker, was imprisoned twice by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for documenting anti-government protests in 2011.

After fleeing Syria, he stayed in the Middle East before making an 87-day journey across Europe to reach the UK in September 2015.

Video of his gruelling trip was included in the documentary series, Exodus: Our Journey to Europe, which went on to win a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award.

Syrian journalist Mousa al-Omar reportedly filed a complaint about Akkad’s social media comments prior to his arrest.

British Syrian activist Hassan Akkad has been detained by security forces in Damascus, in an alleged response to his online comments criticising a prominent journalist.

Akkad, founder of the Give Us the Money That You Owe! campaign, was taken into custody on Wednesday at about 9:45pm local time (18:45 GMT) while at a cafe in the capital’s al-Malki neighbourhood, the statement said.

His detention appears to be related to a legal complaint filed by Syrian journalist and presenter Mousa al-Omar in relation to “Hassan’s social media activities and public comments”, the campaign reported.

It added that he was summoned by the cybersecurity branch on June 4. Al Jazeera understands that Akkad is still detained.

“He later became aware that additional cases had also been filed against him, although he was not informed of the identities of the complainants,” the campaign said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Syrian government regarding he case but has yet to receive a response regarding the activist’s arrest.
Public Prosecutor Judge Hossam Khattab confirmed that Akkad had been detained due to a search warrant being issued for him, but that the case against him had been dropped.

Al-Omar told Al Jazeera that he had instructed his lawyer to tell the police that he had dropped the case against Akkad and said he was “saddened” by what had happened.

“I am sorry for what happened to Hassan as a result of his mistakes; I followed the legal path under the cybercrime law… Everything I pledged, amounting to $700,000 in projects and cash, was paid in the donations,” he said.

Akkad’s campaign tracks financial commitments related to a public drive for donations to fund Syria’s reconstruction since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

The activist reportedly criticised al-Omar on social media in recent weeks for allegedly failing to deliver on his financial pledges to the country’s rehabilitation efforts, pledges he claimed were worth thousands of dollars.

The campaign said after Akkad was summoned, he paused his online activities related to the case, to “allow the investigation and legal process to proceed”.

Akkad, a refugee and former English teacher in his late 30s, previously won BAFTA and International Emmy awards for documenting his journey from Turkiye to Europe after fleeing the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, during which he was arrested by the al-Assad’s authorities.

He eventually settled in the United Kingdom in 2015, returning to Syria after years in exile when al-Assad fled the country.

According to witness accounts cited in the statement, five plainclothes security officers entered the coffee shop where Akkad was meeting with several journalists.

Witnesses said the officers initially requested Akkad’s mobile phone before informing him that he was being arrested.

His lawyers said the arrest raises questions about whether authorities followed established legal procedures.

“No legal basis for the arrest … was presented at the time of his detention,” the statement said,

It added that since the allegations appear to be related to his online commentary, the arrest raises “broader concerns regarding the protection of freedom of expression”.

The statement further questioned the reported use of a cybersecurity law enacted during the rule of al-Assad, arguing that reliance on such legislation “appears inconsistent with the interim government’s commitments to expand protections for freedom of expression following the collapse of the previous regime”.

The first recorded use of smoke as a weapon of asphyxiation against civilians in the MENA region dates back to the mid-19th century, when French general Bugeaud adopted this “new method” against thousand of people in Algeria: “If they [Algerians] take refuge in their caves”, Bugeaud argued, “then smoke them out like foxes [renards]”.

Seventy years later, the Middle East witnessed its first recorded use of chemical weapons. This occurred during the 1917’s Third Battle of Gaza, when the troops led by General Edmund Allenby fired about 10,000 cans of asphyxiating gas. Their limited impact did not meet Allenby’s expectations. However, the use of gas attracted much attention to the point that – right after the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia – Secretary of State for the colonies Winston Churchill noted of being “strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilised tribes […] it would spread a lively terror”.

One century and many wars later, the UK, France and the US (whose support for Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iraq-Iran War has now been ascertained), launched a “US-led humanitarian intervention to protect [Syrian] civilians” against a chemical attack allegedly carried out by the Syrian regime in East Ghouta. Yet, their humanitarian intentions raise serious questions yet to be answered.

The cost of ‘non-intervention’?

The suspected chemical attack of 7 April has been denied by a number of sources, including the doctors serving at the field hospital were the victims have been treated. Nothwithstanding the recurrent war crimes perpetrated by the Syrian regime, the latter’s interest in using chemical weapons in a phase in which Bashar Al-Assad’s forces are advancing and winning the war appears unclear.

It should also be added that conventional weapons (not chemical weapons) are responsible for over 90 per cent of the mass killing of Syrian civilians by the regime and its allies (including Iran and Russia). If anything, the “US-led humanitarian intervention” confirmed that external powers are not so much troubled by the fact that dozens of Syrians die every day. It is mainly how they do so that seems to deserve a special attention, or “reaction”.

Read: Air strikes send a message to the Russians not to Assad

And it is indeed in the alleged lack of an earlier “reaction” – the so called “non-interventionist policy” in Syria – that many observers see as a key-component to assess what Syria is currently experiencing. If there was an opportunity for Western powers to make a difference for the better, pointed out British author Andrew Rawnsley, “chance was missed many, many deaths ago”.

London and its allies had indeed plans already before 2011 to use the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to curb a regime that has been considered by them as a thorn in their sides for decades. In 2011 strategy shifted to West’s allies funding proxies. If anything, the US, Britain and their allies intervened too much and too early, largely to the benefit of Bashar Al-Assad, but also Hezbollah and Iran.

A regional order in the making

It has been noted that in our age of “politics as reality show”, even geopolitics and military raids are often done for show. There is much truth in these words. In this sense it should be noted that a  possible chemical attack occurred already in April 2017. Then as today, the US-led strike was preceeded by an announcement made by US President Donald Trump regarding his will to withdraw from Syria and followed by the bombing of an empty Syrian airfield.

A Syrian man receives medical treatment after the Assad regime conducted a poisonous gas attack in Eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria on 7 March, 2018 [Dia Al Din Samout/Anadolu Agency]

And yet, the ongoing “geopolitical show” is underpinned by two very practical aims. The first one might be linked to the 2017–18 Qatar diplomatic crisis. Both the outbreak of the Qatar crisis and the recent US-led strike are in fact meant to provide a clear sign to regional actors to show the consequences that will be faced by those unwilling to align themselves with the anti-Iran front and the tacit agreement that binds Israel to Saudi Arabia and its allies.

#WarInSyria

In recent months also a number of Saudi sources have come forward contending that Saudi-Israeli relations are “the main gateway” to understanding the “transformations in the region and the backstage deliberations over the Palestinian cause”, including the recent and upcoming developments concerning Jerusalem.

Fostering fragmentation

The second aim is rooted in the will to weaken the link between Iran, Turkey and Russia; the three guarantors of the Astana peace process. The latter, in which Russia has played a key role, is perceived by many as a key tool to overcome the fragmentation of Syria and, more generally, the division of large Arab states into small and mostly homogeneous entities incapable of posing any threat.

This political goal is actively supported, directly andor indirectly, by a number of key-figures within the Trump administration, and has been advocated by several influential think tanks in Washington, including Project for the New American Century (PNAC), since the early 2000s.

Read: US admitted only 44 Syria refugees in the last 6 months

Among the 25 political figures who signed PNAC’s founding statement of principles in 1997, ten went on to serve in the administration of former US President George W. Bush. Some of them – including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz – were charged with highly influential positions that had direct repercussions on key-aspects pertaining to the region. The then president expressed his support for the remodeling of the “greater Middle East” also in his State of the Union speech on 20 January 2004.

Whose humanitarism?

The image of a “civilised world” that was witnessing yet another clash in the context of an inherently fanatic “Islamic Orient” was very much present in the articles published in England and France in the early 1860s. Western observers were then describing the massacres which occurred between Christians and Muslims during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war.

Then, as today, external (and particularly Western) powers felt the necessity to intervene in the region justifying this through “humanitarian considerations”, and by adopting a self-imposed mission civilisatrice. They were, however, much less ready to acknowledge their own roles and responsabilities, or to ease the humanitarian burden faced by local actors.

Not much has changed in this respect. It is enough to mention that, according to the US State Department, Washington has admitted a total of 11 Syrian refugees in the all 2018. Despite playing a leading role in Syria and the broader region, Russia has granted refugee status to “only one Syrian national since 2011”. These examples represent the rule rather than the exception. Orwell’s celebrated prophecy – “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength” – could not have found a better manifesto.

Caricature of Syrian President sending air strikes in Syria – Cartoon

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Syrian commission confirms the deaths of Rania al-Abbasi’s six children, missing since 2013 under Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) says the children of dentist and former chess champion Rania al‑Abbasi, who disappeared with their parents more than a decade ago under then-President Bashar al-Assad, are likely dead.

“We have reached reliable and corroborating results that allow us to conclude with a high degree of professional certainty that Dr Rania al-Abbasi’s children are deceased,” the NCMP said in a statement on Saturday.

The fate of the children, unknown for years, became a symbol of the plight of other missing children of detainees and those forcibly disappeared during al-Assad’s rule, which ended with his ouster in 2024.

Al-Abbasi went missing along with her husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, aged three to 15, in March 2013 after government forces raided their home in Damascus, according to rights groups.

The commission, set up by the country’s new rulers in May 2025 to investigate missing and forcibly disappeared people, said its findings were “based on multiple verification and analysis procedures” conducted in coordination with national authorities.

“Efforts to find the remains … are still ongoing,” it added.

Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths in a video posted on Facebook.

He said the family had been able to view video recordings linked to the main suspect in a 2013 massacre in a Damascus district, including one showing him accusing children in a dark room of being “major financiers of terrorism”.

“They turned out to be our children,” Hassan al-Abbasi said. “We finally saw them … but they were martyred.”

The fate of Rania and her husband remains officially unknown after all contact with them was lost following their arrest on accusations linked to opposition to the Assad government.

Rights groups and media reports suggest they may have died, though their bodies were never found.

The issue of missing people remains one of the most pressing in Syria. They include detainees who vanished in government prisons as well as people who went missing during fighting, at checkpoints or while fleeing their homes over the years of civil war.

Tens of thousands of people were detained or disappeared during the war, which erupted in 2011 after a brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests by al-Assad.

The NCMP said last year that the number of people who went missing over decades of al-Assad family rule may exceed 300,000.

Notorious al-Assad regime figure linked to killings

Separately on Saturday, the Syrian Ministry of Interior said its investigation into the disappearance of al-Abbasi’s children had uncovered evidence linking Amjad Youssef – a notorious figure during al-Assad’s rule and the perpetrator of the 2013 Tadamon massacre – to their killing.

In a statement, it said interrogations of detainees, together with videos and information shared by the NCMP, had helped strengthen the case.

Youssef was arrested in April, prompting many Syrians to demand “just punishment” for a man they say carried out the massacre in cold blood.

The Tadamon case drew international attention after footage surfaced documenting the killings.

In 2022, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published footage it said had been leaked by a conscript in a pro-government militia showing members of the Assad-era Military Intelligence Branch 227 killing at least 41 people and burning their bodies.

The video showed an intelligence officer, identified as Youssef, shooting blindfolded and bound detainees.

Rescue workers have pulled stranded farmers from flood waters in eastern Syria after the Euphrates burst its banks. Among the worst-affected areas was Deir Az Zor, where the flooding caused a bridge collapse and cut-off communities.

Trump envoy Tom Barrack to exit formal Syria post but retain key role managing US policy in Syria and Iraq.

US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack will step down from his post following the expiration of his formal mandate, but he is set to maintain a central diplomatic role managing policy for Syria and Iraq, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced.

Barrack, a billionaire real estate investor and longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, has served as the administration’s primary envoy to Syria since May 2025, while concurrently serving as the US ambassador to Turkiye.

“Ambassador Tom Barrack has played an invaluable role as our Special Envoy to Syria,” Rubio wrote in a statement posted on the social media platform X. “While that title is expiring, he will continue to play a leading role for the Trump Administration in Syria and Iraq, where his expertise, relationships, and understanding of the America First agenda will continue to deliver wins on behalf of our great country.”

“Barrack’s special envoy title has expired, but his role has not, and he remains Washington’s lead on Syria, Iraq, and Turkiye,” Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the think tank International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

“The expiry changes little in practice, because he was already coordinating those three files together before it lapsed. By keeping him in place without naming a successor, Washington signals it wants continuity and his existing access rather than a reset on Syria.”

During his yearlong tenure as Syria envoy, Barrack oversaw Washington’s pivot towards the post-Assad administration of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. He heavily influenced US policy by pushing for the easing of heavy economic sanctions on Damascus and coordinating counter-Islamic State operations alongside regional allies, including Turkiye and Gulf Arab states.

The private equity mogul raised substantial capital from Emirati sovereign funds. While acquitted in 2022 of federal charges that he acted as an unregistered agent for Abu Dhabi, his connections routinely led to questions about Gulf financial influence over US policy.

Barrack’s tenure in Syria also drew significant scrutiny. His mediation of a ceasefire and integration pact between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) drew sharp criticism from the Kurdish leadership, who accused Washington of abandoning its longtime allies to favour central state authority.

He also prompted intense backlash in Lebanon after warning journalists at a chaotic news conference to act “civilised” rather than “animalistic”.

His public assertions that “benevolent monarchy” and authoritarian governance are better suited for the Middle East than democracy caused controversy, while opposition leaders in Turkiye, where he remains ambassador, routinely criticised him for behaving like a “colonial governor”.

State Department officials have not yet announced a successor for the Syria envoy position.

Australian Federal Police have not made any arrests but say inquiries are ongoing.

A group of 19 women and children with alleged links to ISIL (ISIS) has returned to Australia, with the government warning that anyone found to have engaged in criminal activity will be prosecuted.

The six women and 13 children arrived from a Syrian refugee camp on Tuesday, with one group landing in Sydney and the other in Melbourne.

It is the second cohort of Australian women and children to return from Syria this month. Responding to criticism over their arrival, the Australian government said it had not assisted them in any capacity.

“These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation,” Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said.

Australian women began travelling to Syria to marry members of ISIL in 2012, with some allegedly taken against their will.

At the height of its power in 2015, ISIL controlled territory across Syria and Iraq roughly equivalent in size to the United Kingdom.

Australian Federal Police did not arrest any members of the group upon their arrival but said that investigations were ongoing.

The group’s return has sparked anger in some sections of Australian society.

According to local media, a large police presence was deployed at Melbourne airport, where a scuffle reportedly broke out as the group of women and children was escorted out through a side entrance.

Australia is one of several Western countries that have shown reluctance to repatriate citizens who travelled to the Middle East to join ISIL about a decade ago.

Both France and the UK have expressed opposition to allowing former ISIL members to return.

In 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that France’s failure to repatriate children born to French nationals in Syria violated their right to life and exposed them to inhumane treatment.

Meanwhile, the UK stripped British national Shamima Begum of her citizenship in 2019 on national security grounds.

In February, the Australian government issued a temporary exclusion order against a woman in Syria, preventing her from returning home.

Her child, who was not barred from returning, chose to stay with her.

The order prevents the woman from returning to Australia until February 2028, and her family is currently challenging the decision.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow at Loughborough University specialising in international relations and security, said the risk posed by people returning from countries including Syria needs to be viewed proportionately.

“There will be some security challenges, because people like this are likely to suffer from issues such as PTSD,” Ashraf told Al Jazeera.

“The fact of the matter is that there are security challenges in Australia and other countries, but statistically speaking, the return of these nationals doesn’t increase that risk very much, while the threat to life from terrorism is far lower than the threat posed by road accidents, for example.”

“That said, these threats can be reduced by providing comprehensive mental health support for returnees and ensuring they are reintegrated into society in a positive way, with follow-up programmes to address any dangerous ideas they may have adopted,” Ashraf said.

“It’s worth remembering that ISIL has killed far more Muslims than Westerners.”

Earlier this month, four women and 13 children arrived in Australia from Syria. Three of the women were arrested upon arrival.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett reports on the Syrian legislative elections in Hasakah and the town of Kobane – areas recently reintegrated under government control after being held by pro-Kurdish fighters for more than a decade.

The European Council says the move ‘sends a clear political signal of the EU’s commitment to re-engage with Syria and support its economic recovery’.

The European Council has terminated the partial suspension of a cooperation agreement with Syria, thereby restoring fuller trade ties with the country as it seeks to emerge from nearly 14 years of war.

The council said on Monday the move marked an important step towards strengthening relations between the European Union and Syria.

The decision “sends a clear political signal of the EU’s commitment to re-engage with Syria and support its economic recovery”, the European Council added in a statement.

At the same time, the EU’s foreign ministers met in Brussels with top Syrian diplomat Asaad al-Shaibani, kicking off a high-level political dialogue 18 months after the removal of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

The 27-nation bloc has launched a new chapter with Syria after al-Assad was swept from power in December 2024.

Meeting in Damascus

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen promised after meeting interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus in January that Europe would “do everything it can” to support Syria’s recovery.

The commission proposed that EU states fully reactivate the bloc’s cooperation agreement with Syria last month.

The deal, which abolished duties on imports of most industrial products from Syria, was partially suspended in 2011 when al-Assad’s regime cracked down on antigovernment protests at the start of a civil war.

Syria-EU trade had peaked in 2010 at more than 7 billion euros ($9.1bn at the 2010 exchange rate).

By 2023, EU imports from the country had dwindled to 103 million euros ($120m) while European exports to Syria stood at 265 million euros ($310m).

On the sensitive matter of Syrian refugee returns, Germany, home to the EU’s largest Syrian community at more than a million people, is on the front line.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has embraced tougher migration policies as he seeks to counter the far right, and he triggered a backlash by declaring during a visit by Syria’s president last month that he hoped 80 percent of Syrian refugees would return home within three years.

He later clarified this was a figure put forward by al-Sharaa himself.