US President Donald Trump signed an executive order lifting US sanctions on Syria and requesting a review of terrorism designations related to the nation. Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna looks at how the decision aims to facilitate rebuilding post-war Syria.
Published On 1 Jul 20251 Jul 2025
June 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday afternoon removing many U.S. sanctions levied against Syria, months after he promised the war-torn country’s new leader that he would lift the “brutal and crippling” punitive measures.
The United States has hit Syria with a slew of sanctions over the decades, especially targeting the former reign of dictator president Bashar al-Assad for his civil war and repression of his own people.
The sanctions relief announced Monday removes punitive economic measures from Syria while maintaining those that apply to al-Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, individuals linked to chemical weapons activities and members of terrorist organizations and Iranian proxy militias.
“President Trump is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors,” the White House said in a statement.
The announcement follows Trump’s meeting with his Syrian counterpart, transitional leader President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in mid-May in Riyadh, where the American president vowed to lift the sanctions.
“The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important — really, an important function — nevertheless, at the time,” Trump said. “But now, it’s time to shine.”
He said he would lift the sanctions “to give them a chance at greatness.”
Following the meeting, the U.S. Treasury implemented a 180-day waiver on the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 sanctions, which imposed punitive measures on those related to the Syrian civil war — a conflict that began in 2011 when al-Assad violently cracked down on pro-democracy protests.
Al-Assad was ousted in December by jihadist-led rebels, and al-Sharaa was appointed president.
“This is in an effort to promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday during a press briefing ahead of Trump’s signing of the executive order.
The State Department further explained in a statement that the sanctions to remain in place “are a tool to promote accountability for Assad, his cronies and others who seek to destabilize Syria or the region.”
The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based organization supporting the Syrian opposition, applauded Trump for removing the sanctions.
“It is now the responsibility of the new Syrian government to ensure safety and security, the transition to democracy and economic prosperity for all Syrians,” SETF’s advocacy director, Veronica Zanetta-Brandoni, said in a statement.
US Treasury says it removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions after president’s decree.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle a web of sanctions against Syria, a move that will likely unlock investments in the country more than six months after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
Trump’s decree on Monday offers sanction relief to “entities critical to Syria’s development, the operation of its government, and the rebuilding of the country’s social fabric”, the US Treasury said in a statement.
The Syrian government has been under heavy US financial penalties that predate the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011.
The sprawling sanction programme, which included provisions related to the former government’s human rights abuses, has derailed reconstruction efforts in the country. It has also contributed to driving the Syrian economy under al-Assad to the verge of collapse.
Trump promised sanctions relief for Syria during his visit to the Middle East in May.
“The United States is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbours,” the US president said in a statement on Monday.
“A united Syria that does not offer a safe haven for terrorist organisations and ensures the security of its religious and ethnic minorities will support regional security and prosperity.”
The US administration said Syria-related sanctions against al-Assad and his associates, ISIL (ISIS) and Iran and its allies will remain in place.
While the US Treasury said it already removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions, some Syria penalties may not be revoked immediately.
For example, Trump directs US agencies to determine whether the conditions are met to remove sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act, which enabled heavy penalties against the Syrian economy for alleged war crimes against civilians.
Democratic US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar had partnered with Republican lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna to introduce earlier this week a bill that would legislatively lift sanctions on Syria to offer long-term relief.
Real relief for the Syrian people requires repealing certain laws.
My bill with @RepLuna permanently repeals the sanctions and gives the post-Assad Syria a fighting chance. https://t.co/gExbLiKS7z
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 30, 2025
As part of Trump’s order, the US president ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review the designation of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.
Moreover, the US president ordered a review of the status of al-Sharaa’s group, al-Nusra Front – now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – as a designated “foreign terrorist” organisation. Al-Nusra was al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, but al-Sharaa severed ties with the group in 2016.
Al-Nusra later became known as Jabhat Fath al-Sham before merging with other rebel groups as HTS.
Al-Sharaa was the de facto leader of a rebel enclave in Idlib in northwest Syria for years before leading the offensive that overthrew al-Assad in December 2024.
Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and praised the Syrian president as “attractive” and “tough”.
The interim Syrian president – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani – has promised inclusive governance to allay concerns about his past ties to al-Qaeda.
But violence and kidnappings against members of al-Assad’s Alawite sect by former rebel fighters over the past months have raised concerns among some rights advocates.
Al-Sharaa has also pledged that Syria would not pose a threat to its neighbours, including Israel, which has been advancing in Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights and regularly bombing the country.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV urged the warring sides in the Israel-Iran war to “reject the logic of bullying and revenge” and choose a path of dialogue and diplomacy to reach peace as he expressed solidarity with all Christians in the Middle East.
Speaking at his weekly Wednesday general audience, the American pope said he was following “with attention and hope” recent developments in the war. He cited the biblical exhortation: “A nation shall not raise the sword against another nation.”
A ceasefire is holding in the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict, which involved Israel targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites and the U.S. intervening by dropping bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
“Let us listen to this voice that comes from on High,” Leo said. “Heal the lacerations caused by the bloody actions of recent days, reject all logic of bullying and revenge, and resolutely take the path of dialogue, diplomacy and peace.”
The Chicago-born Leo also expressed solidarity with the victims of Sunday’s attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, Syria, and urged the international community to keep supporting Syrian reconciliation. Syria’s Interior Ministry has said a sleeper cell belonging to the Islamic State group was behind the attack at the Church of the Holy Cross, which killed at least 25 people.
“To the Christians in the Middle East, I am near you. All the church is close to you,” he said. “This tragic event is a reminder of the profound fragility that still marks Syria after years of conflict and instability, and therefore it is crucial that the international community doesn’t look away from this country, but continues to offer it support through gestures of solidarity and with a renewed commitment to peace and reconciliation.”
The blast in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Syria’s capital was carried out as people were praying inside the Mar Elias Church.
A suicide bomber in Syria has carried out an attack inside a church filled with people, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more, according to the Syria’s Ministry of Health and security officials.
The explosion in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Damascus took place as people were praying during mass inside the Mar Elias Church on Sunday.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Syrian Interior Ministry said a fighter from the ISIL (ISIS) group entered the church and fired at the people there before detonating himself with an explosives vest, echoing some witness testimonies.
The death toll reported was a preliminary one. “Rescue teams from the Syria Civil Defence continue to recover bodies from the scene,” a statement on Telegram said on Sunday.
Official state agency SANA, citing the Health Ministry, said that at least 50 others were wounded.
Some local media reported that children were among the casualties.
The attack was the first of its kind in Syria in years, and comes as the fledgling interim government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa is trying to win the support of minorities.
As al-Sharaa struggles to exert authority across Syria, there have been concerns about the presence of sleeper cells of groups like ISIL (ISIS) in the country recovering from nearly 14 years of devastating civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Syria has made significant inroads back into the international fold since al-Sharaa became president in January 2025, with both the United States and the European Union lifting sanctions from the era of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
A witness who identified himself as Rawad told The Associated Press that he saw the attacker, who was accompanied by two others who fled as he was driving near the church.
“He was shooting at the church … he then went inside the church and blew himself up,” he said.
Security forces and first responders rushed to the scene.
Panicked survivors wailed, as one woman fell to her knees and burst into tears.
Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mostafa condemned the blast, calling it a “terrorist” attack.
“This cowardly act goes against the civic values that bring us together,” he said in a post on X.
“We will not back down from our commitment to equal citizenship … and we also affirm the state’s pledge to exert all its efforts to combat criminal organisations and to protect society from all attacks threatening its safety.”
The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen condemned “in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attack at St. Elias Church” and expressed “his outrage at this heinous crime.” His statement also noted “that the Syrian interim authorities have attributed this attack to ISIL and (he) calls for a full investigation and action by the authorities.”
Turkiye’s foreign ministry said the “treacherous” attack aimed to disrupt efforts to achieve stability and security in Syria.
France’s foreign ministry also condemned the “despicable” attack. France “expresses its full solidarity with the Syrian people, who hope that Syria will find its way back to peace,” the ministry said in a statement.
Photos circulated by the Syria Civil Defence showed the church’s interior area in ruins, with pews covered in debris and blood.
Last month, the US and the EU announced the relaxation of sanctions on Syria.
“It’s their time to shine. We’re taking them all off,” said US President Donald Trump in a speech that sparked an outburst of joy in Damascus.
After 14 years of war, 90% of the Syrian population live beneath the poverty line. Since the Assad regime fell in December, removing the sanctions to kickstart the economy has been a top priority of transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the victorious rebellion; but Syria has been under severe US restrictions since 1979 and lifting them won’t be simple.
The principal strictures are the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act and the 2003 Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSA). Only Congress can fully repeal them, and that will take months, at best. The executive branch can issue temporary waivers, as the Treasury Department did in May, but the real impact on Syrian corporates and finan- cial institutions remains limited.
“Only the full cancellation of US Caesar and SALSA laws, and not just their temporary suspension, could open the door for long-term investment,” argues Samir Aita, president of the Circle of Arab Economists, a Paris-based think tank.
For Syrian banks, which remain largely cut off from global financial networks, rejoining the Swift system for transfer and reporting correspondent banking relationships is first on the agenda. “The Syrian market is very promising; it is almost virgin,” says Ali Awdeh, head of research at the Union of Arab Banks, “but honestly, no banks from the Arab region or elsewhere will dare to enter this market until there is a full lifting of US sanctions.” In Europe, the process is less complicated. Last month, the European Council lifted sanctions on several Syrian companies operating in key sectors like oil production, agriculture, finance, construction, telecoms, and media. Depending on how the situation in Syria develops, other companies could be delisted in the coming months. Restrictions will remain, however, for industries that pose security concerns, such as weapon sales.
It’s a recurring nightmare likely shared by many Syrians who fled their homeland during the war – a mirage of home and hope, slipping away.
Directed by Yazan Rabee, BACK is a short documentary that follows those who return in their sleep to ghostly hometowns, hunted down by menacing forces.
Blending intimate testimony with striking visuals, BACK explores how political violence becomes embedded in the subconscious, especially for those who long for home from life in exile.
But as Rabee asks, did the nightmare really begin in 2012, with the uprising against president Bashar al-Assad? Or did the trauma take root decades earlier, during the brutal reign of Bashar’s father?
Published On 18 Jun 202518 Jun 2025
Tehran attacked Israel in retaliatory strikes without the support of regional allies.
Israel pounds Iran – and Iran strikes back, hitting Tel Aviv.
Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israel has damaged Iran, not just at home, but also outside its territory – by striking its allies.
Hezbollah‘s leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut, the Houthis in Yemen have taken hits, as well as militias in Iraq.
Israel struck Iranian interests in Syria and Tehran’s ally, former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, was deposed.
Hamas’ leadership has also been decimated, including in assassinations carried out in Tehran.
So is Iran now fighting from a weakened position?
Presenter: Cyril Vanier
Guests:
Ronnie Chatah, Political commentator, writer and host of The Beirut Banyan podcast.
Setareh Sadeqi – Professor at the University of Tehran’s Faculty of World Studies.
David DesRoches, Professor of National Defense University and former Pentagon director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs.
The image of Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria’s current leader, in Riyadh is one that, until recently, would have seemed unimaginable. Al-Sharaa, once on the U.S. most-wanted list with a $10 million bounty for information leading to his capture, now stood alongside Trump to discuss Syria’s future. This meeting, along with Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria, raises a fundamental question: Is America’s war on terror a principled, genuine fight—or a tool serving Washington’s shifting political interests?
A Puzzling Encounter
Trump’s meeting with Ahmad al-Sharaa during his highly publicized Middle East tour sparked regional and global astonishment. Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, a group the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 2013, offering $10 million for information on him. Following the meeting, Trump announced plans to normalize relations with Syria’s new government and lift sanctions, calling it an opportunity for a “fresh start” for the war-torn nation. This shift stands in stark contrast to the 2013 U.S. stance, when Jabhat al-Nusra was a prime target in the global war on terror.
The White House defended this move as pragmatic, citing al-Sharaa’s role in toppling Bashar al-Assad and his apparent moderation as the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebranding intended to distance the group from its al-Qaeda past. Yet the image of Trump shaking hands with a former most-wanted figure—especially in light of past U.S. actions—was deeply unsettling.
The Soleimani Paradox: A Tale of Selective Justice
To understand the implications of Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa, we must revisit the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force. Soleimani played a central role in fighting ISIS, particularly in Iraq and Syria, where his forces aided local militias in retaking territory. Despite this alignment with U.S. priorities, the Trump administration ordered his assassination via drone strike in Baghdad, justifying it by citing his support for groups like Hezbollah and alleged threats to U.S. interests.
The contrast is stark: Soleimani, who battled ISIS and extremist groups, was killed; al-Sharaa, once the head of an al-Qaeda affiliate, is now a diplomatic partner. This contradiction suggests that U.S. counterterrorism policy is less about eliminating extremism and more about advancing strategic interests. Soleimani’s death disrupted Iran’s regional influence—a long-standing U.S. objective—while al-Sharaa’s new role aligns with Washington’s aim to stabilize post-Assad Syria without direct military involvement.
A History of Convenient Alliances
Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa is not an anomaly but part of a broader pattern in U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets—some of whom, like Osama bin Laden, later formed al-Qaeda. In the 1980s, Washington backed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, despite his clear record of atrocities, because Iraq served as a counterweight to Tehran.
In 2025, Trump’s Middle East strategy mirrors this tradition. His visit to Saudi Arabia—where he signed a $142 billion arms deal and emphasized confronting Iran—underscored a focus on strengthening allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel while selectively engaging former foes like al-Sharaa. The lifting of sanctions and talk of normalization signal a pragmatic shift, prioritizing stability and economic opportunity over old terrorist designations. This realpolitik approach aligns with Trump’s deal-making rhetoric, such as his readiness to negotiate with Iran—if it abandoned its nuclear ambitions and support for “terrorism”—even while threatening “maximum pressure.”
The Mask Slips from the War on Terror
America’s war on terror, launched after 9/11, has long been portrayed as a moral struggle against extremism. But the meeting with al-Sharaa exposes its instrumental nature. By engaging with a former terrorist leader, the U.S. reveals that its “terrorist” labels are often temporary, shifting when political or economic interests arise. Trump’s handshake with al-Sharaa sends a message to regional players: the U.S. is willing to overlook past crimes for strategic gain—a signal that may encourage other groups to pursue legitimacy through cosmetic political changes.
By contrast, the assassination of Soleimani shows the other side of that coin. His killing wasn’t just about counterterrorism—it was a strategic blow to Iran, a regional rival. Soleimani’s forces played a key role in defeating ISIS in Iraq, yet the terrorist label overshadowed his contributions to a shared objective.
A Policy of Expedience
The photo of Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmad al-Sharaa is more than just a diplomatic snapshot—it’s a window into the dual nature of America’s counterterrorism policy. When a former al-Qaeda commander is embraced as a partner, but a general who fought ISIS is eliminated by U.S. drones, the message is clear: terrorism is a label used for convenience, not conviction. It reveals a truth the West rarely admits—principles become negotiable when interests are at stake.
As the Middle East enters a new chapter, the world watches and wonders: Is America’s war on extremism truly about security—or just another move in a geopolitical chess game for regional and global dominance?
The Assyrians, an indigenous people with over 6,775 years of history and one of the world’s earliest Christian communities, are vanishing from their ancestral homeland. Not in theory. Not in the distant future. Today. Right now as you’re reading this. Assyria is already colonized, fragmented across Iraq, Syria, southeast Turkey, and northwest Iran—their indigenous homeland. And today, the final threads of Assyrian presence in these lands are being pulled apart through calculated policies of exclusion, erasure, and domination.
You’ve never heard of us, but you’ve heard of us. We’re the Iraqi Christians, the Syrian Christians, the Chaldeans, the Syriacs, and the Arameans. We are called everything but our name—Assyrian. A tactic of the dhimmi system, reinforced by the very basic human need to separate ourselves from a group targeted for genocide in order to survive. A Roman methodology of divide and conquer. Even our history is neglected, rewritten, and stolen. And this erasure is echoed by international actors who speak of us.
But our erasure isn’t just on paper. Across Iraq and Syria, Assyrians are being erased through systemic and systematic disenfranchisement, cultural destruction, forced displacement, and demographic engineering. The communities that survived genocide, invasions, and centuries of religious persecution now face a coordinated effort to extinguish their presence altogether. ISIS destroyed countless Assyrian artifacts, but the destruction did not end with them. Our heritage sites continue to be vandalized and destroyed, even used for military exercises by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
In Iraq, Assyrians are treated as foreigners. Political power is monopolized by Kurdish parties in the north and Iranian-backed militias in the center, both of whom install proxies in parliamentary seats legally reserved for Assyrians. Elections are manipulated, and authentic Assyrian voices are suffocated, replaced by those loyal to external agendas.
Before 2003, there were over 1.5 million Assyrians in Iraq. Today, fewer than 300,000 remain. In KRG-controlled areas, losses have exceeded those under ISIS. That is not simply just a statistic; it is a verdict.
Two weeks before ISIS began its invasion of Iraq, the KRG disarmed Assyrian and Yazidi communities, despite being fully aware of the impending threat. The Peshmerga promised protection, only to abandon us without firing a single bullet in our defense from seven posts—the Nineveh Plains, Nineveh Dam, Makhmur, Zumar, Daqooq, Sinjar, and the left side of the Tigris in Mosul. When ISIS stormed through our towns, the Kurdish forces left entire communities to be slaughtered. Long before the Iraqi Army even fled, the Peshmerga had vanished. The Peshmerga, or “those who face death,” only returned once Western forces intervened to confront ISIS, attempting to appear involved and take credit for resistance they never provided.
Our lands are stolen in broad daylight. Over 94 documented cases of land confiscation remain unresolved despite court rulings favoring Assyrians. Even when judgments are issued, Kurdish authorities do not enforce them. In some cases, false land deeds are fabricated to justify these seizures.
Assyrians who try to defend their lands are beaten, jailed, and paraded on state television, forced to publicly thank the very authorities who arrested them. These spectacles are not reconciliation. They are propaganda staged to legitimize injustice. Land grabs are not rogue incidents; they are part of a system built to erase Assyrian existence. Even the Erbil Airport and the United Nations compound stand on land that was seized from Assyrians without consent or restitution.
In 2023, the KRG officially registered Hawpa, a Kurdish neo-Nazi group whose charter explicitly calls for the extermination of Assyrians. With well over 1,000 members, and potentially more operating in secret, and meetings held with high-level Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) officials, including the Governor of Erbil, Hawpa is not a fringe movement. It is institutionally sanctioned and emboldened.
Education is used as a tool of indoctrination. Assyrian schools are forced to use curricula that glorify Kurdish nationalism and whitewash the histories of mass murderers like Simko Shikak, who orchestrated the 1918 assassination of our patriarch Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin, and Bedr Khan Beg, who brutally massacred thousands of Assyrians. Students are forced to revere those who butchered their ancestors in order to pass.
Despite repeated public claims of religious freedom, religious violations are rampant. In Sulaymaniyah, Christian-owned alcohol shops are bulldozed and replaced with mosques. The KRI now has nearly 6,000 mosques, mostly built after 1992. At the same time, the KRG constructs ornate churches to gain Western favor, using them as facades of religious freedom and tolerance, while the actual Assyrian congregation faces pressure, restrictions, and forced displacement.
Beyond this, the treatment of Assyrians reveals a brutal reality. Prostitution is aggressively pushed into Ankawa, an Assyrian neighborhood, against our will and in violation of our Christian faith and values. The KDP encourages this, then uses it to frame Christians as morally corrupt, despite the fact that we have never had authority to prevent it.
I was sexually harassed on my multiple trips to Iraq simply for being a woman. One afternoon in Ankawa, a man in a black SUV followed me through the streets with him and his three passengers yelling at me in Kurdish, making obscene sounds and gestures. In the Erbil Citadel, men use crowds to grope Assyrian women. These violations are not isolated incidents. They reflect an environment fostered by those in power, where crimes against indigenous Assyrians are committed with impunity, and where women endure an even greater degree of danger and violation.
The system in power does not protect women. It exploits and erases us. But the assault on Assyrian women extends beyond harassment and prostitution. It is encoded into law.
One of the most devastating effects of this system of erasure is codified in Iraq’s Islamization of Minors law that extends into the KRI and automatically registers children born to a single Muslim parent as Muslim, even in cases of rape and even if the other parent is Christian. During ISIS’s occupation, countless Assyrian girls, some as young as 12, were abducted, raped, and forcibly impregnated by ISIS fighters. These pregnancies were the direct result of sexual violence on sex-trafficked minors. The resulting children are then registered as Muslim solely based on the father’s religion. In the case of ISIS crimes, this means the legal system gives greater weight to the claimed identity of a terrorist rapist than to the survivor of their violence.
This strips agency from survivors and embeds the trauma into the legal system. This law establishes a dangerous precedent that legitimizes the use of rape as a tool of demographic warfare, where sexual violence not only causes lifelong psychological and physical harm but also results in the forced erasure of the Assyrian identity and the severing of ancestral lines. It is a legal continuation of genocide, rewarding rapists with demographic control and denying survivors the right to raise their children in their faith, community, and identity.
This is the type of violence carried out by a regime that parades itself as progressive by appointing females in leadership roles to impress the West while quietly perpetuating a culture that abuses and erases indigenous women. These systems do not protect us; they exploit and erase us.
One of the most telling incidents of unmasked hatred occurred during Akitu, Kha B’Nissan, the Assyrian New Year. This year, a Kurdish man purportedly affiliated with ISIS attacked Assyrians with an axe during the New Year parade while screaming ISIS slogans. An investigation was promised, a scripted apology video from the perpetrator was released, and nothing came of it, except a statement referring to us as “Kurdistanis,” a term that doesn’t define us. It was buried beneath state media broadcasts and a government-orchestrated prayer breakfast to gain Western support for their campaign for statehood.
The Erbil prayer breakfast was a public relations performance. Inside, Western delegates mingled with Kurdish officials and tokenized Christian figures, while outside, Assyrians are suffocated by checkpoints, land seizure, and the flourishing of extremist ideologies.
Too many international actors fund and praise the regimes responsible for Assyrian displacement. They downplay schoolbook glorifications of murderers. They ignore axe attacks. They remain silent as Assyrian lands are illegally seized, yet publicly embrace the very actors engineering our disappearance, praising them as champions of democracy and guardians of Christianity.
In Syria, the Assyrian crisis is even more frightening. We are caught between an extremist Islamist group and the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has a long and bloody history in extremist militancy and terror networks, including involvement in the killing of Americans. Meanwhile, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi of the Kurdish-led AANES is a former senior member of the U.S.-designated terrorist group PKK, known for recruiting and abducting children into terrorism. Under AANES control, Assyrian schools have been shut down for refusing to adopt a Kurdish nationalist curriculum. When church-run schools resisted, directors were beaten, and journalists detained.
In Beth Zalin (Qamishli), once majority-Assyrian, we are now a minority. With ISIS, the pattern here has been tragically similar to that of Iraq. As the Khabour River swelled and ISIS approached northeastern Syria, Kurdish forces retreated instead of defending them. While Assyrian towns braced for slaughter, Kurdish fighters were busy seizing properties in Qamishli. Multiple members of my family were told directly by high-ranking Kurdish officials that they “will not sacrifice themselves fighting for filthy Christians.” These betrayals were not isolated acts. They were decisions made in the service of ethnic nationalism, not solidarity, pluralism, or shared resistance to extremism.
Over 1,400 homes in the Khabour region remain illegally occupied by AANES-aligned actors. Churches have been militarized with the SDF building trenches over our churches and cemeteries, provoking relentless retaliation from brutal Turkish attacks.
We do not want war where we worship. We do not want our churches to be turned into battlefields to manufacture the illusion that one regime protects us while another regime attacks us, so our suffering can be manipulated to gain Western support at the expense of our existence. We saw the devastating effects of this with the Mar Sawa Church in Tal Tawil, Khabour, in 2022.
Leaders like David Jendo were kidnapped and assassinated by YPG militants. Others, like Elias Nasser, survived assassination attempts and were violently attacked for speaking out.
Yet, the AANES claims to represent and protect Christians. But genuine Assyrian voices are strangled. Our political parties are delegitimized. International engagement is blocked, and when it does occur, it is centered on figures like al-Sharaa rather than confronting the lived realities Assyrians face under both regimes.
When ISIS came, many Kurdish neighbors joined them. A family member of mine was beaten and sold eight times by different Kurdish ISIS factions. Out of fear, we are often unable to even name our abusers, many of whom now live freely beside us without consequence. The fear of retaliation keeps us silent, while justice remains completely absent. Disturbingly, Associated Press video footage released in 2024 shows the Kurdish-led administration even releasing captured ISIS fighters. Many were freed after their families signed a paper claiming they were reformed. There is no process, no proof, no rehabilitation—just a signature trying to erase atrocity.
Kurdish officials, backed by powerful international backers like America and Israel, are lobbying for a fully recognized “Kurdistan.” A name that quite literally means “land of the Kurds.” Not land at all. Not the land of the indigenous Assyrians. Perhaps these backers are unaware of the realities on the ground, but our situation is growing increasingly dire. The facts are available if one is willing to look beyond the curated narratives and sit with genuine Assyrian leaders. If this is how we are treated now, what happens when that regime becomes a state with no international accountability?
Assyrians are not dying out; we are being pushed out from our homelands. Our children are oppressed. Our leaders are assassinated or suffer sudden and unexplained medical issues that lead to their untimely deaths, raising serious concerns in a system where perpetrators control the means of documentation and medical care.
Genocide is not just mass killings. It is the destruction of language, the legitimizing of neo-Nazi groups and other extremist ideologies, the erasure of heritage, forced displacement, systemic assimilation, psychological terror, coerced identity erasure, denial of political representation, restriction of religious practice, medical neglect, and the silencing of advocacy. It includes the rape, sexual violence, and trafficking of our young women and girls and the forced Islamization of the children born from that violence. It is preventing the return of displaced people, stripping a population of economic opportunity, flooding their communities with drugs and prostitution to destroy social fabric, manipulating ethnic data on college applications, and enacting policies that deprive them of education free from historical revisionism. Every one of these tools is being weaponized against Assyrians today.
Those who speak out are at risk. Advocates and organizations are harassed, surveilled, and threatened. We are falsely labeled “anti-Kurd” for defending our rights. But we do not hate Kurds. We want to live in peace with our neighbors. Kurds also suffer under this regime, as KRG authorities have repeatedly infringed on the rights to free expression and press freedom through harassment, violent attacks, and arbitrary arrests of journalists.
We want peace and coexistence, but we cannot survive under a system built to erase us. When Assyrians show evidence of violence, we are harassed by Kurdish nationalist accounts, some of which are followed by well-known religious freedom advocates. Interestingly enough, these same advocates block us for speaking the truth.
The world is watching the dismantling of one of earth’s oldest civilizations. A nation that gave the world writing, law, and cities is being written out of its own story.
The Kurdish nationalist project, backed by powerful global actors, is not a project of inclusion; it’s a machine of conquest at all costs. Despite what it claims, it does not tolerate plurality. It was never meant to include us. It has erased us from policy, from education, from security, and from governance. We are the indigenous people of these lands, yet we are erased from the structures that claim authority over them. A state built on our bones cannot coexist with us still breathing.
If the world fails to support a free Assyria through the implementation of Article 125 for a Nineveh Governorate and support self-administration in Hasakeh, Syria, it will mark the final chapter of our existence in our ancestral homeland. Our extinction will not be by natural decline, but by coordinated neglect and the silence of humanity.
Amplify genuine Assyrian voices and support Assyrian organizations. Donate to the Assyrian Aid Society (Iraq) and Ashour Foundation for Relief and Development (Syria).
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports one dead and two others wounded in the Israeli attack on a vehicle.
The Israeli army has again bombed Syria, claiming it killed a Hamas member during an air strike in the south of the country, in the latest in its series of attacks on Syria in the wake of former President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster last December.
In a statement on Telegram on Sunday morning, the Israeli army said it had struck the alleged Hamas member in the Mazraat Beit Jin area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that one person was killed and two others were wounded in the Israeli attack targeting a vehicle in the town near the United Nations-patrolled buffer zone.
Hamas has not yet commented on the death of the alleged member.
The observatory says Israel has carried out 61 attacks – 51 by air and 10 by ground – in Syria so far this year.
Two rockets launched from Syria targeted Israel earlier this week, a first since the fall of al-Assad.
Two groups claimed responsibility for the attack.
The first group, named the “Martyr Mohammed Deif Brigades”, is a little-known group named after the Hamas military commander who was killed last year. A second little-known group, the “Islamic Resistance Front in Syria”, called for action against Israel from southern Syria a few months ago.
Israel struck southern Syria shortly afterwards, with Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz saying that he was holding Syria “directly responsible”.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani condemned Israel’s attacks and called them “coordinated provocations aimed at undermining Syria’s progress and stability”.
“These actions create an opening for outlawed groups to exploit the resulting chaos,” he said, adding, “Syria has made its intentions clear: we are not seeking war, but rather reconstruction”.
Syria and Israel had recently engaged in indirect talks to ease tensions, a significant development in relations between states that have been on opposite sides of conflicts in the Middle East for decades.
But Israel has relentlessly waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria’s military infrastructure. It has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and taken more territory in the aftermath of al-Assad’s removal, citing lingering concerns over the country’s new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who it dismisses as a “jihadist.”
Syria’s new government has taken several major steps towards international acceptance after the United States and European Union lifted sanctions on the country last month, giving a nation devastated by nearly 14 years of civil war a lifeline to recovery.
AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race.
Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations – his nerves started to get the better of him.
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But when he was introduced to Begum – who left the UK aged 15 to join ISIS a decade ago in 2015 – he was taken aback.
“She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful,” Andrew told The Sun.
Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East London, for the first of six times at the Al-Roj camp in Syria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone.
He initially felt sorry for Begum, then 21, and became a close confidant of the Jihadi bride – even securing a Bafta-nominated live interview with her for Good Morning Britain.
In less than two years his view of Begum – accused of serving in the feared IS “morality police” and helping make suicide vests – completely changed, however.
He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.
Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a “thin, ill-looking, sad character” who was “very apologetic”.
“We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head,” he said.
“After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she’d go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink.
“Then I didn’t want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye – I thought I’d never see her again.
“I said, ‘Can I shake your hand?’ and she asked for a hug.
“So she gave me a hug and started to cry.”
Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult.
“At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere,” he said.
I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it
Andrew Drury
“I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she’d been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody.
“She said she’d made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she’d done.
“She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK.
“And I felt sorry for her, I’ve got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance.”
Andrew – whose book Trip Hazard details his experience in dangerous areas – returned to the camp months later after GMB asked for his help to get an interview with Begum.
The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a “subtle change” in the former Brit.
Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more “Western” makeover – ditching her hijab and abaya.
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“She had changed as a character,” Andrew said.
“She was more short. She wasn’t this nervous-cry sort of character.
“She looked assured, and she didn’t seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions.”
Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview “rehearsing” with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards.
He added: “Her friends said they’d had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say.
“They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her.”
Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.
Andrew – who said he had formed a “bond” with Begum – told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children.
The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima’s plight.
“One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face,” he recalled.
“I said, ‘What’s that?’ and she said, ‘Oh we used to like baking cakes’.
“And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died.
“She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn’t shared them before she said.”
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But it was Begum’s attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him – and began to shatter their relationship.
“I said to her, ‘Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you’re okay’,” he said.
“She messaged back and said, ‘Oh, they don’t bother me anymore. That doesn’t make me sad’.
“I thought, was that because she’s been traumatised so badly?
“But I think she is that hard. I think she’s calculated.
“I actually don’t think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it.”
After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her – including clothes.
The dad said he felt “at a crossroads” about whether to take what she wanted.
“I felt bad and guilty that I’d be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes,” he said.
“But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark.
“We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it’s not their fault.”
But then Begum’s requests started turning into demands, Andrew said.
“The messages continued,” he added.
Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan
A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture – the message is clear, “You are not welcome here”.
Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream – while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb.
Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria – the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad.
It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult.
And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps.
Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: “The reality is – they are not changing. This is not a normal camp – this a bomb.”
He went on: “They are saying it was ISIS who ‘liberated’ Damascus – and soon they will be coming here.”
“And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere.”
The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children.
At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them – including infamous jihadi bride Shamima Begum, the 25-year-old from London.
“This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct.”
Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books – Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer – which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis.
Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence.
He added: “What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp – where they were legally held.
“That’s how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone.
“She’d done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine.
“She’d become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She’d read all the newspaper articles.”
Andrew – who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew – took some clothes for Begum with him.
I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive
Andrew Drury
But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours.
“I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her,” Andrew said.
“It was a little boy’s birthday, and I felt so sorry for him.
“He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It’s not fair for these kids.
“I didn’t take the books Shamima wanted because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim.
“She opened the clothes, said she didn’t like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp.
“She said, ‘I didn’t really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted’. So she became quite aggressive in her nature.”
ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her British citizenship on February 20, 2019.
Begum’s attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl’s story.
It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed.
“Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her,” he said.
“She was like a child that was pretending they were ill.
“So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone.
“It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her.
“I could see things in her I didn’t like. I didn’t trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive.
“I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests
“Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria.
“So I didn’t trust her.”
Andrew’s last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange.
She accused Andrew of “selling her out”, to which he shot back: “You’ve sold your country out.”
Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship.
She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system.
Andrew said: “I think she’s a danger for what she stood for, and I don’t think she could ever come back.
“I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people.”
The Rukban displacement camp, which opened and was cut off in the height of the civil war in 2014, housed thousands of people.
The notorious Rukban displacement camp in the Syrian desert, a dark emblem of the country’s civil war, has closed, with the last remaining families returning to their hometowns.
Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa said on Saturday on X that with the dismantlement of the camp, “a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime’s war machine comes to a close”.
“Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert,” he added.
The camp, established in 2014 at the height of the country’s ruinous civil war, was built in a deconfliction zone controlled by the United States-led coalition forces fighting against ISIL (ISIS).
The camp was used to house those fleeing ISIL fighters and bombardment by the then-government of President Bashar al-Assad, seeking refuge and hoping to eventually cross the border into Jordan.
But al-Assad’s regime rarely allowed aid to enter the camp as neighbouring countries also blocked access to the area, rendering Rukban isolated for years under a punishing siege.
About 8,000 people lived in the camp, staying in mud-brick houses with food and basic goods smuggled in at high prices.
But after al-Assad was toppled following a lightning offensive led by the current president of Syria’s interim government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in December, families began leaving the camp and returning home.
Al-Sharaa has promised to unite Syria following the fall of al-Assad and rebuild the country at home and rejoin the international fold abroad.
Last month, al-Sharaa met with world leaders, including United States President Donald Trump, who announced that sanctions on Syria would be removed in a decision that would allow the country a “chance at greatness”. The European Union followed suit and also lifted sanctions. Both moves have given Syria a critical lifeline to economic recovery after nearly 14 years of war and economic devastation.
Yasmine al-Salah, who returned to her home after nine years of displacement in the Rukban camp and marked the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, told The Associated Press news agency on Friday that her feelings are a “happiness that cannot be described”.
“Even though our house is destroyed, and we have no money, and we are hungry, and we have debts, and my husband is old and can’t work, and I have kids – still, it’s a castle in my eyes,” al-Salah said.
Her home in the town of al-Qaryatan in the eastern part of the Homs province was damaged during the war.
Syrian Minister for Emergency Situations and Disasters Raed al-Saleh said on X said the camp’s closure marks “the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people”.
“We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety,” he added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their homes since al-Assad’s fall.
IAEA head Grossi describes the new government as ‘committed to opening up to the world, to international cooperation’.
Syria’s new government has agreed to give inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to suspected former nuclear sites immediately, according to the agency’s chief, as Damascus makes further inroads to rejoining the international fold.
Rafael Grossi, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog’s director-general, was speaking Wednesday to The Associated Press news agency in Damascus, where he met with President Ahmed al-Sharaa and other officials.
The visit was a key part of the IAEA’s efforts to restore access to sites associated with Syria’s nuclear programme since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
The agency’s aim is “to bring total clarity over certain activities that took place in the past that were, in the judgement of the agency, probably related to nuclear weapons”, Grossi said. He described the new government as “committed to opening up to the world, to international cooperation” and said he is hopeful of finishing the inspection process within months.
Grossi’s visit also marks another step towards international acceptance of Syria’s new government after the United States and European Union lifted sanctions on the country last month. Israel has taken an opposite approach to its Western allies, launching more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria over the past six months, despite the two countries holding indirect talks in early May.
An IAEA team visited some sites of interest last year. Syria under al-Assad is believed to have operated an extensive clandestine nuclear programme, which included an undeclared nuclear reactor built by North Korea in eastern Deir ez-Zor province.
The IAEA described the reactor as being “not configured to produce electricity” — raising the concern that Damascus sought a nuclear weapon there by producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The reactor site only became public knowledge after Israel, the region’s only nuclear power, launched air strikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.
Grossi said inspectors plan to return to the reactor in Deir az Zor and three other related sites. Other sites under IAEA safeguards include a miniature neutron source reactor in Damascus and a facility in Homs that can process yellow-cake uranium.
While there are no indications that there have been releases of radiation from the sites, Grossi said, the watchdog is concerned that “enriched uranium can be lying somewhere and could be reused, could be smuggled, could be trafficked”.
He said al-Sharaa had shown a “very positive disposition to talk to us and to allow us to carry out the activities we need to”.
Grossi revealed that the IAEA is also prepared to transfer equipment for nuclear medicine and help rebuild the radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and oncology infrastructure in a health system severely weakened by nearly 14 years of civil war.
“And the president has expressed to me he’s interested in exploring, in the future, nuclear energy as well,” Grossi added.
A number of other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan, are pursuing nuclear energy in some form.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is resurrecting the travel ban policy from his first term, signing a proclamation Wednesday night preventing people from a dozen countries from entering the United States.
The countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
In addition to the ban, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday Eastern time, there will be heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
“I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people,” Trump said in his proclamation.
The list results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to compile a report on “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk.
During his first term, Trump issued an executive order in January 2017 banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency. Travelers from those nations were either barred from getting on their flights to the U.S. or detained at U.S. airports after they landed. They included students and faculty as well as businesspeople, tourists and people visiting friends and family.
The order, often referred to as the “Muslim ban” or the “travel ban,” was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
The ban affected various categories of travelers and immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya, plus North Koreans and some Venezuelan government officials and their families.
Trump and others have defended the initial ban on national security grounds, arguing it was aimed at protecting the country and not founded on anti-Muslim bias. However, the president had called for an explicit ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House.
Megerian and Amiri write for the Associated Press.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since December 2024, averaging one every three to four days.
The Israeli military says it shelled targets in Syria in response to a pair of projectiles that fell in open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday.
Since December 10, 2024, just two days after the stunning collapse of more than 53 years of the al-Assad family, Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria’s military infrastructure, including major airports, air defence facilities, fighter jets and other strategic infrastructure.
Over the past six months, Israeli forces have launched more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging an assault roughly every three to four days, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED).
The map below shows the ACLED-recorded Israeli attacks between December 8 and May 30.
The bulk of the Israeli attacks have been concentrated in the southern Syrian governorates of Deraa, Damascus and Quneitra, which account for nearly 60 percent of all recorded Israeli attacks.
In the immediate aftermath of al-Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops advanced into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, including areas within the United Nations-monitored demilitarised zone, violating the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
The incursion drew widespread international criticism. The UN, along with several Arab nations, condemned Israel’s actions as breaches of international law and violations of Syria’s sovereignty.
Despite these condemnations, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in February that Israeli forces would remain in the area indefinitely to “protect Israeli citizens” and “prevent hostile entities from gaining a foothold” near the border.
Satellite imagery captured in February and analysed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit showed six military bases were being constructed in the UN-supervised buffer zone on the border with Syria.
Since taking power following the overthrow of al-Assad, President Ahmed al-Sharaa has consistently stated that his government seeks no conflict with Israel and will not permit Syria to be used by foreign actors to launch attacks.
He has condemned Israel’s continuing strikes on Syrian territory and its gradual expansion beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights.
While Israel’s air attacks on Syria have escalated in recent months, Israel has been attacking targets in Syria for years.
ACLED data collected since January 2017 shows how Israeli attacks have been steadily increasing.
The animated chart below shows the frequency of Israeli attacks from January 2017 to May 2025.
Israeli military says it shelled targets in Syria in response to a pair of projectile launches.
Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned an Israeli strike on the Syrian province of Deraa, saying that it caused “significant human and material losses”, the state news agency SANA reports.
The strike came after the Israeli military said that two projectiles had crossed from Syria towards Israel on Tuesday, and fell in open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, though the Syrian Foreign Ministry said these were “reports that have not been verified yet”.
The ministry reiterated that Syria has not and would not pose a threat to any party in the region.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the projectiles.
“We believe that there are many parties that may seek to destabilise the region to achieve their own interests,” the ministry added.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he held Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible for the projectiles.
“We consider the president of Syria directly responsible for any threat and fire towards the State of Israel, and a full response will come soon,” Katz said.
Syria and Israel have recently engaged in indirect talks to ease tensions, a significant development in relations between states that have been on opposite sides of the conflict in the Middle East for decades.
Several Arab and Palestinian media outlets circulated a claim of responsibility from a little-known group named the Muhammad Deif Brigades, an apparent reference to Hamas’s military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024.
The statement from the group could not be independently verified.
The Israeli army said it attacked southern Syria with artillery fire after the projectiles launched at Israel.
Residents said that Israeli mortars were striking the Wadi Yarmouk area, west of Deraa province, near the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The area has witnessed increased tensions in recent weeks, including reported Israeli military incursions into nearby villages, where residents have reportedly been barred from sowing their crops.
Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria’s military infrastructure. It has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and taken more territory in the aftermath of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s removal in December, citing lingering concerns over the past of the country’s new government.
Around the same time that Israel reported the projectiles from Syria, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel’s Jaffa with a ballistic missile. The group has been launching attacks against Israel in what they say is in support of Palestinians during the Israeli war in Gaza.
US envoy says Syria strategy ‘will not be like the last 100 years’ as troops pull out.
The United States will shut down most of its military bases in Syria, consolidating operations to a single location, as part of a policy overhaul announced by its new special envoy.
Thomas Barrack, appointed by President Donald Trump last month as the US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, said the shift marks a rejection of Washington’s past century of failed approaches in Syria.
In an interview with the Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday, Barrack said the troop drawdown and base closures reflect a strategic recalibration.
“What I can assure you is that our current Syria policy will not be close to the Syria policy of the last 100 years because none of these have worked,” he said.
US forces are expected to withdraw from seven of eight bases, including those in Deir Az Zor province in eastern Syria, with remaining operations centred in Hasakah in the northeast.
Two security sources told the Reuters news agency that US military hardware and personnel have already started relocating. “All troops are being pulled from Deir Az Zor,” one source told Reuters in April.
A US Department of State official later said troop levels would be adjusted “if and when appropriate”, depending on operational demands.
Roughly 2,000 American soldiers remain in Syria, largely embedded with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key partner in the US-led campaign against ISIL (ISIS).
The SDF, dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia, has been a longstanding point of contention with NATO ally Turkiye, which views it as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK, which recently announced its disbandment, fought a decades-long armed rebellion against the Turkish state.
Barrack called the SDF “a very important factor” for the US Congress, stressing that integrating the group into Syria’s national army is now a priority. “Everyone needs to be reasonable in their expectations,” he said.
Since the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, international engagement with Damascus has resumed under new President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Barrack recently raised the US flag over the ambassador’s residence in Damascus for the first time since 2012.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised the SDF last week, accusing it of “stalling tactics” despite its agreement to join the Syrian armed forces.
June 3 (UPI) — A 49-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty to charges of fighting U.S.-led coalition forces as an Islamic State militant has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
Lirim Sylejmani was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in December to charges of receiving military training from ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
“The defendant will spend a decade in prison thinking about the betrayal to this country,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement.
Sylejmani and his family were detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria on Feb. 27, 2019, as coalition fighters made their final advances on ISIS’ last caliphate in the country, which fell the next month.
He was then transferred to U.S. law enforcement on Sept. 15 the following year to face charges in the United States.
According to prosecutors, Sylejmani worked with ISIS from November 2015, when he moved from Kosovo to Syria to join the militant group, to the day of his capture.
Prosecutors said he changed his name to Abu Sulayman al-Kosovi and trained alongside other recruits to be an ISIS soldier following his arrival in the Middle Eastern country. His training included instruction on using AK-47 rifles, PK machine guns, M-16 rifles and grenades.
The Justice Department said he fought against the Syrian Democratic Forces and was wounded in battle, having been hit by shrapnel in the leg. Because of the injury, he was reassigned to a different battalion in the fall of 2017. Prosecutors said he was paid for his services by ISIS.
After being captured, Sylejmani spoke with various media outlets, telling NPR in late 2019 that he and his family arrived in Syria via Canada. He said ISIS promised them free housing, electricity and water, but instead, they “starved” living under the caliphate.
“Anyone thinking that ISIS is the answer to their questions, best think again,” Pirro said. “We will go to any lengths to root out subversive individuals who want to overthrow the government and harm its citizens.”
ISIS forces in a remote region in southern Syria claimed responsibility for two bombings targeting vehicles carrying soldiers and others on Wednesday and Thursday. Photo by Fayyaz Ahmad/EPA-EFE
May 31 (UPI) — The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in a remote region in southern Syria on Wednesday and Thursday.
The twin bombings mark the first time ISIS has attacked the new Syrian government that took power in December and occurred in the remote Sweida Province.
ISIS posted two online statements on Thursday claiming responsibility for the bombings that killed and wounded Syrian soldiers and militia members who are allied with the Syrian government, The New York Times reported.
An attack occurred on Wednesday and struck a Syrian Army reconnaissance group that was tracking ISIS activities in the remote desert area, CNN reported.
Those wounded in that attack are members of the Syrian Army’s 70th Division, and the man who died was assisting the soldiers, according to The New York Times.
ISIS used a remote-controlled land mine to target the vehicle in which they were traveling, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced.
That attack occurred in the eastern portion of the Sweida Province and was the first attack carried out by ISIS and targeting forces allied with the new Syrian government.
A second bombing occurred on Thursday in the same region, according to news reports and ISIS.
ISIS said it killed and injured seven soldiers for the “apostate Syrian regime” by using an explosive device on a road in the Talul al Safa area in the Suwayda province in southern Syria, Al Jazeera reported.
Both attacks occurred near Sweida in southern Syria, which is a mountainous desert area in which ISIS has operated for many years.
Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army has commented on either bombing.
The United States backs the Free Syrian Army, which operates in the Sweida region’s al Tanf Deconfliction Zone that is located near Syria’s borders with Jordan.
The United States maintains a small outpost in the area.
ISIS also has operated in the area for a long time due to its “extremely rugged and dangerous” terrain, CNN reported.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he he was lifting “crippling” U.S. sanctions on Syria originally imposed to block flows of money into Syria, including aid, to put pressure on the brutal regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
He met with the country’s transitional leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May14.
Al-Sharaa, who was appointed president in January, has promised to hold elections once a new constitution is in place in around four years.