withdrawal

The Syrian military says it is advancing to secure territories formerly controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo governorate.

On Saturday, government troops entered Deir Hafer, approximately 50km (30 miles) east of Aleppo city, following the SDF’s announcement of a planned withdrawal from their strongholds beginning early in the morning.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) announced via X on Friday that the group would pull back from contact lines east of Aleppo at 7am local time (04:00 GMT) on Saturday and relocate its forces to areas east of the Euphrates River, responding to requests from allied nations and mediators.

Syria’s Ministry of Defence expressed support for the SDF’s withdrawal decision, stating it would monitor the complete implementation, including the removal of fighters and equipment, before deploying Syrian military forces to assert state authority in the vacated regions.

Previously, Syrian military officials reported they had initiated shelling operations against bases belonging to a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and against former regime elements allied with the SDF in Deir Hafer.

The United States, which aims to establish lasting peace in Syria to enhance broader Middle East stability and prevent ISIL (ISIS) resurgence, has encouraged both parties to avoid confrontation and resume negotiations, according to Syrian officials and diplomatic sources.

Both sides participated in extensive talks throughout last year, working towards integrating Kurdish-administered military and civilian institutions into Syrian state structures by the end of 2025, with both repeatedly emphasising their preference for diplomatic solutions.

Cloudlflare CEO threatens withdrawal of Milano-Cortina Olympics funding following fine by Italian communications watchdog.

United States internet company Cloudflare has threatened to pull its services in Italy, including for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, after being fined 14 million euros ($16m) for failing to tackle online piracy.

Italy’s independent communications watchdog, Agcom, announced the fine on Thursday for “ongoing violation of the anti-piracy law”, notably failing to disable content flagged under its “Piracy Shield” system.

The system allows rightsholders of livestreamed events to report pirated content through an automated platform, with providers required to block the content within 30 minutes.

In a lengthy post on X late Friday, Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince condemned what he said was a “scheme to censor the internet”.

He said the system had “no judicial oversight”, no appeal process and no transparency, and required services to block content not just in Italy, but globally.

Cloudflare had already launched legal challenges against the scheme and would now fight the fine, which he called “unjust”.

He also said his company was considering “discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber-security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics”.

Prince said he would be discussing the issue with US officials in Washington, DC, next week and would then head to Lausanne for talks with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is organising the February 6-22 Winter Games in northern Italy.

He also warned his company could discontinue its free cybersecurity services for Italy-based users, remove all servers from Italian cities and scrap plans to invest in the country.

Cloudflare is a platform that provides services including security, traffic management and optimisation for websites and applications.

It claims to manage about 20 percent of global internet traffic.

Agcom says that since its adoption in February 2024, Piracy Shield has led to the disabling of at least 65,000 fully-qualified domain names (FQDN) and approximately 14,000 IP addresses.