1000’s of Syrians have a good time fall of Assad in Damascus; Blinken makes shock Iraq go to for talks – because it occurred

Right here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key occasions:

• 1000’s of Syrians have taken to the streets in celebration following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. On Friday, Agence-France Presse reported that households with youngsters, in addition to armed and uniformed Islamist fighters gathered in celebration of the primary Friday prayers in Damascus following Assad’s overthrow.

• Throughout US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s journey to Iraq, the US’s prime diplomat warned in opposition to the resurgence of ISIS, additionally recognized by the Arabic acronym Daesh. “We are determined to make sure that Daesh cannot re-emerge,” Blinken stated.

• The European Union is looking for set up diplomatic contact “soon” with with Syria’s new management, which is headed by the Islamist group Hayat Tahiri al-Sham (HTS), Agence France-Presse stories. Chatting with the AFP, a high-ranking European Union official stated, “What we are now thinking is to establish contacts, to pass messages about our expectations.” The official added that the outreach can be at “working level.”

• The Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross (ICRC) has launched two new phone hotlines in hopes of serving to Syrians reunite with family members who’ve been lacking for years. Since Syria’s civil battle started greater than 13 years in the past, the ICRC stated it has acquired round 35,000 stories of lacking folks.

• Syria’s new interim authorities have requested the United Nations refugee company to stay within the nation and indicated a willingness to guard them, UNHCR stated Friday. “The needs are absolutely huge,” Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s consultant in Syria, instructed reporters. The company had had “some contact with the interim authorities”, he stated, including: “the initial signals that they are sending us are constructive”.

• The European Fee stated it might launch an “air bridge” operation geared toward delivering an preliminary 50 tonnes of well being provides to Syria through neighbouring Turkey within the coming days. An additional 46 tonnes of aid provides will likely be trucked from a stockpile in Denmark for distribution in Syria by Unicef and the World Well being Group.

• Russia has additionally reportedly established direct contact with the political committee of Syria’s Islamist insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in line with the Interfax information company, which quoted Russia’s deputy overseas minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. In feedback to reporters, Bogdanov reportedly stated Moscow goals to take care of its navy bases in Syria.

Listed here are some photographs coming by way of the newswires from Syria the place 1000’s of Syrians are celebrating the primary Friday prayer following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad:

Males, girls and youngsters gathered at Umayyad Mosque to have a good time the primary Friday prayers because the overthrow of the previous president Bashar al-Assad, later streaming into the town streets and squares.

The mass gathering was harking back to the early days of the 2011 rebellion, when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers in Syrian cities – although by no means in Damascus, lengthy a stronghold of the Assad clan.

1000’s of Syrians have taken to the streets in celebration following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, Agence-France Presse reported that households with youngsters, in addition to armed and uniformed Islamist fighters gathered in celebration of the primary Friday prayers in Damascus following Assad’s overthrow.

It added that former insurgent fighters allowed girls and youngsters to pose with their assault rifles for celebratory pictures.

Chatting with Agence France-Presse, 38-year outdated Nour Thi al-Ghina stated: “We are gathering because we’re happy Syria has been freed, we’re happy to have been liberated from the prison in which we lived.”

In the meantime, 30-year outdated insurgent fither Mohammed Shobek who got here to Damascus alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, stated: “We’ve finished the war in Syria and started praying for peace, we started carrying flowers, we started building this country and building it hand in hand.”

All through Damascus, folks chanted: “One, one, one, the Syrian people is one!”

Throughout US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s journey to Iraq, the US’s prime diplomat warned in opposition to the resurgence of ISIS, additionally recognized by the Arabic acronym Daesh.

“We are determined to make sure that Daesh cannot re-emerge,” Blinken stated.

“The United States [and] Iraq, together had tremendous success in taking away the territorial caliphate that Daesh had created years ago,” he added.

Blinken went on to say additionally reaffirm Iraqi sovereignty, saying, “I think this is a moment as well for Iraq to reinforce its own sovereignty as well as its stability, security and success going forward.”

The European Union is looking for set up diplomatic contact “soon” with with Syria’s new management, which is headed by the Islamist group Hayat Tahiri al-Sham (HTS), Agence France-Presse stories.

Chatting with the AFP following the ousting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a high-ranking European Union official stated, “What we are now thinking is to establish contacts, to pass messages about our expectations.” The official added that the outreach can be at “working level.”

Syrian rebels have revealed a year-long plot that introduced down Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The Guardian’s William Christou stories from Jableh, Syria:

Syrian rebels started planning the navy assault that toppled the Assad regime a 12 months in the past, in a extremely disciplined operation during which a brand new drone unit was deployed and the place there was shut coordination between opposition teams across the nation, the highest navy commander of the primary insurgent group has revealed.

In his first interview with overseas media because the fall of Assad’s 54-year-rule, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, the top of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) navy wing, spoke about how his group, which was based mostly within the nation’s north-west, communicated with rebels within the south to create a unified battle room with the aim of in the end surrounding Damascus from each instructions.

He stated that although the planning for the operation to oust al-Assad, dubbed “deterring aggression”, had began a 12 months in the past, the group had been getting ready for years.

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Information company AFP has spoken to a few of those that are out celebrating immediately in Syria, right here’s a number of what they heard:

Nour Thi al-Ghina, 38 years outdated, in Damascus:

We’re gathering as a result of we’re comfortable Syria has been freed, we’re comfortable to have been liberated from the jail during which we lived.

That is the primary time we have now converged in such large numbers and the primary time we’re seeing such an occasion. We by no means anticipated this to occur.”

Amani Zanhur, a 42-year-old professor of laptop engineering:

“There can be nothing worse than what was. We cannot fear the situation.”

Amina Maarawi, 42:

“Let’s not discuss details that might separate us now and focus only on what brings us together: our hatred for Bashar al-Assad.”

Mohammed al-Saad, 32, a member of HTS who had travelled with colleagues from Idlib province to assist arrange the brand new authorities:

“We’ve been waiting 13 years for this. We’ve come to get work started.”

Ukraine’s agriculture minister, Vitaliy Koval, has instructed Reuters that Kyiv is prepared and able to provide grain to Syria.

Russian and Syrian sources stated earlier that Russian wheat provides to Syria had been suspended amid fee delays and uncertainty over how relations between Damascus and Moscow would play out following the ousting of the Assad regime.

Ukraine’s exports have been buffeted by Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which severely decreased shipments through the Black Sea. Ukraine has since damaged a de facto sea blockade and revived exports from its southern ports of Odesa.

Antony Blinken has stopped in Iraq as he seeks to rally help throughout the Center East for a peaceable political transition in Syria.

Blinken stated he instructed the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, of “our commitment to working with Iraq on security and always working for Iraq’s sovereignty, to make sure that that is strengthened and preserved”.

He added: “I think this is a moment as well for Iraq to reinforce its own sovereignty as well as its stability, security and success going forward.”

The US maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 extra in Syria as a part of a marketing campaign to forestall the resurgence of the Islamic State.

Iraq’s authorities has urged respect for the “free will” of all Syrians and the nation’s territorial integrity after Assad’s fall.

The deposed Syrian chief hailed from a rival faction of the Baath occasion of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, ousted in a 2003 US-led invasion.

The Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross (ICRC) has launched two new phone hotlines in hopes of serving to Syrians reunite with family members who’ve been lacking for years.

Since Syria’s civil battle started greater than 13 years in the past, the ICRC stated it has acquired round 35,000 stories of lacking folks.

Stephan Sakalian, the top of ICRC’s Syria delegation, instructed reporters that one hotline would cater to prisoners and the opposite was for these looking for their lacking family members.

“We can provide them with mental health and psychosocial support … we can even help them financially if they need to be reunited,” he instructed a press briefing, in line with Reuters.

In current days, unimaginable tales have emerged of prisoners, frail and emaciated, being freed and greeted by weeping relations who had no thought they have been nonetheless alive.

Sakalian, nonetheless, sought to mood expectations. “Let’s make no mistake: giving answers to people will take weeks, months and maybe years, given the amount of information to process,” he stated. “The work is tremendous.”

Quickly after the Assad regime was toppled, some conservative and far-right politicians in Germany have been fast to recommend that Syrians might now return residence.

However the prospect has left German hospitals and different employers petrified of employee shortages.

A examine revealed Friday by Germany’s Institute for Employment Analysis has backed this concern, noting that round 287,000 Syrian nationals are employed in Germany.

Massive-scale returns “could have noticeable regional and sector-specific effects – especially in those sectors, fields of activity and regions that are already suffering from a shortage of labour,” Yuliya Kosyakova, a researcher with the institute, instructed AFP.

Well being care suppliers have warned that greater than 5,000 Syrian docs work in German medical services, typically in rural areas, and that they and different workers can be laborious to exchange.

With many Syrians additionally employed as care employees, their departure can be a “serious blow for elderly care”, the director of the Nursing employers’ affiliation, Isabell Halletz, instructed information channel NTV.

Listed here are the most recent pictures from throughout Syria as folks have a good time the autumn of the Assad regime:

Syrians converged on a landmark Damascus mosque for Friday prayers, waving opposition flags and chanting – all scenes that may have been unimaginable throughout the Assad regime.

On the capital’s famed Umayyad Mosque, males, girls and youngsters gathered to have a good time on the primary Friday prayers since Assad’s ouster, later streaming into the town streets and squares, AFP reported.

The scenes have been harking back to the early days of the 2011 rebellion, when pro-democracy protesters in Syrian cities would take to the streets after Friday prayers – however by no means in Damascus, lengthy a stronghold of the Assad clan.

On Friday, exhilarated crowds chanted “One, one, one, the Syrian people are one!”

Some held the Syrian independence flag, utilized by the opposition because the rebellion started, whereas dozens of road distributors milled across the mosque, looking for to promote the three-star flags.