Syrian insurgent chief to publish listing of Assad regime officers answerable for ‘torture’ – Center East disaster dwell

The primary western journalist to realize entry to Sednaya jail was the Guardian’s William Christou, and he spoke to Archie Bland for this morning’s First Version publication. He instructed Bland:

I didn’t know precisely what to anticipate. But it surely seemed medieval. There have been cages, and I noticed a prosthetic leg mendacity on the ground, tiny cramped cells, holes knocked into the partitions the place prisoners had been crammed, and soiled blankets.

It was actually a surreal place to be in. It seemed prefer it was designed to make you are feeling such as you didn’t exist: all of the partitions had been painted white, every thing seemed the identical.

We tried to get out for an hour. We received caught getting in circles, as a result of every thing seemed the identical. So I can solely think about, in case you’re there for many years, that your grip on actuality have to be gone.

You possibly can learn extra of Christou’s dialog with Bland right here: Tuesday briefing – What occurred when the doorways of Syria’s most infamous jail had been lastly opened

A small demonstration is being held in Tel Aviv exterior the courtroom the place later at the moment Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipated to offer testimony in his legal corruption trial.

Jeremy Sharon reviews for the Instances of Israel:

Protesters accuse Netanyahu of refusing to achieve a hostage deal for political functions, and of continuous the conflict to advance the reason for his ultranationalist political allies who want to construct Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Contained in the courthouse, a plethora of media shops, together with overseas press, have arrange broadcast stations forward of the unprecedented spectacle of a sitting prime minister taking the witness stand in his personal legal trial.

There’s additionally an illustration in help of Netanyahu.

Far-right inside safety minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has additionally arrived on the courtroom.

In a press release, Israel’s navy has shared the findings of an investigation into why a drone believed to have been launched from Yemen was in a position to make it to Yavne on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, the place it struck a constructing.

It mentioned the drone “was initially identified as a suspicious aerial target” but it surely was “adjacent to additional aircrafts that were not classified as hostile.”

The assertion continued:

A helicopter and defence techniques had been ready to intercept the plane. The plane was not intercepted as a result of chance that it was a civilian plane in addition to as a result of lack of steady surveillance. Furthermore, it was decided that the failure to activate sirens was an error that occurred on account of the truth that the plane was not categorised as hostile.

Reunited households have a good time as Syrian rebels return dwelling

William Christou

William Christou is reporting for the Guardian from jap Ghouta, Syria.

This time, the doorways of the Syrian state broadcaster had been held open for Mohammed Abu al-Zaid.

The insurgent commander strode into the constructing, camo-clad and with a pistol on his hip, and greeted the channel’s workers. The nice and cozy welcome was a far cry from his entrance on Sunday morning, when he stormed the constructing and introduced dwell on air that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had formally fallen.

“I hadn’t planned it; I decided in the moments before that I would do it,” Zaid, a commander of the Southern Operations Room, mentioned on Monday, sitting within the anchor seat of the state broadcaster’s studio.

Behind him was the three-starred flag of the Syrian opposition, which he had put rather than the outdated Assad authorities flag.

He recounted the story to his uncle, Abu Bilal, a insurgent fighter who had returned to Damascus from the northern entrance just some hours earlier than.

“You know, we didn’t have that much time to watch the news, we’ve been a bit busy,” Bilal mentioned as he watched a video of his nephew asserting the autumn of the 54-year lengthy Assad regime on his telephone.

Bilal was one among hundreds of fighters and displaced individuals who returned to Damascus and its countryside on Monday, having completed combating on the frontlines in opposition to the Syrian military in Homs, central Syria, two days earlier.

For years, the practically 4.5 million individuals – lots of them displaced – residing in northwest Syria had been unable to see their household in government-held territory.

Fighters got here half a dozen at a time, loaded at the back of lorries. The fighters’ journey south had been accompanied by automobiles racing alongside them, honking and waving the Syrian revolutionary flag.

Palestinian information company Wafa reviews that seven Palestinians have been killed and “a number of wounded” after an Israeli strike on a home within the Nuseirat refugee camp within the central Gaza Strip.

The claims haven’t been independently verified.

Reuters has a fast snap that Israel’s floor invasion into Syria has now reached about 25km (15 miles) south-west of Damascus.

Reporting for Al Jazeera from Damascus, Resul Serdar Atas writes that “the repeated Israeli attacks in and around Damascus and other regions create a huge challenge for the opposition in Syria to preserve the state apparatus and secure a smooth transition.”

Yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, claimed in a letter to the worldwide physique that Israel’s actions had been “limited and temporary measures” and that “Israel is not intervening in the ongoing conflict between Syrian armed groups.”

Iran has described Israel’s invasion into Syrian territory, launched from the Golan Heights which Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981, as a “violation”.

The Syrian Civil Protection has ended its seek for potential remaining detainees on the notorious Sednaya jail, including that it had not uncovered any “evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements”.

In a press release, the group often known as the White Helmets mentioned:

Specialised groups from The White Helmets carried out a radical search of all sections, services, basements, courtyards, and surrounding areas of the jail. These operations had been carried out with the help of people acquainted with the jail and its format. Nonetheless, no proof of undiscovered secret cells or basements was discovered.

The operation concerned 5 groups, together with two K9 (skilled police canine) items. The groups inspected all entrances, exits, air flow shafts, sewage techniques, water pipes, electrical wiring, and surveillance digicam cables. Regardless of these in depth efforts, no hidden or sealed areas had been recognized.

The group mentioned it “shared the profound disappointment of the families of the thousands who remain missing and whose fates remain unknown”, whereas urging social media customers to be aware of the widespread misinformation and rumors circulating about prisons and detainees.

Raed al-Saleh – the director of Syria’s Civil Defence organisation, generally known as the White Helmets – earlier mentioned on Monday that the jail was “hell” for these detained in it.

“[Sednaya] doesn’t give the impression that it is a prison. It is a human slaughterhouse where human beings are being slaughtered and tortured,” Saleh instructed Al Jazeera.

Syria’s new chief has two identities – however which one will take the nation ahead?

Jason Burke

On Sunday morning, a bearded 42-year-old man sporting a plain inexperienced navy uniform walked into the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and addressed a small crowd, the Syrian nation, the area and the world.

With the mosque’s glittering decorations offering a backdrop, Ahmed al-Sharaa described the autumn of the home of Assad as “a victory for the Islamic nation” and known as for reflection and prayer.

“I left this land over 20 years ago, and my heart longed for this moment,” he mentioned. “Sit quietly my brothers and remember God almighty.”

For a lot of the final 20 years, the de facto ruler of a lot of Syria has not used his actual identify in any respect. Ahmed al-Sharaa, who grew up in a progressive family in a affluent neighbourhood of Damascus and studied drugs, fully disappeared. In his place was Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre formulated in line with the conference of jihadi militants searching for new identities redolent of historic Muslim glory and providing the protect of anonymity.

So it was Jolani who fought US troopers in Iraq alongside jihadi insurgents between 2003 and 2006, and was then incarcerated there for 5 years in detention camps. It was Jolani too who returned to Syria in 2011 to play necessary roles within the campaigns of each the Islamic State (IS) after which al-Qaida.

It was Jolani who took over the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and from 2017 imposed his rule on 2 million individuals within the north-western Syrian enclave of Idlib. Final month, it was Jolani who launched a insurgent coalition dominated by HTS on its blistering 12-day marketing campaign that led to Damascus on Sunday.

The query now could be which man will rule Syria: Jolani, who’s designated as a terrorist by the US, UK and others and has a $10m value on his head, or Sharaa, who has gone out of his method over latest years to sign that his organisation is not going to assault the west?

Iran has condemned Israel’s incursion right into a UN-patrolled buffer zone within the Golan Heights on the border with Syria as a “violation” of the legislation, AFP reviews.

“This aggression is a flagrant violation of the United Nations charter,” overseas ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei mentioned in a press release revealed Monday evening.

Over the weekend, Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to maneuver into the UN-patrolled buffer zone and attacked what it mentioned had been regime weapons depots with airstrikes, because the shock victory of Syrian rebels over Bashar al-Assad reshapes the area’s frontlines.

Talking at a press convention in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister mentioned the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for nearly 60 years, will stay a part of Israel “for eternity”, amid rising criticism of an Israeli takeover of a beforehand demilitarised buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory.

Syria’s insurgent chief has mentioned he’ll publish a listing of former senior officers “involved in torturing the Syrian people” and vowed to pursue “war criminals” and maintain them accountable.

“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” insurgent chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now utilizing his actual identify Ahmed al-Sharaa, mentioned in a press release on Telegram.

The chief of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group started discussions with the ousted authorities on transferring energy on Monday, a day after his opposition alliance dramatically unseated President Bashar al-Assad following many years of brutal rule. Prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali instructed al-Arabiya tv he had agreed at hand over energy to the insurgent “salvation government”.

Insurgent fighters mentioned that they had discovered about 40 our bodies bearing indicators of torture inside a hospital morgue close to Damascus on Monday, stuffed into physique baggage with numbers and generally names written on them, AFP reported.

“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Sharaa mentioned within the Tuesday assertion, including they “will pursue war criminals and ask for their hand over from the countries to which they fled”.

In different latest developments:

• The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights conflict monitor mentioned on Tuesday that Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria” with about 250 airstrikes for the reason that fall of president Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The strikes had focused airports and warehouses, plane squadrons, radars, navy sign stations, and a number of weapons and ammunition depots over the previous 48 hours, it mentioned. Israel mentioned its actions had been “limited and temporary measures” to guard its residents.

• The UN safety council seems united on the necessity to protect Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity, the US and Russia mentioned after a closed emergency assembly. The 15-member council will work on a joint assertion on Syria within the coming days, they mentioned.

• The Syrian Civil Protection, often known as the White Helmets, has ended its seek for potential remaining detainees on the notorious Sednaya jail, including that it had not uncovered any “evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements”.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has mentioned that the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for nearly 60 years, will stay a part of Israel “for eternity”, amid rising criticism of an Israeli takeover of a beforehand demilitarised buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory.

• Diplomats from Qatar spoke with the insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as regional states raced to open contact with the group that toppled Assad and place themselves favourably. The nation will speak once more on Tuesday with Mohamed al-Bashir, an HTS chief appointed to guide Syria’s transitional administration, Reuters reported.

• The restoration of the American journalist Austin Tice held hostage in Syria was a “top priority” of the Biden administration, nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan instructed ABC’s Good Morning America.

• Israel is now extra optimistic a few potential hostage deal in Gaza, its overseas minister Gideon Saar mentioned, amid reviews that Hamas had requested for lists of all hostages nonetheless held by militant teams within the Palestinian territory.

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov mentioned President Vladimir Putin personally accepted the choice to grant Bashar al-Assad asylum in Russia. Peskov mentioned it was “premature” to debate the way forward for Russia’s navy presence inside Syria.