The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights indicated on Tuesday that the Israeli strikes reported since the rebels overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend have increased to 300. The update comes after loud explosions were reported in Syria’s capital city of Damascus in the early morning by several media outlets. Previously, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the Golan Heights, Syrian territory, occupied by Israel for nearly 60 years, would remain part of Israel indefinitely. The Israeli military took control of a buffer zone in Syrian territory, established under a 1974 ceasefire. While Israel described the move as a temporary step to secure its border, critics accused it of violating the ceasefire and exploiting Syria’s instability to claim more land. Loud explosions could be heard in Syria’s capital city of Damascus early on Tuesday, according to multiple media outlets. Both AFP and Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondents reported the blasts. Al-Jazeera added that the explosions could be heard “in and around” Damascus, attributing them to Israeli air strikes. Hours earlier, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Israel carried out about 250 strikes in Syria since President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, targeting military installations. Earlier on Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned “Israel’s invasion and bombing of Syria,” and called on United States President Joe Biden’s administration to “end arms shipments to Israel and hold them accountable for ongoing atrocities.”
Rebel group taps political chief to form transitional gov’t
Syria’s Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) tasked on Monday Mohammed al-Bashir with the formation of a new transitional government in the immediate aftermath of the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government over the weekend, according to Syrian media. Al-Bashir has been serving as the prime minister of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) a de-facto administrative authority overseeing the Idlib region in northwestern Syria, which has been primarily under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since 2017. Al-Bashir is expected to work with sitting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali to secure a peaceful transition of power. The fall of Assad from power marked the end of the Syrian Arab Republic under the Assad dynasty which has ruled Syria since 1963.
Oil up by more than 1% on Latest Middle East turmoil…….Israel hits suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria
The prices of oil futures grew on Monday as traders assessed the potential consequences of the opposition forces seizing power in Syria and ousting President Bashar al-Assad. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January’s settlements increased to sell for $68.50 per barrel. Simultaneously, Brent for February’s deliveries priced at $72.37 per barrel.
“The development in Syria has added a new layer of political uncertainty in the Middle East, providing some support to the market,” Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting analyst Tomomichi Akuta told Reuters. “But Saudi Arabia’s price reductions and OPEC+’s production cut extension last week underscored weak demand from China, indicating the market may soften toward year-end,” Akuta added. “Markets are largely pricing that the tensions in Syria will remain contained within its own space and the risks of a wider oil supply disruption remain low,” IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong told Bloomberg.
Israel hits suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck sites in Syria suspected of containing chemical weapons and long-range missiles amid political turmoil in the country. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown yesterday, leading to uncertainty over future leadership. Sa’ar said Israel targeted the sites “so they will not fall in the hands of extremists.” He insisted the IDF’s presence on Syrian territory is “limited and temporary” and only aiming to ensure Israel’s security.
nn adio file:
the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy
Trump says Assad lost Russia’s support
United States President-elect Donald Trump released a statement about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fleeing Syria after rebels took control of Damascus. He said Assad’s departure was caused by Russia no longer supporting Assad and that its focus shifted to Ukraine, where he stated nearly 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured in the ongoing war. Trump also described both Russia and Iran as “weakened,” citing Russia’s struggles in Ukraine and economic difficulties and Iran’s challenges due to Israel’s apparent “fighting success.” Trump urged an immediate ceasefire and called for negotiations to prevent further destruction, appealing to Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggesting China could play a role in brokering peace. “I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting,” he concluded.
Syrian President Has Fallen to Rebels
- Opposition group HTS says it has taken the capital Damascus
- Assad’s whereabouts unknown; his fall a blow to Russia, Iran
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled Damascus, according to multiple reports, after rebel forces entered the capital following a stunning territorial advance over a few days. The toppling of the longtime ruler is sending shockwaves through the Middle East and will be a major blow to Russia and Iran, his main foreign backers. Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which has led the push to oust Assad and his government, said it entered Damascus on Saturday evening and captured the key city of Homs — about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the capital — around the same time. Other areas of the country, including in the north near the Turkish border and in the south, have been captured by different groups. There were reports of Syrians in Damascus celebrating the downfall of the widely despised regime. HTS’s leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, called on all of the Syrian government’s forces in the capital to stand down. Al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, said Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali will remain in his role until there’s an official handover. Assad’s whereabouts are still unknown. He left the country for an undisclosed location, the Associated Press reported, citing Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Agence France-Presse reported rebels as saying Assad had “fled,” while Reuters cited two army officers as saying the leader had flown out of Damascus.The 59-year-old, who took over from his father Hafez in 2000, made a last-ditch attempt to remain in power, including indirect diplomatic overtures to the US and President-elect Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Saturday. In a sign of how weak his military position was, he ordered his army to fall back on Damascus, essentially ceding much of the country, including Homs, to the insurgents. Trump took to social media to say that the US should “have nothing to do with” the developments in Syria. “This is not our fight,” he said. “Let it play out. Do not get involved!” Assad lost large swaths of the northwest of the country in late November as opposition fighters made a sudden advance out of Idlib province. They first captured Aleppo, one of the biggest cities in Syria, and then advanced on Hama. The rapid collapse of Syria’s government has taken Russia, Iran, the US and Israel, which borders Syria, by surprise. In 2015, Russia and Iran came to Assad’s aid and helped turn the tide in Syria’s war — which began four years earlier — in his favor. This time both Tehran and Moscow, which has a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus, have been stretched by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. While Iran said it would send troops to Syria if Assad requested it and tried to drum up support for him among Arab states, it was ultimately unwilling or unable to do that. Moreover, Tehran’s most powerful proxy militia group, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, has been hugely degraded since September by war with Israel. Its fighters were crucial to helping Assad stay in power from early in the civil war. The Syrian conflict has left between 300,000 to 500,000 people dead and displaced more than 10 million, with many of them fleeing abroad, according to United Nations agencies and Syrian organizations. NN: This is ugly. Assad was to busy killing his own people to export Jihad. ISIS and Islamic Jihad rebranded has taken Syria.
nn audio file: making a monster
Syrian rebels reiterate they have ‘freed’ Damascus, ousted Assad….
Syrian rebels reiterated in a televised statement that they have freed the capital city of Damascus and ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. They also stated that they have freed all those “unjustly detained” by Assad, with the group saying earlier it had broken into the notorious Sednaya military prison and freed all the inmates. “We wish all our fighters and citizens preserve and maintain the property of the state of Syria. Long live Syria,” the group said. NN: ISIS under Mohammed Golani (ISIS) come to power…… slick trick
Syrian opposition activists say insurgents have reached the suburbs of Damascus
BEIRUT (AP) — Insurgents’ stunning march across Syria gained speed on Saturday with news that they had reached the suburbs of the capital and the government forced to deny rumors that President Bashar Assad had fled the country.
The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the first time that opposition forces reach the outskirts of the Syrian capital since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured the region adjacent to the capital following a yearslong siege. It came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of southern Syria on Saturday, leaving more areas of the country, including two provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.
The rapid advances by insurgents is a stunning reversal of fortunes for Assad, who appears to be largely on his own, with his usual allies preoccupied with other conflicts.
His chief international backer, Russia, is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up his forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies across the region degraded by Israeli regular airstrikes.
The U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition” in Syria. Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Amid the dramatic developments, Syria’s state media denied rumors flooding social media that Assad has left the country, saying he is performing his duties in the capital, Damascus.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents are now active in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. He added that opposition fighters on Saturday were also marching from eastern Syria toward the Damascus suburb of Harasta.
A commander with the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces have started carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus. He added that insurgents were headed from southern Syria toward Damascus.
Syria’s military, meanwhile, sent large numbers of reinforcements to defend the key central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as insurgents approached its outskirts.
Pedersen said a date for the talks in Geneva would be announced later and would discuss the implementation of U.N. Resolution 2254.
The resolution adopted in 2015 called for a Syrian-led political process, starting with the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with U.N.-supervised elections.
Pedersen said the need for an orderly political transition “has never been more urgent,”
Abdurrahman reported Saturday that Iran’s military advisers have started leaving Syria. He added that Iran-backed fighters in eastern Syria, mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, have withdrawn into central Syria.
The shock offensive began Nov. 27 led by the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, during which gunmen captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama, the country’s fourth largest city. The group has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that the aim of the offensive is to overthrow Assad’s government.
The Britain-based Observatory said Syrian troops have withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces and are sending reinforcements to Homs, where a battle is looming. If the insurgents capture Homs, they would cut the link between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where the president enjoys wide support.
The Syrian army said in a statement Saturday that it has carried out redeployment and repositioning in Sweida and Daraa after its checkpoints came under attack by “terrorists.” The army said it is setting up a “strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the area,” apparently to defend Damascus from the south.
Since Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011, the Syrian government has been referring to opposition gunmen as terrorists.
In the gas-rich nation of Qatar, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey were scheduled to meet to discuss the situation in Syria. Turkey is a main backer of the rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad didn’t seize this opportunity to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people,” he said.
Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised by how quickly the rebels have advanced and said there is a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity.” He said the war could “damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process. After the fall of the cities of Daraa and Sweida early Saturday, Syrian government forces remain in control of five provincial capitals — Damascus, Homs and Quneitra, as well as Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean cost.
Tartus is home to the only Russian naval base outside the former Soviet Union while Latakia is home to a major Russian air base.
On Friday, U.S.-backed fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces captured wide parts of the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq as well as the provincial capital that carries the same name. The capture of areas in Deir el-Zour is a blow to Iran’s influence in the region as the area is the gateway to the corridor linking the Mediterranean to Iran, a supply line for Iran-backed fighters, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
With the capture of a main border crossing with Iraq by the SDF and after opposition fighters took control of the Naseeb border crossing to Jordan in southern Syria, the Syrian government’s only gateway to the outside world is the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon.
Syrian rebel leader says group aims to end Assad regime…….Erdogan hopes rebels gain ground in Syria……Syrian rebels seize major army base in Daraa province
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS), revealed the goal of the forces’ offensive in Syria is to “overthrow” the regime of President Bashar al-Assad using “all available means.” In an exclusive interview with CNN published on Friday, the leader asserted that despite Iran and Russia’s efforts to prop up the regime, it is “dead.” Al-Jolani called for a shift in Syria’s governance “based on institutions, not one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions.” He also expressed a strong desire for the departure of foreign forces, including those from the United States, Turkey, Russia, and Iran, as well as its proxy groups. The rebel group has made significant advances, seizing control of key cities such as Aleppo and Hama. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the forces are now just 5 kilometers from Homs after capturing the towns of Rastan and Talbisseh, a strategic move that would “cut off the main road leading to the Syrian coast.”
Erdogan hopes rebels gain ground in Syria
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that “the march of the opposition continues” as rebel groups keep advancing across Syria. “We hope this march in Syria will continue without any issues,” Erdogan added as the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group said it intends to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad using “all available means.” Erdogan said he extended an invitation to Assad to “determine the future of Syria together” but that he did not receive a positive response. Assad’s regime has been forced to surrender the major cities of Aleppo and Hama to the rebels following a surprise offensive that started in late November.
Syrian rebels seize major army base in Daraa province
The Southern Operations Room, a newly formed group representing rebels in southern Syria, revealed on Friday that it took control over a major government military base in Daraa province. “Our destination is Damascus, and our meeting point is the public square of Umayyads,” the rebels said in a statement shared with CNN, calling on government forces to abandon “Assad regime’s criminal gang” and stand with rebels. The rebel group also claimed to have seized some government posts along the Jordanian-Syrian border. “Our forces are now securing the border strip following the surrender of the regime forces stationed there,” it added. Previously, Jordanian Foreign Minister Mazen al-Faraya said the country closed its only border crossing with Syria.
Crude oil falls over on demand concerns……. Markets not “BUYING” into the latest OPEC+ cuts
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, will prolong the unwinding of production cuts until 2026, The current timeline for the unwinding plan was set to run from January to December of next year. The United Arab Emirates is set to see a gradual increase of 300,000 barrels to its oil production baseline, beginning in January 2025, to be implemented over a nine-month period.
Markets not “BUYING” into the latest cuts
The price of crude oil for front-month settlements dipped on Friday after data on industrial production in Germany rekindled concerns about the commodity’s consumption in Europe’s largest economy. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January contracts f $67.22 a barrel. Brent for February deliveries declined by to $71.05 per barrel.
Israel targets Hezbollah weapon transfer routes…….. Hezbollah vows support for Assad amid rebel incursion
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated on Friday that its Air Force (IAF) attacked the crossings on the border between Lebanon and Syria allegedly used for transferring weapons to Hezbollah. In its posts on X, the IDF accused Hezbollah, supported by what it put simply as the Syrian regime, of using civilian infrastructure to conduct terrorist attacks and act against Israel. “The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and will not allow Hezbollah to be restored,” the military stressed. The update came amid the seemingly canceled ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, with the country, amid the continuing violations of the truce by both parties, resuming its operations in Lebanon.
Hezbollah vows support for Assad amid rebel incursion
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassem pledged Thursday to continue support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as rebels intensify their attacks. “They will not be able to achieve their goals despite what they have done in past days, and we as Hezbollah will be by Syria’s side in thwarting the goals of this aggression as much as we can,” Qassem said while criticizing the opposition forces, labeling them as “terrorists.” He assured that Hezbollah remains committed to assisting Damascus in opposing these challenges, although he refrained from specifying the nature of the aid. In addition, Qassem disclosed that Hezbollah and Iran have allocated $77 million to support Lebanese individuals affected by ongoing conflicts with Israel, with plans to increase assistance further. NN: GOOD!! now the savages neutralized by the Jew are now savagely attacking each other. How come the UN is not sanctioning Syria? Where is the world criminal court? How come they are not issuing red letter arrest warrants for Hezbollah, Iran or Assad of Syria? I know they are not Jews.