The military chief of Syria’s victorious Islamist group HTS said that the group would be “the first” to dissolve its armed wing and integrate into the armed forces, calling on Western governments to lift the “terrorist” label from HTS and its leader. Read our liveblog to see how the day's events unfolded.
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Turkish rescuers end search of Syria’s Saydnaya prison
Turkish rescue workers have ended their search for survivors in Syria’s notorious Saydnaya prison, their leader said Tuesday, after finding no detainees languishing in any hidden cells.
The search by a 120-member team was conducted at the request of Syria’s new authorities, according to Okay Memis, director of Turkey’s AFAD disaster relief agency.
“The entire building was searched and analysed with a scanner, and no living person was found,” Memis told journalists at the site.
Prisoners held inside the complex, which was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, were freed early last week by the Islamist-led rebels.
Syria Kurdish leader proposes ‘demilitarised zone’ in northern town
The leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on Tuesday proposed a “demilitarised zone” in the northern town of Kobane as fighting with Turkish-backed groups grips northern Syria.
“Reaffirming our firm commitment to achieving a comprehensive ceasefire across all of Syria, we announce our readiness to propose the establishment of a demilitarised zone in the city of Kobane, with the redeployment of security forces under American supervision and presence,” Mazloum Abdi wrote on X.
Syria ex-rebel military chief says to dissolve armed wing, wants to end ‘terrorist’ label
The military chief of Syria’s victorious Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham called on the international community Tuesday to find a solution to Israel’s repeated strikes and “incursion” into Syrian territory.
“We view the Israeli strikes on military sites and the incursion into southern Syria as injust... we call on the international community to find a solution to this matter,” Murhaf Abu Qasra, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan al-Hamawi, said in an interview with AFP.
He also added that the group would be “the first” to dissolve its armed wing and integrate into the armed forces, and called on Western governments to lift the “terrorist” label from HTS and its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Earlier, Syrian rebel leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, called for the lifting of international sanctions in an exclusive interview Monday with a group of foreign journalists that included FRANCE 24’s Wassim Nasr.
Ceasefire between Turkey and US-backed rebels extended to end of this week, State Dept says
A ceasefire between Turkey and the US-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF) around the northern Syrian city of Manbij has been extended until the end of this week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.
Washington brokered an initial ceasefire last week but it had expired, Miller said, adding Washington would like the ceasefire to be extended for as long as possible.
“We continue to engage with the SDF, with Turkey about a path forward,” Miller said, adding it was not in the interest of any party to see increased conflict in Syria. “We don’t want to see any party take advantage of the current unstable situation to advance their own narrow interests at the expense of the broader Syrian national interest.”
Netanyahu says Israeli troops will occupy a buffer zone inside Syria for the foreseeable future
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday Israeli forces will occupy a buffer zone inside Syria, and specifically on the summit of Mount Hermon, “until another arrangement is found that will ensure Israel’s security”.
Netanyahu made the comments Tuesday from the mountain’s snow-dusted summit — the highest peak in the area — which is located on Syria’s side of the border. This was apparently the first time a sitting Israeli leader entered the Syrian territory.
Syrian mass graves expose ‘machinery of death’ under Assad, top prosecutor says
An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from
mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013.
“We certainly have more than 100,000 people that have disappeared into and been tortured to death in this machine,” former US war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp told Reuters, after visiting two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus.
“I don’t have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we’ve seen in these mass graves.”
“When you talk about this kind of organised killing by the state and its organs, we really haven’t seen anything quite like this since the Nazis,” said Rapp, who led prosecutions at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals.
Human Rights Watch discovers presence of ‘mass grave’ in Damascus
Human Rights Watch workers in Syria said Tuesday they found evidence of a mass grave in a southern neighbourhood of Damascus.
A HRW team visited the site in Tadamon on December 11 and 12, finding scores of human remains both at the location of an April 2013 massacre and strewn throughout the surrounding neighborhood.
They confirmed the mass grave’s exact location after verifying and geolocating a previously leaked video, taken in April 2013, showing summary executions by Syrian government forces and affiliated militia.
FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Editor, Kethevane Gorjestani has more.
UN migration agency chief says some religious minorities fleeing Syria
United Nations migration agency chief Amy Pope said Tuesday that tens of thousands of people, including religious minorities, had fled Syria after Islamist-led rebels ousted Bashar al-Assad.
“Tens of thousands” of people have fled Syria and “we are hearing that especially religious minorities are leaving,” Pope told AFP during a visit to Lebanon, noting reports that members of the Shiite Muslim community had fled “not because they’re actually threatened, but they’re concerned about the possible threat”.
Pope added that the UN agency was not advising the large-scale return of people to Syria before the situation in the country has stabilised.
“People have the right to return home... but we are not advising any sort of large-scale return... the system can’t bear that kind of influx,” Pope said, adding that “absent an investment in Syria itself... sending people back will only destabilise the country further and will likely create pressures for people to migrate out again”.
Israel’s Netanyahu tours buffer zone inside Syria
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered Syrian territory on Tuesday during a security tour of the buffer zone seized by Israel in the past few days since the fall of Bashar Assad.
It was apparently the first time a sitting Israeli leader entered Syrian territory. Israel seized a swath of southern Syria along the border with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, calling it a buffer zone, in the days after Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted by rebels.
Israel still controls the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed — a move not recognized by most of the international community.
UN envoy to Syria warns ‘conflict has not ended yet’
Syria’s “conflict has not ended yet,” even after the departure of former president Bashar al-Assad, the UN’s envoy to the country warned Tuesday, highlighting clashes between Turkish-backed and Kurdish groups in the north.
“There have been significant hostilities in the last two weeks, before a ceasefire was brokered... A five-day ceasefire has now expired and I am seriously concerned about reports of military escalation,” said Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy for Syria.
“Such an escalation could be catastrophic.”
FRANCE 24’s Jessica Le Masurier reports from New York.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing Tuesday atop a strategic Syrian peak inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights that Israel seized this month, the defence minister said.
Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and the heads of the armed forces and the domestic security agency visited “outposts at the summit of Mount Hermon for the first time since they were seized by the military”, Katz’s office said.
“The summit of Mount Hermon serves as Israel’s eyes for identifying both near and distant threats”, the defence minister said.
EU diplomats arrive in Damascus for talks
As French, German and UK’s diplomats arrive in Damascus for talks, HTS and other groups are trying to show that they “heard the warning of European leaders”.
FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Editor Kethevane Gorjestani brings you the latest about the political situation in Syria.
Israel deputy FM calls Syria’s Jolani ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel accused the head of the group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria of being “a wolf in (sheep’s) clothes” because of his jihadist history.
Speaking at a press conference, Haskel held up a photo collage of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), showing him while a member of jihadist organisations.
“It is important to avoid falling for the attempt to whitewash jihadist (groups) in Syria. We know who they are and their true nature, even if they change their names, and we understand how dangerous they are to the West,” said Haskel.
“These are terrorist organisations and this is a wolf in (sheep’s) clothes.”
France urges Syrian post-Assad authorities to pressure Islamic State
France urged Syria's new rulers to press on with the fight against Islamic State (IS) extremists who had controlled swathes of the country during one phase of its civil war, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
French diplomats who went to Damascus to meet the new authorities made clear that Paris would closely watch security in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad "including continuing the fight against Daesh (IS) and other terrorist groups, and preventing the proliferation of the Syrian regime's chemical weapons," it said.
France raises flag at embassy in Damascus after 12-year closure, foreign ministry says
France raised a flag on Tuesday over its embassy in Damascus, Syria, after it had been closed for 12 years during the country's civil war, the foreign ministry said.
France sent a team of diplomats to Syria on Tuesday to assess the political and security situation after rebels ousted longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The team will not be staying, and the gesture does not mean the embassy has reopened.
France, which cut ties with Assad in 2012, has said a political transition in Syria must be credible and inclusive, in line with a framework issued by the United Nations.
This picture shows the French flag hanging on a pole at the Embassy of France in Damascus on December 17, 2024, during a visit by a French diplomatic mission.
Exclusive: Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa calls for lifting of sanctions
Syrian rebel leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, called for the lifting of international sanctions in an exclusive interview Monday with a group of foreign journalists that included FRANCE 24’s Wassim Nasr.
Please click on the link below for the full report.
EU announces extra one billion euros in refugee funding for Turkey
The EU is to give Turkey an extra one billion euros ($1.05 billion) in funding to care for the Syrian refugees it is hosting, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said Tuesday.
"An additional one billion euros for 2024 is on its way," she said at a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The funds would support the healthcare and education needs of refugees in Turkey and "contribute to migration and border management, including voluntary returns of Syrian refugees", she said.
Turkey is hosting nearly three million refugees who fled across the border in search of safety after the civil war began in 2011.
Ankara is hoping the shift in power in Damascus will allow many of them to return home.
"As things evolve on the ground, we can adapt this one billion to the new needs that might occur in Syria," she said.
EU chief says cannot allow an 'IS resurgence' in Syria
A resurgence of Islamic State extremists in Syria following the ouster of strongman Bashar al-Assad must not be allowed to happen, EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen said on Tuesday.
"The risk of a Daesh resurgence... is real. We cannot let this happen," she said at a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, using an alternative name for Islamic State.
Bashar al-Assad said Monday his departure from Syria was not planned and that Moscow requested his evacuation from a military base that was under attack, in the former president's first statement since his ouster.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday it was up to Syrians to determine their own future and called for an “inclusive” government taking account of the country’s diverse ethnic and religious interests.
The United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Monday that huge amounts of aid were needed in war-ravaged Syria following the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad, saying the world body was ready to “go big”.
Syrian US-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF) said US-brokered mediation efforts failed to reach a permanent ceasefire with Syria’s Turkey-backed rebels in the northern cities of Manbij and Kobani, according to the head of the SDF’s media center Farhad Shami on Monday.
