United News of Bangladesh

A month after a series of retaliatory attacks left hundreds of Alawite civilians dead, members of this Syrian religious minority continue to live in fear, with dozens more killed in smaller assaults since April began. The Alawites were once considered a privileged group under the rule of the Assad family, but following the fall of Bashar Assad's government late last year, the minority now faces reprisals from the country’s Sunni majority. Nine killed in Israeli strikes in Syria Although the new government promised to protect minority groups, an attack on security forces near Latakia by Assad loyalists last month triggered a brutal counteroffensive that took a heavy toll on the largely Alawite population of the coastal region. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,700 people, mostly civilians, were killed in March. While no official figures have been released by the government, similar estimates have been provided by other human rights groups. This marked the worst violence since the overthrow of Assad's regime by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in December. Militias from Syria's Sunni majority have been targeting Alawites, even if they were not involved in the insurgency. Rights groups reported widespread revenge killings. Diana Semaan, a Syria researcher at Amnesty International, noted that some militants blamed Alawites for the actions of the Assad regime, regardless of individual involvement. While the scale of violence has decreased, Alawites continue to face harassment, extortion, and occasional violence. An Alawite man from the Latakia area described frequent attacks, even on those uninvolved with Assad’s government or security forces. He recalled the death of a 20-year-old factory worker who was shot by checkpoint guards despite having no connection to the military. The attacks have spread beyond Latakia into the provinces of Tartus and Homs. According to Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 42 people have died in sectarian violence since the end of Ramadan on March 30. While these killings have become more isolated, they continue to occur. Mohammed Saleh, an activist from Homs, expressed concern that Syria may be shifting from one dictatorship to another. He called for a national army and security forces that would protect all Syrians, rather than being dominated by one sect. A school in Baniyas, Tartus, posted a list of nearly 80 individuals killed in the past month. A widely shared video showed the bodies of two young men, with their mother being scolded for her sons' deaths because they were Alawites. Israeli strikes in southwestern Syria kill 4 people Tens of thousands of Alawites, along with other Syrians from coastal regions, have fled to Lebanon through unofficial border crossings. The UN reports that around 30,000 Alawite Syrians have sought refuge in northern Lebanon, although they receive little assistance and feel unsafe returning. These ongoing attacks have been a major disappointment for Syrians who hoped that the fall of Assad would end violence against religious and ethnic minorities. The new government has promised to build an inclusive state and hold criminals accountable. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has vowed to bring those responsible for the recent violence to justice and has established a committee to investigate the attacks. Although a few arrests have been made, the committee has yet to release any findings. Rights groups assert that the interim government faces a critical test in ensuring justice for the crimes committed.

Syrians living on opposite sides of the largely frozen battle lines dividing their country are watching the accelerating normalization of ties between the government of Bashar Assad and Syria's neighbors through starkly different lenses. In government-held Syria, residents struggling with ballooning inflation, fuel and electricity shortages hope the rapprochement will bring more trade and investment and ease a crippling economic crisis. Meanwhile, in the remaining opposition-held areas of the north, Syrians who once saw Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries as allies in their fight against Assad's rule feel increasingly isolated and abandoned. Also Read: Moscow hosts more Turkey-Syria rapprochement talks Turkey, which has been a main backer of the armed opposition to Assad, has been holding talks with Damascus for months — most recently on Tuesday, when the defense ministers of Turkey, Russia, Iran and Syria met in Moscow. And in recent weeks, regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia — which once backed Syrian rebel groups — has done an about-face in its stance on the Assad government and is pushing its neighbors to follow suit. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Damascus last week for the first time since the kingdom cut ties with Syria more than a decade ago. The kingdom, which will host a meeting of the Arab League next month, has been coaxing other member states to restore Syria’s membership, although some holdouts remain, chief among them Qatar. The League is a confederation of Arab administrations established to promote cooperation among its members. Also Read: Saudi foreign minister visits Syria as relations thaw A 49-year-old tailor in Damascus who gave only his nickname, Abu Shadi (“father of Shadi”) said he hopes the mending of ties between Syria and Saudi Arabia will improve the economy and kickstart reconstruction in the war-battered country. “We’ve had enough of wars — we have suffered for 12 years,” he said. “God willing, relations will improve with not just the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but with all the Gulf countries and the people will benefit on both sides. There will be more movement, more security and everything will be better, God willing.” Read More: Syria, Saudi Arabia move toward restoring embassies, flights In the country's opposition-held northwest, the rapprochement is a cause for fear. Opposition activists took to social media with an Arabic hashtag translating to “normalization with Assad is betrayal,” and hundreds turned out at protests over the past two weeks against the move by Arab states to restore relations with Assad. Khaled Khatib, 27, a worker at a non-governmental organization in northwest Syria, said he is increasingly afraid that the government will recapture control of the remaining opposition territory. “From the first day I participated in a peaceful demonstration until today, I am at risk of being killed or injured or kidnapped or hit by aerial bombardment,” he said. Seeing the regional warming of relations with Damascus is “very painful, shameful and frustrating to the aspirations of Syrians,” he said. Rashid Hamzawi Mahmoud, who joined a protest in Idlib earlier this month, said the Saudi move was the latest in a string of disappointments for the Syrian opposition. “The (U.N.) Security Council has failed us — so have the Arab countries, and human rights and Islamic groups,” he said. Syria was ostracized by Arab governments over Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters in a 2011 uprising that descended into civil war. However, in recent years, as Assad consolidated control over most of the country, Syria’s neighbors have begun to take steps toward rapprochement. The overtures picked up pace since a deadly Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and the Chinese-brokered reestablishment of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had backed opposing sides in the conflict. The Saudi-Syria rapprochement is a “game changer” for Assad, said Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Assad could potentially be invited to the next Arab League summit, but even if such an invitation isn't issued for May, “it’s only a question of time now,” Daher said. Government officials and pro-government figures in Syria say the restoration of bilateral ties is more significant in reality than a return to the Arab League. “The League of Arab States has a symbolic role in this matter,” Tarek al-Ahmad, a member of the political bureau of the minority Syrian National Party, told The Associated Press. “It is not really the decisive role.” George Jabbour, an academic and former diplomat in Damascus, said Syrians hope for “Saudi jobs … after the return to normal relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia.” Before 2011, Saudi Arabia was one of Syria's most significant trading partners, with trade between the countries reaching $1.3 billion in 2010. While economic traffic did not halt altogether with the shuttering of embassies, it dropped off precipitously. However, even before the warming of diplomatic relations, trade had been on the uptick, particularly after the 2018 reopening of the border between Syria and Jordan, which serves as a route for goods going to and from Saudi Arabia. The Syria Report, which tracks the country's economy, reported that Syria-Saudi trade had increased from $92.35 million in 2017 to $396.90 million in 2021. Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of the Syria Report, said the restoration of direct flights and consular services following the current Saudi-Syrian rapprochement could bring some further increase in trade. But Syrians who are looking to Saudi Arabia as a “provider of finance either through direct investment in the Syrian economy or through funding of various projects, especially concessionary loans for infrastructure projects," may be disappointed, he said. Such investments will be largely off limits for now because of U.S. and European sanctions on Syria. Even in the opposition-held areas, some greeted the normalization with a shrug. Abdul Wahab Alaiwi, a political activist in Idlib, said he was surprised by the Saudi change in stance, but “on the ground nothing will change ... because the Arab countries have no influence inside Syria,” unlike Turkey, Russia, Iran and the U.S., all of which have forces in different parts of the country. He added that he does not believe Damascus will be able to meet the conditions of a return to the Arab League or that Turkey and Syria would easily come to an agreement. Mohamad Shakib al-Khaled, head of the Syrian National Democratic Movement, an opposition party, said Arab countries had never been allies to the “liberal democratic civil movements” in the Syrian uprising but threw their support behind “factions that took a radical Islamic approach.” The Syrian government, on the other hand had “genuine allies who defended it,” he said, referring to the intervention by Russia and Iran that turned the tide of the war. But in the end, he said, “No one defends a land except its people.”

President Joe Biden will seek to stave off another surge of civilian suffering in the devastating war in Syria when he meets President Vladimir Putin this week, appealing to Putin to drop a threat to close the last aid crossing into that country. Russian forces have helped Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime survive the more than 10-year conflict and Putin hopes to be a broker for Assad in any international reconstruction effort for that country. Russia holds the key veto on July 10 when the U.N. Security Council decides whether to extend authorization for the aid crossing from Turkey. Read:Biden, unlike predecessors, has maintained Putin skepticism Putin meets with the American president in Geneva on Wednesday in their first face-to-face since Biden took office. The Russian leader already has pressed successfully for shutting down all other international humanitarian crossings into Syria, and argues that Assad should handle the distribution of any aid. The aid crossing from Turkey into rebel-held northwest Syria serves up to 4 million people in Syria’s last remaining rebel stronghold. A decade of civil war in the Middle East country has killed a half-million people, displaced half of the population, drawn in foreign armies and extremist groups and left the economy in ruins. Shutting down the international aid corridor and putting Assad’s government in charge of any humanitarian distribution would help position Assad as the winner in the war and Syria’s rightful ruler in the aftermath, and deepen the regional influence of Assad’s ally, Russia, in any rebuilding of Syria. “Assistance should be given through the central government,” Putin told NBC News in an interview ahead of his meeting with Biden. If there are fears that the assistance would be stolen, aid groups can post observers, the Russian leader said. Read: Biden at NATO: Ready to talk China, Russia and soothe allies Opponents say Assad’s regime has not hesitated to use civilian starvation and siege as a weapon in the war, and fear a destabilizing surge of refugees into neighboring Turkey if the crossing shuts down. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, visited the threatened Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and rebel-held northwest Syria earlier this month to warn that closing it would bring “senseless cruelty.” Turkey, which already holds close to 4 million Syrian refugees, joins the U.S. in opposing closure of the crossing. Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser for the U.S. Institute of Peace think tank, said closing the Bab al Hawa aid crossing could “precipitate this humanitarian catastrophe” and a destabilizing surge of refugees. Biden’s possible points of leverage with Putin, Yacoubian said, could include stressing the harm that a new round of civilian suffering in Syria could do to Russia’s image as it positions itself to oversee hoped-for Arab and other international aid to rebuild Syria. Read: Biden urges G-7 leaders to call out and compete with China There also could be consideration of granting humanitarian waivers on sanctions that the United States and others have levied on the Assad regime, Yacoubian said. Russia argues that U.S. support for what started out as a peaceful uprising in Syria, and condemnation of Assad’s and other repressive governments during the Arab Spring, fostered instability and violence and boosted Islamic extremist groups. Many in Biden’s administration were also in the Obama administration when it considered, but held back from, military intervention to stop Assad’s chemical attacks on civilians. They have since expressed regret that the United States’ overall handling of the conflict failed to stop the bloodshed.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife have tested positive for the coronavirus, the president's office said Monday, with both having only mild symptoms of the illness.

A former member of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s secret police was convicted Wednesday by a German court of facilitating the torture of prisoners in a landmark ruling that human rights activists hope will set a precedent for other cases in the decade-long conflict.

Syria’s longtime Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, a career diplomat who became one of the country’s most prominent faces to the outside world during the uprising against President Bashar Assad, died on Monday. He was 79.